The Outsider (L’Étranger) - Albert Camus

I read this in either English 11 or 12 a looooong time ago.  I confess that although this is the second time I am reading the text, it feels like the first time all over again.  Some random thoughts:
1. Mersault seems neither moral nor immoral.  He is amoral.  Should we hold amoral people as immoral as the justice system did to Mersault?  Does this make society moral?  It seems rather immoral of society to do so if someone is actually truly and completely lacking what we call 'conscience'.  How does this then impact the 'justice' system?  Certainly a punitive one, especially with a death penalty doesn't seem like the moral or correct solution...  Raymond is clearly immoral yet he remains a free man.
2. Mersault is honest, a little too honest.  He refuses to embrace religion which is meaningless to him just because he is sentenced to death.  He refuses to show remorse since he doesn't feel any.  I kind of admire this honesty/principle in this regard. 
3. Making the best of one's situation - this seems to be what Mersault did in the second half of the novel and also what he believes his mother did.  Pragmatic/sensible and a wee bit optimistic, no - kind of like Candide.
4. Should someone's character be used to condemn someone in court?  Are we static creatures?  If someone has been indifferent or callous in the past, must this haunt her life forever?  I suppose that this is what we still do in court today if there is only circumstantial evidence and thus this alone is not enough to convict and so we use character/value judgements instead.  Is this justice?  But there were equal amounts of people who testified that Mersault is an honest and good man as those who claim him to be bad.  Why were the 'good' testimonies heard but disregarded?  Was he not condemned from day 1 of the trial then?
5. Mersault has no control over his fate.  He is not allowed to talk or to defend himself.  His lawyer will take care of things.  Why does one suddenly become a ward/infant all over again when one's life is at stake?
6. Salamano's cruelty to his dog seems to elicit laughter from others (e.g. Marie).  What does this say about society and our relationship with non-human-animals? He later grieves for his dog even though their relationship was unhealthy and abusive.  Makes me think of Didi and Gogo from Waiting for Godot.