Beyond aboloshing the death penalty, I'm also 100% in favor of aboloshing jailhouse witnesses. You're going to offer a guy who's facing 15 years a 5 year sentence to come in and testify against somebody else? And you expect him to be honest? Give me a freakin break. I bet the vast majority of convicts would finger their own mother on a murder rap to get a few years knocked off their sentence.
It can serve a purpose though, Don. If you can put away a criminal you could not have before, a criminal who causes far more grief and suffering than the jailhouse witness, then I don't see a problem.

As to the point of the thread, agreed, one of the biggest reasons against the death penalty and why it should never be allowed in a decent society.