Well, equal protection is the way to go. We need to start with the fact that we are all humans and there but for the grace of God or inevitability... whatever you want to call it, go I. We need to act as if this could be us in the same situation. Our ego SCREAMS NO!!!! NEVER would I behave that way, and that is where judgmental punishments come into play.
We want to thumb our noses at someone we hate because of a crime he committed, but it can be proven to a T that if you had the same body with the same chemical makeup, the same circumstances, you could not help but do the exact same act.
So, who are we to judge? We are to be FAIR or we are worse than the criminal.
I believe in equal protection under the law. My late husband was a defense attorney here in the deep south, and witnessed that not to be the case in alot of the situations that were presented in the court of law.