My dear friend DougR:
Unfortunately appeals are balenced against a notion called judicial eficency, by which notion the Supreme Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional to exicute a man in a case where DNA evidence proved that, beyond any doupt, the condememed man was innocent-, in Texes about four or five years ago if my memory serves, So, if this institutionalised culture of revenge now has corrupted to the point that in this land of freedom, the state can, without offending the Constituion, committ murder, for the sake of judical efficency, after a spesific number of appeals have been exhausted, well, pardon me if I say, this is no longer the nation I was born into. With some 87 innocent men killed by the state, and 24 or so proven innocent while on death row, let us stop making the argument that it is about the rightness or wrong of state killings, it is about certanty, humans cannot be certain enough to impower an uncaring state to kill.
Larry PS Would you trust someone who payed 50,000 for a toilet seat to have life and death power over you or your child's life :-0 or :-)