Is the death penalty ever appropriate punishment?

The death penalty remains a looming question for Payton Gendron, the man responsible for the tragic mass shooting at a Buffalo Tops grocery store on May 14, 2022. This heinous attack, deliberately targeting and resulting in the tragic loss of ten Black lives, could result in the death penalty for the Buffalo shooter. New York State, having abolished the death penalty in 2004 after the New York Court of Appeals deemed it unconstitutional, still faces the prospect of federal capital punishment in cases like Gendron’s. In a status conference Tuesday morning, prosecutors said the question of the death penalty has...