The endless appeals are ridiculous. Nobody should be sitting on death row for a decade or more in the first place.

Convict someone of a crime, and execute the sentence (Pun intended) in a swift manner.

I see no particular problem with the death penalty on a moral level. Yes the sentence should be restricted to the most serious kinds of killers. Not be applied to accidents or a momentary crimes of passion by someone with no prior history of violence.

But! For a lifelong criminal who evolves into murder, or for the sadist or contract killer, there can be no mercy.

A man who preys on his brother is not a man anymore, he is a mad dog, and should be dealt the same fate.

I'm curious as to how much of that "cost" if for appeals paid for my ant-capital punishment special interest groups.

I have no problem putting down predators. I have issue with the fact it's typically carried out 20 years later. 2 years seems plenty to me. And as several on here like to point out when it comes to abortions-it's not like we don't have plenty of people on this planet already.

I also think it should be used for far more than it is.

Me, I like the recidivism figures.

If it costs that much, you're not doing it right.

With what you pay your prison guards, execution should be cheaper. I'm sure you could outsource the entire prison system to China for a lot less...

I've been saying this for years. ONE appeal, based on DNA evidence. If you did the crime, you did it! NO amount of appeals is going change the fact. Life M4, I have no problem putting down predators either. All this hooey about lethal injection, though, needs to go. One bullet costs, what, around 50 cents? That's plenty. Right between the eyes. Done.

LiKe, not liFe! Egads.

After what has happened hear in Dallas, I also no longer support the death penalty. We have had dozens of people cleared (in many cases decades after their convictions). So many of these cases involve what I would consider prosecutorial misconduct and testing evidence with methods that were not available at the time of conviction.

Besides, I think life in prison without parole is a much harsher sentence than death.

Keep them alive, unpleasantly, and working to earn their keep.

I could agree to that if you could guarantee that they'd never get released. But you can't, 'cause there will be some Governor Dumbass (like a Dukakis or a Huckabee) who'll feel sorry for them and cut 'em some slack.

And the Usual Suspects will scream bloody murder about the "unpleasant" and "working" parts.

Until such time as the reign of benevolent Empress Amy Alkon, I'll settle for executions.

I don't think we should trust state institutions to identify candidates for the death penalty. Wrongful conviction happens and always will, and killing a citizen by accident is not the kind of mistake we HAVE to be making. It's a benefit-free risk.

Ilinois abolishe3d the death penalty after 13 wrongful convictions.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/09/134394946/illinois-abolishes-death-penalty

And not just benefit-free, but ridiculously expensive? I think we're doing it for the wrong reasons then.

Amanda Knox, currently in jail in Italy for a murder she did not commit IMO. A brief look at the "evidence" is all you need to determine that- there is none. Juries don't need evidence to convict. Think about it. Human beings on juries and in judges chairs can be biased and bigoted. They are not God, so they should not be in the position to play God over potentially innocent people. And thank God Italy does not have the death penalty.

Besides, I think life in prison without parole is a much harsher sentence than death.

It is. In fact, I'd go so far as to offer that as being cruel and unusual.

Clarifying: it's not we the people convicting the criminals. It's a state-run institution that involves the participation of the people. I amsaying we need to limit the power of state-run institutions when it comes to killing people.

Prisoners are currently banned from being organ donors too, which is insane.

@TestyTommy: "I'm curious as to how much of that "cost" if for appeals paid for my ant-capital punishment special interest groups."

When I'm feeling curious, I use Google.

"Wrongful conviction happens and always will, and killing a citizen by accident is not the kind of mistake we HAVE to be making. It's a benefit-free risk."

I agree with you that we have to do whatever is in our power to prevent wrongful convictions (on any charge, not just capital cases). However, retaining convicted incorrigible criminals is not risk- or cost-free. For starters, there's the cost of housing and feeding them in a secured environment, which is not trivial. Second, there is no guarantee that some Marxist (or just paid-off) judge won't release them at some future time, despite a no-parole-no-nothing sentence. You have to keep in mind that many of these prisoners are sociopaths of the first order, and they are very, very talented at getting other people to do what they want. These guys aren't just sitting around in their jail cells saying "oh well, that's the way it goes".

