Wow, you think the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for torturing a puppy? You would take the life of a person for the life of an amimal? You sound like you are on the wrong site. Liberals think that animals are worth more than humans. Conservatives do not. We reserve the death penalty for cases when people kill people. I would also argue the death penalty for a person who molests a child but that is another discussion. You cant execute final judgement on a 10 year old because of what he might do. I know little boys who were cruel to animals when they were young and grew up to be perfectly normal. You reason that if all serial killers tortured puppies as children then all children who torture puppies will grow up to be serial killers. Your argument is a logical fallacy. Boys can be cruel! Some boys will torture an animal for the experience, then sympathize with the puppy, feel guilty for their behaviour and learn to be kind in the future. The ones who enjoy the first experience and have no guilt, those are the ones to look out for. The boys in this case need to be seriously punished for their crime not killed! You need some perspective.
I have plenty of perspective, thank you. But my gut level reaction is to have no mercy for that type of behavior. If I’d caught anyone behaving in such a way, they’d be in for a world of hurt!