While Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger and Towson University professor Richard Vatz have outlined many secular reasons for reinstating the death penalty ("Maryland should reinstate the death penalty," Jan. 6), I suggest that we let dead dogs lie and that we let the death penalty rest in peace.
We have tried violence to solve many problems, and it never works. As people of faith, we have a commandment telling us not to kill. Yet we allow the state and the country to kill in our name for the sake of "justice" time after time. Unfortunately for too many of us, the faith we proclaim on Saturday or Sunday seems to fall by the wayside during the remainder of our weekly living. There are victim-offender programs which exist for the express purpose of trying to restore relationships rather than destroying them. I hope and pray that we will choose life and mercy, even for the most heinous of offenses.
Richard Horwitt, Eldersburg