And I agree that way too much money is spent on fighting appeals on death sentences. However, if capital punishment is banned, the groups who have dedicated themselves to appealing and delaying capital cases aren't just going to go away. They'll turn their attention to life-without-parole cases, and pretty soon we'll have the same problem there. So the potential savings from eliminating capital punishment is a chimera, and it could be the start of a slippery slope. If it eventually leads to life without parole being eliminated, then what? Pretty soon we'll be like Germany, where the maximum effective sentence for any crime, no matter how serious, is about 7 years.

The financial case against the death penalty is not very convincing. You're not paying a penny for Tookie Williams now that he's wormpoop. Think of the fortune California taxpayers could have saved if he'd been fried upon conviction in 1979, instead of 26 years (!) later in 2005, and how much it would have cost to keep him locked up for another 30 years till he died of old age.

I'm not sure if its true and can't remember where I heard it so take it with a grain of salt, but I've heard that juries are less likely to convict if there is a chance the person will get death.

Before we eliminate the death penalty entirely, we should strive to find an acceptable answer to the question, What if a Charles Manson were to get out, be released, or escape?

Don't think it could happen? A cell phone was found in Manson's cell recently. Perhaps a few of those folks Manson was texting with are even now plotting his escape.

What do we tell the family of the next victim of a person we know to be an unreformed killer? Sorry, the death penalty was immoral so we let him live?

Is any system going to be perfect? No of course not. Have and will wrongful convictions happen? Yes they have, and yes they probably will in the future.

The fear of wrongfully executing a person is fully justifiable. However it is an increasingly improbable matter.

The fact is that the prison system is a horrible financial and social burden.

We need to find a more productive means to punish people. Locking someone away for 3 years or 30 years is a tremendous waste.

"Prisoners are currently banned from being organ donors too, which is insane."

Agreed. I'd like to see the entire country, including prisons, go to implied-consent. Meaning you have to fill out paperwork to opt out instead of to opt in.

I believe we have the right to put down a rabid animal, whether it is wearing a human skin or canine. We have a duty to protect society, not only from the predations of the kind of criminal that is sentenced to death, but from the cost, and the growing likelyhood that some activist judge will release these hardened killers into our midst.
Killing a killer is self defense, and I see absolutely no problem with it once a reasonable appeals process is followed. Emphasis on *reasonable*.

How do you "keep them alive unpleasantly"? If life had no gratification at all, people tend to get ugly. And since we're talking about death row inmates, these are people who have less compunction about removing someone from the face of the earth.

Concerning me, I wonder how they could make my life "unpleasant" in prison, as it is now. I mean, I've seen enough prison movies, so what will they do? Threaten to put me in solitary? Big freaking deal. I'm extremely introverted. I could endure solitary confinement long enough for the warden to die of old age.

Of course, there is the prison showers. We all know what goes on there. I've seen Oz.

I'm so for the death penalty for the sake of the third coming of Jesus Christ. I think we need great martyrs to show some evils in the world.

Actually, I'm in agreement with Tom Covington and Alice above.

I think the second Jesus was John Brown and I'm not in any way religious.

Amy, when you wrote "Anybody, in fact, who goes to prison, should have to work to pay their way." I just want to pull what little hair I have left out of my skull. I share a sense of disgust with anyone who willfully harms another person, uses violence to harm innocents etc etc. But, what of the victimless crimes that lock people up? I don't think they should be in prison.

Plus, I have a friend convicted of a crime and I'm very skeptical he is guilty of the charge. I think he's being railroaded. When you bring out such platitudes as the above, I want to scream. I know you don't advocate innocent people being punished for crimes they have no agency of. I don't know how to express my mess of a mind. Never mind. Carry on.

The people who are convicted of capital crimes by mistake are usually not innocent, but rather not guilty of the exact crimes they were accused of. They are guilty of lots of crimes, but the cops can't prove it. There are lots of unsolved murders. People who hang out with known criminals for a thrill, deserve what they get when they get drawn in by a drag net. When their friends are guilty of a murder or a rape, they think it is cool. Even if they did not do it, you encouraged them. You deserve what you get.

I hope your kidding Ken. Ever seen "the thin blue line"? Are you advocating a police state? Try reading this book, but go through Amy's store to give her a cut. http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556

Or maybe Kafka's "The Trial". About a guilty man. You tell me what he's guilty of and I'll volunteer myself for a sex change. Deal?

