The Death Penalty

I used to be "squishy" on the death penalty issue.  I was never a hardcore "hang 'em high" type, but I used to think that if you killed someone, you deserved to die.  And in a way, I still think that.  Many people have that emotional reaction to crime. Many of us think that if someone we love was murdered, we would want the person who did it to die.  I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that.

Over the years though, my opinion on the issue has evolved.  I used to think that from a realistic point of view, it was a whole lot cheaper to just execute someone than to incarcerate them for the rest of their lives.  Then I learned that it's actually more expensive to impose the death penalty, because of the legal fees associated with the mandatory appeals process.

I used to think that death was the "ultimate penalty."  But after mulling it over for awhile, I think that it's actually more of a punishment to spend the rest of your long life in prison.  Just because you're alive, that doesn't mean your life is good.  Death can actually be a kind of escape from responsibility.

I used to think that our justice system was more or less right on when convicting people, but after hearing the stories of many people who were either innocent or at the very least had a decent amount of reasonable doubt in their case, I'm convinced we have executed innocent people.

I used to think that the death penalty was reserved for the "worst of the worst," but that is clearly not the case anymore.

I used to think that the family of the victim(s) had the right to see the perpetrator of the crime put to death, but now I think that the family of the victim(s) of a violent crime is probably not in the best place to be deciding anything.  And should we leave these kinds of life or death decisions up to people who are in an unimaginable emotional state?

We all look back on the middle ages with all their beheadings and various creative ways to execute people with wonder and a sense of "what were they thinking?"  But aren't we really doing the same thing?  Just because our method of execution is cleaner and quieter, is it any different?

On it's face, the death penalty seems to make at least some sense.  An eye for an eye.  But how can we be positive that the eye we're taking is the right one?  The justice system is run by people, and people make mistakes.  I don't want to take that chance.