Ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime

As Nevada State Prison prepares to execute a murderer tonight, it's worth reflecting on why the state demands the ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime.

Protesters will bring their arguments to the gates of the prison on Fifth Street, and their concerns are also worth considering, for this is a sentence from which there can be no appeal.

Lawrence Colwell Jr., age 35, strangled 76-year-old Frank Rosenstock in a Las Vegas motel room for the $91 he had on him. Let's keep that foremost in mind.

Colwell has been convicted and, as of this writing, has decided not to appeal his death sentence - a sentence he asked for and received.

For some, his execution amounts to "state-assisted suicide." In fact, eight of the last nine men executed in Nevada have gone to the death chamber with prospects of appeal still open to them.

But an execution is not suicide. It is a heavy responsibility assumed by the state to take away the life of someone who has deliberately taken the life of another. It is the law. It is the penalty the people of Nevada have decided is fitting. Unless that changes, the penalty must be carried out.

Opponents of the death penalty can make a compelling case - but usually in the abstract. When it comes to the individual, the case is not so compelling. Justification for sparing the life of Lawrence Colwell Jr. - even a life to be spent in a prison cell - does not equate to justice.

He has been a criminal since age 12. He went to prison at age 18 for five years for kidnapping an ex-girlfriend. He had been out on parole not quite a year when he killed Rosenstock.

"Do I want to die? No, I don't want to die," he said at a court hearing last month. "But is the value of life there for me now? No, it isn't."

The state is not helping Colwell die. It has arrived at the same conclusion - whatever value his life had, he has spent. And he spent Frank Rosenstock's as well.

The execution, if it happens tonight, will not be something to celebrate. It is the somber sentence this society carries out when one of its members has chosen to take the life of another.