This Tuesday evening, the Georgia Department of Corrections is scheduled to put William Earl Lynd to death for the 1988 Berrien County murder of Virginia “Ginger” Moore.

Barring a stay from Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lynd will be executed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Capital punishment, the death penalty, inspires controversy.

There are those who believe that if a person murders someone, the murderer’s life should be forfeit. There are those who believe that a civilized society should not condone government-sanctioned executions.

Some believe in the Old Testament eye for an eye while others note that, in the New Testament, Jesus was a victim of capital punishment.

This editorial is neither in support nor in opposition of the death penalty. Reasonable people have presented worthy arguments for both sides of the issue.

Instead, this editorial recognizes that capital punishment is within the laws of the land and, since the death penalty is part of the state’s judicial process, it should be carried out more expediently.

William Earl Lynd was convicted of Moore’s murder and sentenced to death more than 18 years ago. Nearly 20 years will have elapsed since his sentencing in Berrien County Superior Court in February 1990 and his scheduled execution this week. That wait is too long.

Should there be a mad dash to execution? Those who have been aggrieved and staunch death-penalty proponents would likely say yes. But appeals are a necessary part of the process. Appeals should serve as safeguards to ensure that the state does not execute a wrongly convicted person. In several states, DNA testing has exonerated some death-row convicts. Had it not been for appeals in these cases, innocent men would have been executed for crimes they did not commit.

Yet, the appeals process should not become a venue for a convicted murderer to squeeze out several more years of life. If the death penalty is to be the law of the land, it should be more expediently enforced.

At Lynd’s trial, little evidence was entered to contradict the state’s case against him. More than 18 years ago, a Berrien County jury believed Lynd deserved the death penalty. Since William Earl Lynd was sentenced to death, a whole generation has been born, raised, and will be ready for high school graduation a few weeks after Lynd is scheduled for execution Tuesday night.

An entire generation has come of age while Lynd has survived into middle age on death row.

If we’re going to have the death penalty, the process should not be so prolonged. If it is going to take so long, why not just sentence a person to life without parole, and make that mean what it says: Life without parole. No getting out, ever.

As it stands, 18-plus years is too long to wait for the state to carry out a court sentence.