The shocking murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King here in San Diego County has traumatized the entire region. We are deeply saddened, disturbed, and angered by this crime. It reminds us of the thousands of innocent men and women who are murdered each year in our country. And we wonder if it could have been prevented.

The question I’ve been meditating on recently is this: How does a society express its abhorance of this most heinous criminal act? In other words, if we truly see this kind of murder as the most despicable evil in our society, how do we exhibit our disgust and revulsion?

I believe the answer lies in the way that we punish the criminal. Most of us would agree on one of two options: (1) Life Imprisonment without the possibility of parole, or (2) The Death Penalty. During my 58 years of existence on this planet I have moved back and forth in my support of one or the other of these two punishments. However, for almost two decades now I have been a proponent of the death penalty. Here is my reasoning.

1. Executing murderers is society’s best way to teach how horrible, terrible, and abhorant murder is to us. The only real way a society can express it’s revulsion at any criminal behavior is through the punishment it metes out. If rapists all got 20 years in prison, and thieves all got 40 years, that would be society’s way of saying that thievery was worse than rape. A society that executes its murderers is making a more powerful statement about its abhorance of murder than a society that keeps all its murderers alive.

Some would argue that a civilized society should not punish a killer by killing him—that two “wrongs” don’t make a right. But I see a huge difference between murder and execution. The Bible does not say “Thou shall not KILL.” Rather, it says, “Thou shall not MURDER” (for that is the correct interpretation of the Hebrew word). Like the ancient Hebrews, I do not see a moral equivalence between murder, killing on the field of battle, or executing a criminal.

2. The most common objection opponents offer against capital punishment is that innocents may be executed. This is possible. However, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States by the Supreme Court in 1976, there has not been one innocent person executed in this country. We take such extraordinary precautions that it is nearly impossible to execute an innocent person.

But I acknowledge that there is the possibility that an innocent person may be executed. However, almost all those opposed to capital punishment also support a policy that could lead to the killing of innocents. For example, nearly all opponents of the death penalty believe that if the police obtain evidence illegally, the conviction of a murderer should be overturned.

So listen to this disturbing story out of Illinois. In 1982, James Ealy was convicted of the strangulation murders of a family, including a mother and her two children. It took the jury just four hours to render the guilty verdict, and Ealy was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, his lawyers argued that the police had improperly obtained evidence, and an Illinois appellate court, whose justices acknowledged Ealy was guilty of the murders, vacated the ruling. But without that improperly obtained evidence, Ealy could not be retried successfully, and he was released from prison.

On November 27, 2006, Ealy strangled to death Mary Hutchison, a 45-year-old manager of a Burger King in Lindenhurst, Illinois. Though Ms. Hutchison was murdered by Ealy, many Americans believe that it is better to let a murderer go free than to convict one with evidence improperly obtained.

Whether that position is right or wrong is not relevant here. What is relevant is this: The people who believe in this policy do so knowing that it MIGHT set a murderer free to murder someone else, like a Mary Hutchison. In the same way, I believe in the death penalty knowing that it might lead to the killing of an innocent person.

This is an age-old debate. But I am more convinced than ever that a society must exhibit its revulsion for murder—and that the best way to do that is to execute the murderer. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man.” (Genesis 9:6)