Thanks Amy. I'm always impressed at your quick clarifications and sorry to make you spend your time addressing them. I love your blog.

A quote from the beginning of Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" comes to mind. Just before the protagonist is about to be hung, he asks the hangman if he (the hangman) really thought the death penalty prevented crime.

The hangman answered that he wasn't sure in the general (convince others to not be criminals) sense, but in the specific - that no-one he'd ever hung had come back to the gallows again.

I'd be perfectly comfortable with the death penalty if I didn't worry about the many mistakes made. As it is, I don't trust the justice system enough to give the death penalty my stamp of approval.

Alice said it very well that it is a benefit-free risk.

"Personally, I don't feel we have a right to kill people, except in self-defense,..."

So, if you fail, the State should fail, also?

Imagine, for a moment, that Cathy Seipp had been taken, not by cancer surrounded by friends, but by a common street thug taking advantage of an inability to defend herself.

What you propose is that the weak have no alternative but to die - or to live, maimed physically and/or emptionally, while their assailant gets three hots and a cot for a long time.

And might be let out.

There are cases in which there is no doubt, like that of Jared Loughner. Why we even know his name as the killer of women and children is a mystery to me - better he should have died swiftly, either at the scene or immediately upon positive identification.

A .22 round costs a nickel.

But don't miss the point: in some cases, there is no doubt.

The main reason that it's so expensive to execute criminals is because of our legal system, when you break it down to its fundamental roots. On one side you have the prosecutor, who is paid extremely well to use all their knowledge, creativity, tricks of the trade, legal loopholes, and other resources to convince a mix of semi-random people (the jury) that the person on trial is guilty. On the other hand, you have the defense attorney, who is paid extremely well to use all their knowledge, creativity, tricks of the trade, legal loopholes, and other resources to convince that same mix of people that the person on trial is innocent.

In the case of death row inmates, time is money, and delaying tactics by the defense are very often used to drag the whole thing out. To throw another wrinkle in the matter, those that plead guilty very rarely if ever get executed. Typically if guilt is obvious, the defense plea bargains with the prosecution to plead guilty for a lesser crime that merits a long amount of time behind bars, but not the death penalty.

This means that the vast majority of people who are on death row have pleaded innocent. And so, every stone must be unturned, every corner looked into, and every scrap of evidence analyzed and re-analyzed and then re-analyzed again when new technology comes out. Since so much is at stake (IE- a person's life), everything has to be done twenty times more carefully and when you're doing things extremely carefully, it takes a long time and a lot of money.

The electricity to execute a person costs 17 cents, the cocktail of lethal injection drugs costs something like $20, and a bullet costs 50 cents. Making sure that bullet is aimed at the right person is the expensive part. And often we don't even get that part right.

"Prisoners are currently banned from being organ donors too, which is insane."

A high percentage of them are hepatitis-C carriers. It's too much of a risk.

"Making sure that bullet is aimed at the right person is the expensive part. And often we don't even get that part right."

A .22 round costs a nickel.

But don't miss the point: in some cases, there is no doubt.

Click, click, pop! Thud. Victims need not worry any more, taxpayers don't pay tens of thousands a year.

Personally I think the death penaty should only be used in cases with direct video or eye witness testimony.

It may sound paranoid but alot of the other evidnce can be faked it someone really wanted to railroad someone or shift the blame from someone.

Ofcourse perjury in a death penalty case should be punishable by death as well

There are cases in which there is no doubt, like that of Jared Loughner. Why we even know his name as the killer of women and children is a mystery to me - better he should have died swiftly, either at the scene or immediately upon positive identification. - Radwate

The reason we know his name is beacuse mass shootings are rare and always make the news.

And quite frankly has his family not had the ability to pull on political strings for favors he would have been locked up years before the shooting.

And Rad is right btw there is no doubt of his guilt, only his state of mind which is in my opinion immiteral. Either he knew what he was doing and should be executed, or he was out of his mind and should therefore (as it is 'immoral' to kill insane murderers) be locked in a 9x9x9 cell in a mental ward until he dies.

Why were still in pretrail is beyond me