Yesterday, the Pentagon announced they plan to try a group of detainees for the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. The announcement included their plan to ask for the death penalty for these detainees. The death penalty is found in a minority of countries around the world and may be one of the reasons for our low prestige in the world. I have to ask the purpose of the death penalty. How is death a penalty? The world saw Saddam Hussein's execution in which he was alive and talking one minute and the next minute he was dead. Where is the punishment? Last night, I went to bed and fell asleep. During my sleep, I was not aware of sleeping. I became aware that I had slept only after waking in the morning. Sleep and death are both events for which there is no awareness. A sleeper doesn't know he or she is sleeping and a dead person doesn't know he or she is dead. How

can death be a punishment? To be a punishment, in my opinion, the person must be aware of being punished. Wouldn't life in isolation without contact with the world or other people be punishment 24 hours a day for the rest of the person's life? There have been many reports of people wanting the police to shoot them or of people who state in the execution chamber how glad they are to be removed from living in prison. To them, death was a benefit, not a punishment. Why do we insist on putting people to sleep like I experienced last night from which they won't awaken or be aware of being dead? Why can't this nation with millions of vocal Christians defending the sanctity of human life see the contradiction of their positions when they demand the death penalty. What happens to the sanctity of life when a fetus becomes a breathing person? Why do we give criminals the luxury of eternal sleep in return for a horrible crime? Go figure. I don't have a clue.