By now, I imagine that most Tennesseans are aware of the trial underway in Knoxville for one of the four people charged in the carjacking, rape, and murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple, in 2007.

Every aspect of this case is horrific. And frankly, a case such as this keeps the fervor for the death penalty strong as the details are so gruesome and ghastly that one can hardly read or hear about them.

I read the story in the Tennessean yesterday about the first defendant currently on trial, Letalvius Cobbins, who recently took the stand in his own defense. Cobbins pled guilty to rape but not to murder. Though he did apologize for his participation, it was too little too late for the victims' families. Some of his comments, which I won't go into here but you can read about, caused Channon Christian's father to come out of his seat and call Cobbins "a liar." I cannot imagine what that man is going through as he sits in that courtroom everyday and hears the details of this crime over and over again.

I am sure that my blog posting concerning this case will receive many comments--some supportive and others very angry. I get that. Besides all the problems with the death penalty system as a whole including fairness, cost, and accuracy, the core of my opposition to the death penalty actually comes from my faith.

What tends to happen in cases such as this one is that all the energy becomes focused on the perpetrators and what they deserve. The hard truth is that we as a society could do to them exactly what they did to Channon and Christopher over and over again, and it will never bring those wonderful, young people back.

However, I, for one, condemn the behavior of these four perpetrators and never want their terrible actions to dictate my own. Instead, I want to respond in the way I believe that God calls me to, a way which chooses to treat them differently than they chose to treat Channon and Christopher.

Does this mean that there should be no accountability for these four? Absolutely not. Tennessee has life without the possibility of parole and a hard life sentence of 51 years minimum before a person is even eligible for parole. These are real consequences but consequences that don't make me into a killer like them.

TCASK recently made the decision to officially change our organization's name. We will be sharing more about this decision in the days ahead, but the TCASK Board voted on August 15 to change our name to Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. We chose this name for many reasons, one of which is that we want the public to understand that our opposition to the death penalty does not mean that we don't think people need to be held accountable. We believe that those who commit horrible crimes must face up to them. However, we do not think that killing perpetrators solves our problems or truly addresses how or why such things happen.

The questions that come to me over and over as I read about this trial is, "What happened in the lives of these four young people that made them capable of such vile acts? What could we have done as a society to address the warning signs much sooner?" Sadly, I fear such questions may never be addressed in the clamor to see them executed.

Regardless of the outcome of this trial, my prayer is that all the families involved in this nightmare can find some peace and that there will come a day when we no longer need or want the death penalty for anyone.