Death Eligible

I was in court recently on an 88 defendant gang case in Federal Court in Los Angeles. The judge asked the U.S. attorney how many of the defendants were “death eligible.” The U.S. attorney responded that they were waiting from approval from Washington D.C. on 9 of the defendants. It struck me that this prosecutor who seems like a very nice guy, is a murderer. He is going to ask a jury to kill 9 of the people who were sitting in that courtroom and the United States government was going to give him the authority to do that. The judge, who is also a very nice judge, seemed completely un-phased by the whole procedure. How can we as a nation condone killing when we’re trying to punish people for killing? Where is the logic in that?