We are all implicated when we let others be mistreated. Fear and anger make a community vindictive and unfair, and in denying mercy to others we condemn ourselves as much as we harm them. A society's true character shows in how it treats the poor, the accused, and the condemned.
Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. A system that defines a person entirely by one crime, especially a child, sentencing them to die or to die in prison, erases everything else they are and could become.
The question about the death penalty is not whether the condemned deserve to die but whether we deserve to kill. Killing takes for granted that the courts are reliable, yet they can send an innocent person to death row on an informant's word.
Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it goes to people who have not earned it. Justice and mercy are not opposites. A justice that leaves no room for mercy turns into revenge.
In too many places the opposite of poverty is not wealth but justice. Poor people get worse treatment from courts and prisons, so being poor often means being denied fair treatment, not just lacking money.