Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
As I noted, Kad', I am no longer a proponent of the death penalty. My comment was against your labeling it as "murder."

I would agree that it is probably not the best option in a vast majority of instances. Historically, the death penalty has shown rather little in the way of deterrence value; given modern practice the cost of trying a death penalty case and housing those sentenced to death after the exhaustion of appeals, stays and what-not is about $2.5M per offender -- whereas trial and a sentence of life without parole would require that the prisoner live more than 50 years to become a greater cost burden to the state; finally, whatever the death penalty does to stop recidivism (Vincenzo is correct that it does stop repeat offenses once sentence is completed) is countered in part by those who have been wrongly sentenced to death (pretty hard to gain judicial review after the death penalty has been carried out).
When DNA was invented and used, it proved a lot of cold case death sentences were just... wrong.

How's that for a kick in the balls.


I understand that you are no hardcore death sentence guy... But you still play devils advocate, defending it somewhat.

Me? I'd rather we spend our energy on how to best re-program prisoners alternatively lock them in but still have them contributing to society... Rather than spending our energy on how best to kill people.