it is a tuff question to answer.

The main reason I am agaisnt death penalty is because it makes the person suffer for life for the crime they done. Death is an easy way out for them. But then again if the prison is like a holiday inn (as some are here) then they are not really being punished.

For serious crimes, prisoners should be put through the worst conditions possible for life so they suffer.

ie.

- no windows.

- let out once a month

- left over food from other low crime prisoners

- no heated cells

- no bed just a mattress on the ground.

In Australia, capital punishment is only legal when we set Stingray's on really annoying television personalities.

This is inhumane beyond reason

so is killing people. they need to feel what the families of the victim feel.

Against it for every reason.

It costs more money to execute somebody than to imprison them for life, due to the amount of appeals necessary for death sentences.  This is to try to avoid mistakes, which still happen.  If they wanted to make it cheaper, they'd have to have fewer appeals, and make more mistakes.  If they wanted to make it more efficient, and never accidentally kill anybody, it would cost much more money.

So the best way to have the fewest accidental executions and save the most money is to ban the death penalty altogether.

I am for the death penalty because there are some crimes that are such a crime against nature they warrant it. For example, there is a case here in the US such as this:

http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2010/09/24/news/doc4c9b47269e679294935967.txt

In a case such as this where 2 individuals with a lengthy criminal history kidnap the wife of a doctor and  theyoungest daughter of the doctor, take them back to their house, rape the wife, rape the 11 year old, while the father is tied up, and murder the wife then finish it with burning down the house killing the 11 year old daughter and 17 year old daugther is just unfathomable and unforgivable.

This case is the Petit family murder case out of Cheshire, Connecticut. It is a prime example of why we need the death penalty.

Emotional appeals are not a sound base for punishment. Justice isn't about feelings.

The exception is never the rule. We have DNA evidence nowadays, if we use it during the appeals process for the death penalty, then that is the death row prisoner's trump card. No dna evidence? You should have never been convicted.

I just don't like it when anti-death penalty advocates always argue from the logical fallacy "the exception is the rule" to try and dissuade public opinion on the issue. It is blatantly dishonest and in any system, death penalty or not, you will have innocent individuals behind bars. Getting rid of the death penalty will not rid the problem of wrongful convictions.

I agree with the appeals process eventhough it is long and expensive because we are ensuring due process with the amount of appeals and sheer time (10-20 years before executed) it takes to execute a prisoner on death row.

The problem with the appeals process is not enough money for the US courts to expediate the appeals process. If we, and I am favor of this, increased taxes to give the courts more money to speed up the appeals process, then we would not have the decades long cases of individuals such as Mumia Abu Jamal who should have been executed 2 decades ago.

Getting rid of the death penalty would not end wrongful convictions.

It would, however, end wrongful executions, which was one small part of his point.

It's not that the exception is the rule. It's that the exception is institutionalized murder.

What you are describing to me is "cruel and unusual punishment" forbidden under the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution.

I understand where you are coming from in that we should not think of the perpetrator as the "victim," but I have to disagree with such solitary confinement that kills individuals by driving them insane.

A firing squad is more humane than what you are describing. Hell, even a hanging is.