Imagine we have a guy named "Ken".  One day, out of the blue, Ken murders "Fred" who lives down the street from him.

Let's suppose YOU are called upon to decide Ken's fate, with absolute authority to hand down any sentence deemed appropriate, including the death penalty.  Let's say also that before you were called upon to do this, you had never met Ken nor Fred before (just to remove any non-rational influence one way or the other towards either man).

Now let's say that, through some advanced psychoanalysis and/or prophetic ability, you *knew* with a 100% certainty that the circumstances that led to Ken murdering Fred were a one-time aberration and, regardless of your ultimate decision as to Ken's fate, Ken would never murder anyone else ever again.

Now, the question to you is:  *NOT* 'Would you advocate giving Ken the death penalty?', but rather 'Would you advocate Ken receiving no sentence at all, but rather going free?'

Some things to consider:

• Fred is dead, and nothing we do to Ken will bring Fred back.
• Since we know that Ken's crime will never again be repeated, there is no real justification or need to 'protect' society from Ken's possible future criminal actions by putting him to death, or in jail.
• Since there's nothing to gain by keeping Ken locked up, society would be better off with Ken free from confinement (and alive, obviously), as Ken's presence and future contributions to society and his family provide a larger 'plus' to mankind in general than having him in prison.
  

The extent that you would consider setting Ken free altogether (if at all) is a fair estimation of what you view the purpose of 'criminal sentencing' to be.  If the purpose of locking criminals up in jail for X number of days is simply to protect the innocent members of society from any such future crimes, then it seems obvious that it serves no purpose in this case, since we know that Ken will not pose a threat to anyone else again.

If, however, you view the purpose of sentencing (in whole or in part) as punishment for incorrect actions, then Ken should still receive a 'fair' sentence regardless of the large or small propensity to commit similar crimes in the future.  Not because society benefits in any way from Ken either being executed or locked up, but because that's the natural consequence of murder and Ken must accept the consequences.   You commit the crime, you accept the punishment for doing so.

The dual viewpoints of 'protection' and 'punishment' may or may not clarify why you support or oppose capital punishment in modern times, and to what extent.   One can easily argue that, according to the 'punishment' philosophy, taking someone's life can fairly require the forfeiture of one's own as a natural consequence, and that state-sponsored execution is not fundamentally immoral.   (One can also argue, of course, that killing is always immoral even as a response to other killing, and that jail serves all necessary aspects of 'justice' since--jail breaks and legal technicalities notwithstanding--society is adequately protected from future crimes.)

This post is not meant to argue for or against the death penalty (although I find the death penalty acceptable, for the above reasons), however, in our analysis there's something else to consider:

In the real world, outside of abstract thought experiments, there is another factor which may (and should) influence your decision:  namely, the 'incentive' factor for everyone else other than Ken.

Would setting Ken free without consequence essentially encourage others to commit similar crimes--since Ken seemed to 'get away with it'?

To what extent is 'punishment' not only for the perpetrator, but also for everyone else, to make clear to everyone that certain actions will receive certain punishments as a 'disincentive' to consider or commit those actions in the future?

What if you're more or less forced to punish Ken (even if you have a reasonable philosophical foundation for concluding that it would serve no purpose), simply because you can't afford to have society victimized by Ken copycats who see a 'loophole' of which to take advantage?

How does this apply to the eternal perspective?  Considering sin to be a 'crime' against God, we know through the scriptures that "no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God".  Since God loves us, and would prefer that we rejoin Him in His kingdom, we know that the consequences of sin (separation from God) are more in the vein of 'protection' than 'punishment'.  The standards of heaven must be 'protected', as even though God would prefer we were there, we cannot enter if we do not meet the standards.  The separation from God (defined as 'hell' by most religions) happens not because God wants to physically punish us for not doing what He wants, but because the eternal destiny of the kingdom of God and everyone in it can't be sidetracked by accepting the 'unclean'.

But wait...

Add in repentance and the Atonement to the equation and things change a little.  Through the Atonement, God is essentially saying, "I don't care that much about 'punishment'--I can forgive and forget when it comes to past transgressions as long as they are truly in the past.  I want you to be a contributing member of my kingdom, therefore through the Atonement we can skip the 'punishment' aspect of your sins, and at the same time protect the standards of the kingdom by helping you become perfect anyway."  Through the Atonement, we are essentially letting Ken go free (spiritually) without either a death or jail sentence.

That raises the question, though:  what about the 'incentive' angle for everyone else?

Any reasonable person knows that in the real world you can't just set Ken free without punishment, because that will open the floodgates for everyone else in society to do whatever they want and maintain that, like Ken, it was 'in the past', won't be repeated, and if Ken wasn't punished, I shouldn't be either.

And yet, this situation is essentially equivalent to forgiveness through the Atonement, where those that commit "large" sins but repent essentially end up in the same place as those who never committed those large sins in the first place.

Admittedly, in this situation it is tempered by the fact that everyone has *some* sin, large or small, so we're talking only relative measures now.  But there are many who feel something is "wrong" when they, for example, stay morally clean through high school to prepare for a mission, while their friends play around, then "repent", and are essentially judged to be equivalently clean when receiving a mission call at the same time.  Is that fair?  And, yet, under the infiniteness of the Atonement, you *can* be cleansed and forgiven of even large sins, and in a real way, there is no difference between the person who sinned and repented and the person who didn't sin at all.  (That's how it is designed...)

Questions:

Do we want people to be 'punished' for their sins, on some basic level?  Maybe suffer a little bit, before they are 'released from prison' and accepted as a equal member of (heavenly) society by ourselves?

Don't we, at heart, have a relative measure of sin where we know we are sinners, but only of *small* things, whereas the true sinners (the ones who commit *big* sins that horrify and offend us) should be treated differently.  Are we upset if we're treated the same in the long run?

Does this, taken to an extreme, create an incentive NOT to be righteous, since we figure if we're going to 'repent later' and be forgiven, why *not* go the 'big' sin route, instead of just 'small' sins?  If so, what's the answer to this quandary within the gospel--i.e. how do you properly reconcile the seriousness of sin, while recognizing the ability to be forgiven, regardless of the magnitude? What if the limitless power of the Atonement does, perversely, create an incentive to sin?