Some people believe that no government has the right to kill anyone.  I don't agree with that but I'm not going to say that all of those people are stupid or even misguided.  It's just what they believe and that's why there are some places that have death penalties and some that don't.

I don't know what these people would think about killing Hitler but it might be different it you were talking about dropping a bomb on him while he was still in power or hanging him after he was no longer a threat to anyone.

Although I am generally in favor of death penalties I have some problems with it.

- Can you be absolutely without any any doubt whatsoever that you have the right guy?  In many cases you can.  No problem there.

- It's insanely expensive. Life with no possibility of parole is much cheaper.

- Despite all that 5th Amendment blather you really can be tried twice for the same crime.  If you make it out of state court the federal government is waiting to try you for some BS federal offense that carries the death penalty.

- The feds don't even need a death penalty.  Mr. Obama has just discovered that the constitution allows him to kill anyone he wants, even US citizens, without trial.

Webb wrote on Nov 10^th, 2012 at 11:54pm:



Yes it is, I read am article about that very point last week, Each death row convict costs from conviction to execution around $300 million where as life is in the hundreds of thousands. During the election last week, California has this very point on the ballot form, and end to capital punishment on the cost grounds.......

Matt

jetprop wrote on Nov 11^th, 2012 at 9:50am:

I thought the prisons were privately owned? Either way, Obama (or any president, as it has been the case for a while) won't see that money.

Basically, in order to put someone to death, they must have the best chance of living. That means the best lawyers (several of them), a team of experts, specialists (including psychologists, investigators, etc). The whole shebang.

Those specialists are paid for by the government out of public spending. It's so that people who can't afford the best lawyers during their trial will have the chance to have the best for free to protect them when they're defending their life.

It would be too dark-aged just to send them to death with no defence, so they pay for their best defence.

jetprop wrote on Nov 11^th, 2012 at 12:33pm:

Between 150 and 260 privately owned correctional facilities in the USA. Naturally, there has been some criticism.

And yeah, I'm not quite sure where the 300M value has come from. The Guardian did a bit on it though: Capital Punishment Cost to the USA

It certainly isn't cheap, but it's not 300M expensive. Unless they're just tallying up all of the death row'ers?