Death -- many ponder its meaning but few doubt its finality.

And the idea of punishing a criminal with an irretrievable sentence to die provokes people to question their deepest and most sincere moral convictions.

With American politics becoming more focused on the crime problem, a renewed push to execute convicted murderers has arisen. This push has forced both sides of the debate to question the morality of capital punishment.

"I think (morality) is the most important criteria for whether or not you support the death penalty," said Thomas Bernard, professor of administration of justice. "Politics is largely a realm of moral values."

Bernard said some people support the death penalty for unjustifiable reasons.

"A person who believes that the death penalty will reduce crime is certainly wrong," he said.

However, Bernard said those people who are proponents of the death penalty because they desire retribution have a better argument than those who use deterrence.

"That's a moral opinion," he said

On the other side, Bernard said people have two main sets of reasoning to oppose capital punishment.

The first is logical reasoning because people do not believe the government should kill to show the public that murder is wrong, he said. The other grounds for oppositon are usually based on religious beliefs -- that it is never right to kill anyone, he said.

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Perhaps the people put in the most peculiar situation regarding the death penalty are the district attorneys who must leave morality out of their decision when pushing for the death penalty.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said although it is a "tough call" to ask for the death penalty, legal guidelines usually play the largest part in making the decision.

When asking for a death sentence, a district attorney must get a conviction of first-degree murder and then evaluate whether the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, Morganelli said.

Aggravating circumstances, he said, are when torture is used and if the criminal had an extensive prior record. An example of a mitigating circumstance is when the convicted murderer does not have any prior criminal record, he said.

Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar said because his decision to ask for a death sentence is purely a legal matter, he cannot take a moral position on the issue.

"I'm not supposed to be enthusiastic for the (laws) I like and not support the ones I don't like," he said.

Despite this, Morganelli said there are some specific goals in sentencing a criminal to death.

"One of the things that's overlooked . . . is retribution," he said. "The death penalty is certainly society's retribution."

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Despite many people's desires for retribution, many religious groups have a strong moral opposition to capital punishment.

Peter Cannizzaro, campus pastor with the Alliance Christian Fellowship, said his denomination does not have a set policy on capital punishment, but he opposes it -- in most cases.

"I'm personally not for it, but I could be if there's proven facts that (the murderer) could be detrimental to society or himself," Cannizzaro said, adding that sometimes society may be able to rehabilitate the criminal.

Tuvia Abramson, director of the Penn State Hillel Foundation, said the original Jewish laws that allowed capital punishment have been reinterpreted.

"The process of Jewish justice tries to avoid the death penalty," Abramson said.

Since 1948, he said, only two people have been executed in Israel -- one was a spy convicted of treason and the other was Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. However, Abramson said the Israeli government has not executed any militant Arab terrorists.

Bill Gafkjen, pastor for the Lutheran Campus Ministry, said his church released statements that agree with the death penalty, but it encourages the state not to use that right.

The opposition to capital punishment comes from the misuse of the penalty in this country, Gafkjen said.

The church disagrees with the fact that capital punishment is often used on people who cannot defend themselves, Gafkjen said. Also there is no way to correct a wrongful sentence and the penalty ends any possibility of restoring the person to society, he said.

The Catholic Church is another denomination that opposes the punishment.

"If you have a convicted murderer in prison for a life sentence," said Howard Fetterhoff, executive director of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, "then that should be enough punishment."