Relativism

The State of Connecticut has convicted and imposed the death penalty on one Steven J. Hayes, who was found by a jury of his peers to have perpetrated a horrific crime.

However, it seems to be more horrific because it took place in an area where these things should not take place, 

This crime somehow took place in the quiet town of Cheshire, where I took my son for a soccer game on Sunday. It really is a proverbially leafy place of swing sets and rec centers. To think of it as the site of the most terrifying sort of stranger attack is to feel unsafe anywhere.

--according to Emily Bazelon.

I get what she's saying, but it does bring up the uncomfortable proposition that this sort of thing does happen and/or is supposed to happen elsewhere.  We wouldn't feel safe in a low income urban neighborhood, so the contrast with a heinous crime is less stark?  Talk about supposedly safe communities -- all those kids were supposed to feel safe in the arms of the Catholic church, too.

A heinous crime is a heinous crime, no matter who it happens to, or whether the neighborhood is leafy or not.