For or against the death penalty? I am STRONGLY AGAINST it.?

All human institutions get it wrong some of the time. The death penalty is no exception and its worst mistakes are irreversible. No matter how hard we try, the risk of executing an innocent person continues. In the US, 144 147 wrongly convicted people on death row have been exonerated. Some believe that DNA can prevent executions of innocent people but it’s rarely available in homicides, often irrelevant and can’t give us the guarantee we want. Many other forensic methods have been found wanting, either because of flawed science or laboratory mistakes or both.

The death penalty costs far more than life in prison, with the largest costs upfront, applying whether or not a defendant is convicted, let alone sentenced to death. Cases usually take over a year to come to trial. Choosing jurors takes much longer than in other cases. Unlike non death penalty trials, a death penalty trial involves evidence about the defendant’s entire life, character and mental health- not just the actual crime. Jurors have to predict the future dangerousness of a convicted defendant. Hardly any defendant facing a possible death sentence can afford a qualified attorney, and counties must pay for them. Death penalty trials can last four times longer than other trials.

The death penalty is no more effective in deterring future murders than life sentences. Homicide rates are higher in states that use the death penalty. More and more people working in the criminal justice field acknowledge that, for someone without a conscience, the best deterrent is the fear of being caught and that few such individuals pay attention to other consequences.

The death penalty is arbitrary, in the sense that factors unrelated to the actual crime come into play. Prosecutors have enormous discretion about whether to seek it. Local politics play a role. The death penalty doesn’t apply to the worst crimes, but to defendants with the worst lawyers.

A better option for the worst crimes is life without parole. Life without parole, on the books in most states, also prevents reoffending. 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

Families of murder victims differ in their views of the death penalty. But, like no other punishment, the death penalty subjects them to a process which makes healing even harder. Even families who have supported it in principle have testified to the protracted and unavoidable damage that the death penalty process does to families like theirs and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

The death penalty may serve revenge and retribution, the only plausible (though not defensible) reasons to support it.

Against.

I think being locked up for life would be worse than death. In life they can ask for forgiveness, and be in heaven before we do, and the one that killed them would suffer the consequences as one in prison.

I think once they are locked away..that's a good enough punishment for them.

I am strongly for it,but I am in the UK and we will never have it back. Its a matter of being more concerned with trying to protect the weak and the innocent of being on the side of criminals,

Strongly FOR,esp moslim terrorists.

im strongly for it and i dont see why you are against it i had a question of why people are against it i still didnt understand their reasons eye for an eye the majority wants it that way god wants it that way (exodus and leviticus)

I am apolitical but shed no tears if bad people are executed.

what if the killer tortured then murdered one of your parents / relatives or a really good friend then laughed about it in the courtroom ...

would you feel differently then....

well....

yes AND no...

depending on their crime they should/could/would get the chop

AGAINST...In UK...