If, as the Declaration of Independence so eloquently declares, "all men are created equal," then can society place an unequal weight on the tragically lost lives of murder victims?
This is not an exam question in a college philosophy course but a moral conundrum at the core of perhaps the most intriguing case facing the U.S. Supreme Court, Payne v. Tennessee. Justice David Souter, the court's swing vote, asked during oral argument last month whether "it really is legitimate to value victims differently depending upon the circumstances of the lives that they have chosen to lead." Tennessee Attorney General Charles Burson's...
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