Compensation, in the Lewis case

In a free-market justice system, a court might have ordered the three murderers to pay their victims' families a quarter of their lifetime earnings. That's less than the government now takes from everyone, as punishment for living in this Land of the Free.

Teresa would have worked for about 20 years, earning perhaps an average of $40K a year or $800,000 total. Her two young accomplices would have worked for 40 years, at the same average rate, for a total of $3.2 million, making $4 million combined. An ordered 25% compensation rate would have been one million 2009 dollars.

Is that enough, to take the place of a man and his son? - of course not. But it's something. Infinitely more than the family got from the government "justice" monopoly.