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Arguments Against Execution |
The down side to execution is that sometimes you execute the innocent. Although we like to think this is rare, it isn't. It is far too common. We have the illusion that our court systems are fair and just and that the legal system produces accurate results. The problem is in reality justice is more like a shotgun than like a laser. It is at best imprecise and often highly corrupt and abused. As a result innocent people are wrongly convicted and executed. Some nation states impose death for trivial crimes. In southeast Asian countries you can be executed for small amounts of drugs. In Muslim countries women are often stoned to death for sexual behavior. America allows prosecutors to make deals with prisoners to get them to lie against an accused person who they want to convict in exchange for a lighter sentence.
The death penalty costs too many innocent lives to be justifiable.
In a corrupt judicial environment one has to weigh the rights of the families of murder victims against the rights of the families of the people who are wrongly executed by the state and decide if the incremental advantage of execution over life in prison is worth the cost of putting the innocent to death. We have concluded that clearly it is not. That the lives of the innocent is not sufficient to justify executing the guilty.
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The Death Penalty 
