"Capital punishment involves determining whether the execution of criminals is ever justified, and if so under what circumstances." (Fieser pg 1)While searching on the Internet one found a reason why capital punishment is justifiable. According to Murder Victims, Brandon Carpenter lived a happy but short life. After his mom and dad got divorced Matthew Lilly, his mom's boyfriend, moved in. Matthew became the caretaker while Brandon's mom what at work. At that time things began to happen. Brandon fell of his bike (according to Matt) and broke his arm. Little bruises began to appear, but he explained how the boys were roughhousing. On April 8, 2000 Brandon's mom, Billie, left for work. It was the last time she seen him alive. The boys would be the only witnesses to the murder. Matt asked the neighbor to come over and watch the boys so he could pick up Billie. He said Brandon was upstairs napping, so they only had to watch Hunter, Brandon's little brother. After running errands, !
             Matt and Billie arrived home. Billie put Hunter in the high chair and called for Brandon. When he didn't respond she went up to get him. She found Brandon lying lifeless with his eyes open, and his face a mass of bruises. She screamed at Matt to call 911 and began CPR. The EMT's continued to work on him, but they never got a heartbeat. The autopsy report shown Brandon had an excess of 55 injuries to his little body. His spine was crushed, he suffered severe trauma to his abdomen and he had numerous bruises all over his body. He had been dead for four hours before his mother found him. Matthew Lilly was allowed to plea bargain to drop the death penalty. He pleaded "no contest" to the charge, which means he doesn't admit to the murder or deny it. He was found guilty and received life in prison with possibility of parole in twenty years. Brandon was only two years old when Matthew Lilly took his life. The onl...