Working as a police officer, I have a unique vantage point from which to view the death penalty: It is no less than a vestige of medievalism. I have to live with the fact that at any given moment, to protect someone's life, I might become the judge, jury and executioner. I would lose no sleep if that came about. I have stood over corpses of children and elderly victims, I have seen perpetrators and victims of gang violence and I have investigated sickening murders where an entire family was bound and burned to death. I have met more than my share of cold-blooded murderers, including some in my own family. I have also lost dozens of my family members in religious massacres; one of my uncles was blown to bits by a bomb planted by terrorists.

The pain, suffering, bitterness and the feeling of helplessness leave a never-healing mark on a victim's family. Years after some of my uncles and aunts were murdered, my father still harbors hatred in his heart, thinks of revenge and ruminates over how things could have been different. On the other hand, having a close relative in my own family who killed three elderly people in cold blood has shown me another side of the picture. Instead of a caricature of a "murderer" we can all hate and condemn with ease, I was forced to see the human face on the criminal and the crime. I have also learned that the pain and suffering are not limited to the victim's family. Not only did we feel humiliated and disgraced, my relative's parents lay awake nights wondering what went wrong and whether they could have raised their child differently.

I don't condone what my relatives did, and I don't ask for mercy for them. I have no sympathy for killers, and I support the harshest punishment for homicide. Nevertheless, I firmly oppose the death penalty.

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