On Tuesday, I posted a link to staff writer Anne Blythe’s story on the latest development in the Laurence Lovette case. The state Court of Appeals ruled that an automatic sentence of life in prison was too harsh, given that Lovette was 17 years old when he killed Eve Carson, the UNC student body president. (We’ve reprinted the story on page 5 in case you missed it.)

“Today’s top local story,” the post read. “What do you think? Is life in prison too harsh for teenagers who murder?”

Here is what some of you said:

Greg Barbera: Um, no. This wasn’t an "accident’: Lovette was 16 in March 2008, when prosecutors contend he and DeMario Atwater kidnapped Carson from her home early in the morning, forced her into the backseat of her SUV, drove her to ATM machines and withdrew money from her account, then shot her five times in a wooded neighborhood about a mile from campus.”

Mark Chilton: Throw away the key.

Terri Buckner: I believe in the possibility of redemption.

Rodrigo Dorfman: For life? Who knows? If you believe that at some point human beings are capable of redemption and transformation then "throwing away the key" is plain stupid. He’s obviously going to be another person by the time he’s 40-50 – and he’s going to cost tax payers millions during his "life" in prison. The whole three strikes you’re out/throw away the key is so medieval.

Paul Bonner: No. But if NC law requires any person of any age who is convicted of murder to be sentenced to life in prison, that law seems to me unconstitutionally arbitrary. NC apparently does have such a requirement if the jury fails to reach a unanimous decision. Lovette’s jury was unanimous, though.

Al Cravey: At 17, the young man’s brain is not finished developing.

Al Cravey: What would Eve Carson say? (Editor’s note: At the time of the murder, Carson’s parents spoke out eloquently against the death penalty, saying it was not what their daughter would have wanted.)

Gregg Jarvies (retired Chapel Hill police chief): At the age of 40 to 50 he probably will be a different person – he’ll have spent 30 or 40 years with other violent criminals. He’ll be even more hardened than he was when he committed the brutal murder of Eve Carson (hard to imagine he could be any worse than he was on that night in 2008). As for redemption – say your sorry, promise to do better next time and then we can all cross our fingers that he means it. How will one know?

Al Cravey: How do we -- and I am speaking of all of us in the United States today -- justify the racialized criminal ’justice’ system -- that puts away one of every four African Americans? (Read the New Jim Crow if you want other alarming statistics). This is not criminal justice -- It is just plain criminal.

Terri Buckner: If you’re going to throw away the key, why not support the death penalty? What’s the difference between a life sentence for someone so young and actual death?

Richard Perry: While we might have strong feelings about certain specific crimes and their victims, the Supreme Court declared that putting a youngster (under 18) in prison for life without even hope for parole is indeed cruel and unusual. What Lovette participated in was terrible, but he was 17 at the time – does he get no chance, ever, to come out of that prison?