Their moral judgments about life and death, so vexing to most of us, become clinical and routine.

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Under Colorado law, as in other states that authorize capital punishment, that jury will first be "death qualified, " that is, purged of citizens whose faith or moral precepts would not permit them to sentence Holmes to death.

CNN: Why death penalty for Holmes wouldn't bring justice

But there is more to capital punishment than the moral precepts and more that explains why the death penalty is a dying institution throughout the United States -- certainly in Colorado -- and worldwide.

CNN: Why death penalty for Holmes wouldn't bring justice

All major religions have extended this structure to the afterlife, where, if you haven't righted the moral balances on earth, you must do so after death.

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In such a setting the rule that marriage was necessarily a contract terminated only by the death of one of the spouses was not only moral but socially necessary.

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Dr. PRISCILLA RAY (Chair, American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs): The AMA's position is that while a position on the death penalty is up to each individual person's moral and ethical beliefs, that physicians should not participate in executions.

NPR: The Medical Ethics of the Death Penalty

Supporters of the compensation ban have unquestioningly allowed their mistaken moral discomfort to warp the market and condemn many to an unnecessarily early death.

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The moral: Ad hoc organization that works in life probably won't after death.

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