Ditto. Its not that some people don't deserve to die for their crimes. Some definately do. Its that the death penalty system is dangerously corrupt, unfair, expensive, and inefficent.
We'd be better off locking them up for life . . . and then if we made a mistake, and they turn out to be innocent, its a mistake we can correct. The cost of the system is outrageous . . . and the application of the death penalty often arbitrary.
Sure, there are people that I would love to see dragged out into the street and shot for what they have done. Heck, there are a few people for whom burning at the stake would be too good.
But the social cost of the death penalty is just too high, and the system to damaged to be salvaged. Time to join the rest of the civilized world and get rid of the bloody thng.[/QUO
and the cost of housing inmates isn't high?????
Oh, the cost of housing inmates is high. But if you look at the numbers, it actually costs significantly more to execute someone . . .
Of course, you could make it cheaper, by taking away their appeals . . . but then, considering the number that have recently been exonerated, that would lead to executing innocent people, wouldn't it? Some of those recently exonerated where innocent of any crime . . . and sure, some of them were guilty of commiting crimes . . . but not of commiting murder.
So, if you have the safeties in place that attempt to make sure we don't execute the innocent, it costs more to execute anyone than to keep them locked up for life . . . if you take away those safeties, you are almost sure to execute someone who did not commit the crime for which they were sentenced to death . . .
And as for the arguement that they are surely guilty of something, so why not execute them . . . one, there are cases where that is not true, and two, that's the sort of logic we saw in the Soviet Union and numerous other totalitarian governments . . . oh, well, they were guilty of something, weren't they? Too bad!
