Ok we discussed this in my contemporary issues class. Which is worse and should warrant a harsher punishment, or should they be equal punishment? Killing a child or killing and old person.

I argued that killing a child is worse since the old person has lived their life and is most likely no longer contributing to society where as the child had unlimited possibilities.

Well, legally, I'd say they should be punished equally, but morally, the child is the most important. If a grandparent and a grandchild are about to die but you can save one, I'd probably save the kid, because as you said, he/she would have more potential and hasn't lived life, etc.

Edit: But as someone said below, it should be taken case by case. The potentiality isn't really a valid argument, I don't think. Then again, that's a moral issue but not necessarily a legal issue, in my opinion.

The child obviously, though it would really be different for each individual case, age aside.

Morally, the kid. Legally, they're the same.

Both are equal both morally and legally.

Legally, the same.
Morally, it depends on the contributions and wisdom of the elder victim.

Are you serious? If anything, morality calls that you ignore that completely. We're all supposed to be worth the same, no matter how smart, stupid, ugly, good-looking, tall, short, etc.

I don't think either is morally worse, they're both murder (I would be less unlikely to kill an old person if the situation called for it than a child, but I doubt if I'd ever murder anybody). And I don't think it's anybody's place to punish harsher for one than the other, because then we're assigning more value to one life than another (I realize that we already treat criminals differently for murder depending on who they murdered, and I don't like it).

I would say, though, that multiple murders is a lot worse than just one. I forget where that topic came up, recently, but I saw it somewhere on 404daily.