Wouldn't life in prison be a bigger punishment than the death penalty?

For the worst crimes, life without parole is better, for many reasons. It means what it says, and spending the rest of your life locked up, knowing you’ll never be free, is no picnic. Two big advantages:

-an innocent person serving life can be released from prison

-life without parole costs less than the death penalty

Several people who answered don't realize that the death penalty costs taxpayers much more than life in prison. The process is much more complex than for any other kind of criminal case. The largest costs come at the pre-trial and trial stages. These apply whether or not the defendant is convicted, let alone sentenced to death.

Examples- trial costs (death penalty and non death penalty cases, California):

People v. Scott Peterson, Death Penalty Trial

$3.2 Million Total

People v. Rex Allen Krebs Death Penalty Trial

$2.8 Million Total

People v. Cary Stayner, Death Penalty Trial

$2.368 Million Total

People v. Robert Wigley, Non-Death Penalty Trial

$454,000 Total

This data is for cases where the best records have been kept.

Would depend on the person. For me, yes, life in prison without parole would be far worse than death. Imagine lock down 23 hours a day, by yourself, with 1 hour a day out of your cell, again by yourself.

Death Records Search Database : http://deathrecordsinfo.com/Support

Death penalty is cheaper on tax payers than life in prison.

It is. But I also think its bullshit since they're pretty much being taken care of on taxpayer money. A couple of bullets to the brain and a ditch would make death row less appealing than what it is now.

I think life is a bigger punishment . Jail is torture . They should have to sit and there and rot in jail. death isn't that bad because its quick and easy. They just give you a shot .

3) LIFE: MUCH PREFERRED OVER EXECUTION

99.7% of murderers tell us "Give me life, not execution"

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/11/life-much-pr...

The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents

Dudley Sharp

The death penalty has a foundation in justice and it spares more innocent lives.

Anti death penalty arguments are either false or the pro death penalty arguments are stronger.

The majority populations of all countries, likely, support the death penalty for some crimes (1).

Why? Justice.

THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES

Of all endeavors that put innocents at risk, is there one with a better record of sparing innocent lives than the US death penalty? Unlikely.

1) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/death-penalt...

2) Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/innocents-mo...

MORAL FOUNDATIONS: DEATH PENALTY PT. 1

1) Immanuel Kant: "If an offender has committed murder, he must die. In this case, no possible substitute can satisfy justice. For there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life, so that there is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.". "A society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else's life is simply immoral."

2) Pope Pius XII; "When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live." 9/14/52.

3) Theodore Roosevelt: " . . . among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.".

4) John Murray: "Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of human life." "... it is this same atrophy of moral fiber that appears in the plea for the abolition of the death penalty." "It is the sanctity of life that validates the death penalty for the crime of murder. It is the sense of this sanctity that constrains the demand for the infliction of this penalty. The deeper our regard for life the firmer will be our hold upon the penal sanction which the violation of that sanctity merit." (Page 122 of Principles of Conduct).

5) John Locke: "A criminal who, having renounced reason... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tyger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security." And upon this is grounded the great law of Nature, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Second Treatise of Civil Government.

6) Billy Graham: "God will not tolerate sin. He condemns it and demands payment for it. God could not remain a righteous God and compromise with sin. His holiness and His justice demand the death penalty." ( "The Power of the Cross," published in the Apr. 2007 issue of Decision magazine ).

7) Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "In killing the criminal, we destroy not so much a citizen as an enemy. The trial and judgments are proofs that he has broken the Social Contract, and so is no longer a member of the State." (The Social Contract).

8) Saint (& Pope) Pius V: "The just use of (executions), far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder." "The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent" (1566).

"Killing Equals Killing: The Amoral Confusion of Death Penalty Opponents"

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/02/01/murder-and...

"The Death Penalty: Neither Hatred nor Revenge"

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/20/the-death-...

"Moral/ethical Death Penalty Support: Christian and secular Scholars"

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-penalt...

"The Death Penalty: Not a Human Rights Violation"

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2006/03/20/the-death-...

1) US Death Penalty Support at 80%; World Support Remains High

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/04/us-death-pen...

Much more, upon request. sharpjfa@aol.com

No. Free food, housing, electricity, water, cable, gym, sex, healthcare, etc. How is that punishment?

not if you believe in hell

Republicans will say you have to feed them.