Today, August 7, the infamous James Holmes was sentenced to life in prison instead of receiving the death penalty. Three years ago he walked into a large movie theatre playing The Dark Knight Rises, wielding tear gas, a gas mask, 4 guns, and 700 rounds of ammunition. He shot and killed 12 people as well as injuring 70 others. Two of the people that died were a little girl and an unborn child. Their mother was permanently injured, confined to a wheelchair.

The reason James Holmes received his sentence was because the jury could not agree fully on giving him the death sentence. Now, I don’t know what the judge’s stance on this was, but I believe he would have to adhere to the jury’s verdict. So we’re going to look at the jury. Why would someone honestly not be ok with giving this man the death sentence? I myself am not a strong believer in the death sentence, but under extreme circumstances like this one, I would be all for it. Apparently the reason he received his sentence is because he appeared to be mentally insane in his actions, thus leading some jury members to not be ok with killing a severely disturbed person. Let me ask you this: Do you think this man should live out the rest of his life, while he took so many innocent lives? In my mind, there is absolutely no logical excuse as to not have this man put to death. Well here’s just another example of cultural relativism. In many other countries, this man would have had a much stricter punishment and it wouldn’t have taken 3 years to come up with a verdict. “Cultural relativism is a descriptive theory that states that different cultures have different moral codes”. (Rosenstand, 2013)

References

Rosenstand, N. (2013). The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics (7th ed., p. 125). New York, New York: McGraw Hill.

BBC News. (2015, August 7). Colorado gunman James Holmes sentenced to life in prison [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbRoSfYj038