[ponker]

Why? Why is it fair to execute someone who murders 20 hitchhikers, or 3,000 Americans on 9/11, but not someone who knowingly takes actions that lead to the death of (i.e., murders) 500,000 people?

It's not "better" to advocate for leniency (and anything less than capital punishment is leniency for these animals) -- for crimes of this magnitude it dishonors the victims. This is why societies always execute war criminals, and the Sacklers are definitely in the same category as a Saddam Hussein in the number of people killed. Hiding behind a corporation doesn't lessen the crime any more than hiding behind a government office or a military uniform.

If a political party ran on the platform of rounding up the top 1000 corporate criminals and sticking a needle in their arms they'd have my vote from President down to sheriff.

[anchpop]

It's not fair to execute anyone. Many countries have banned the death penalty and prominent US politicians oppose it (including Biden). It seems like you're noticing:

"We execute people who murder 20 hitchhikers, but not billionaires responsible for the death of thousands."

And proposing that instead of rectifying that inequality by banning the death penalty, we rectify it by doing the death penalty way more to avoid dishonoring victims? Let me know if I'm misreading you.

[ponker]

"It's not fair to execute anyone."

That's just an opinion, and mine is different. I believe that with very few exceptions, every first-degree murderer should be executed. Note that "first-degree murderer" is NOT equivalent to "person convicted of first-degree murder" which is why I have a lot of objections to the death penalty as a matter of public policy.

[metiscus]

How do you propose to sort out the two classes that you have indicated exist? The inability to do so perfectly is largely behind my opposition to the death penalty in general. You can't be meaningfully exonerated if you are not alive. If punishment is what people desire, the American prison system is perfectly capable of satiation. A life in an American prison is significantly worse, in my opinion, than being dead as being dead ends it immediately and life in prison forces a person to deal with the consequences of their actions for a life-time.