Having worked in the criminal justice system for well over a decade. Having personally known many police officers, lawyers and judges. I can tell you unequivocally that I do not believe in the death penalty. It isn’t the system that is so horribly flawed. it is the people who administer the system. Me being one of them. Has anyone here heard of “confirmatory bias”? it’s where you make up your mind and then you find a way to confirm what you believe. Happens every second of every day in the system. As well. While many of the folks in the system from police to judges are hard working good people. Many of them simply aren’t. And they don’t do good work. Or they are mentally ill, or addicted, or have huge personal issues. They bring their own baggage in droves. I sat through a juvenile hearing on date rape once where the judge (married and hitting on me constantly) found the young boy “not guilty” based on… and I quote word for word what he said to the victim and her family… “I heard several people testify that you said “no” but I don’t believe you meant it”!!! Trust me when i tell you that you do NOT want human beings in the system deciding who lives and dies.

PS.. not to mention the process is extremely expensive to tax payers, has been proven to not be a deterrent (the criminals or psychopaths who are going to do a crime worthy of a death penalty don’t care about the death penalty) and has absolutley no value beyond making a handful of people believe justice has been done. With all the above said. It isn’t like i don’t wish that people like Ted Bundy suffer horribly, and it isn’t like I personally wouldn’t kill someone like that if I had to. But to allow such an incredibly flawed system the legal right to kill someone. no way.

No, I am not in favor of the death penalty. We have seen so many instances of innocent people wrongly convicted and just now released because of the availability of DNA evidence that I don’t know how we can continue to allow the death penalty. A recent case, not a death penalty case, involved a man who had been convicted of rape based on the victim’s testimony. DNA evidence proved he could not have been the rapist. Humans are too flawed make the judgment over who lives and who dies.

Anne S. and Kelly Kelly … thank you for those very informative, powerful posts!

It all depends on the individual case. There cannot be a cookie cutter verdict. I wonder how many people have been executed that were not guilty, after reading about cases like this that have been discovered because of DNA evidence. This is not saying that the criminals are lily pure, but there should be indisputable evidence and the crime should be so heinous that no other solution would exist.

I think our legal system is part of the problem. It is as if technicalities and tactics win out over facts in so many cases, it is disheartening. I do not like the idea of a murderer hanging out in prison for the rest of his life, earning a degree and having some semblance of a life in prison when he or she is there for taking the life of another. But unless they are caught red-handed, confessed or otherwise truly known to be guilty, there is always the chance that we got the wrong guy. I feel that if you violate the rights of another person, then you forfeit your rights when you are caught. If the prison system was more of a punishment for those who are in for the most heinous crimes, it might be easier to feel that we didn’t need the death penalty. But when I read of the early paroles and seemingly light sentences for murderers, or worse - they get off completely because of some bizarre error… it just doesn’t make any sense.

The death penalty is not wrong because it is inconsistently administered. If it were fairly administered, it would still be wrong. I think, in the end, the issue is moral; a nation so God-besotted should be able to grasp that. When the government touches a corspe, it contaminates the privtae citizen. A modern nation that deals in state-sponsored death, becomes, in part, dead in itself; dead certainly, to the enlightened ideals from which America derives its existence as a nation.

I just remember Ted Bundy. I remember that he killed the daughter of a very close friend. I remember the agony the family had to endure at that time and ARE still enduring to this day. He was a freak. He deserved to die. Yes I believe in the death penalty.

I have heard of people who were released from prison, and commit crimes intentionally some they can be sent back. Why not? FREE FOOD, HEALH CARE, DENTAL, VISION, SHELTER, EXERCISE EQUIPMENT, SOME CABLE TV and all paid with our tax dollars. Yet drive thru some neighborhoods in our great nation and you will find poverty, many children without healhcare, children who have never gone to a dentist and so much more. Most people that are againts the death penalty, have not lost family to one of these criminals. I would rather use our tax dollars to pay more competent defense attorneys and investigators and do whatever is necessary to prove the innocence of these people, but if they are found guilty, with no doubt whasoever, then give them six months to live, post pictures of their victims in their quarters to remind them of their crime but get rid of them quick for goodness sake!

For everyone who says yes (and seems to believe that we can tell without a shadow of a doubt that people are absolutely guilty): How many of you are “pro life” and don’t believe in abortion? I find many people I talk with are sanctimonious in KNOWING they are right: no one should ever be able to have an abortion but they are absolutely certain we should execute criminals. You cannot have it both ways. If life is precious at all costs, all life is precious at all costs.