As one who has been both an Investigator and a Hostage Negotiator in law enforcement and worked counter insurgency in the Marine Corps, IMHO the life-saving powers of an active death penalty are legion, yet never acknowledged by those who decry its use.

Chicken Charlie got one of the reasons right earlier; sending their political prisoners to hell on the first rope or needle available, does two things; it reduces the hostage taking for exchange purposes, and gets the message through that hostage taking will bring death itself. In addition, I've always loved the moment when I've looked a defense lawyer in face, and told him that the "Commonwealth is going capital."

In Virginia, the jury determines the sentence, and they don't like hearing about rapes, hostages or mistakes during robberies or break-ins. The defense knows this, and many times will plead his client in order to avoid the death penalty, which saves far more money than any imprisonment which may result. In cases with multiple suspects, the only "Rush to Judgement" I've seen, is the pileup at the cell door when the case "goes Capital" and everyone want to be "Queen for a Day". Then it's "Rastus Mopery, come'on down..."

During hostage takings, knowing that you have three viable alternatives to work with, gives you room to manuever; he can give up and take his punishment, we can smoke him, or he will get the death penalty if anything happens to the hostages. And thanks to Virginia's steady progress in "taking out the trash," these people believe it.

And when we say to the world that terrorists will be chased down, tried, convicted, and executed, be they redneck or raghead, the world believes it, (even if they disagree). And when the next bombing suspects have an FBI agent slip into their cell and say, "Remember McVeigh?" the words will tumble from the mouth of one of them.

To say it has "no effect" is a stupid lie told by children whose limited lives have never faced true evil. Between Nam, police work, and Israel during the Gulf War, I've seen many people die, and only the children affect me any more. But the ones I actually enjoyed seeing die were the evil ones, the NVA who drove local villagers through our mine fields, the hostage taker we smoked while he was raping his hostage prior to "giving up," and a Rican who disembowelled his wife in front of their three children, and was later trapped in a wreck that a carelessly placed road flare set on fire...

The arrogant religious will tell you that the Bible says, "Vengence is mine', sayeth the Lord" but would it be the first time that an imperfect man has been an instrument of the Lord? And if the Lord allowed the first crimminal act to happen, did he not allow the second? And though some people give foolish credence to the saying that "Two Wrongs don't make a Right," (says who?) it definitely makes things EVEN for those who believe it will help them get over their loss.

As for the possibility that some "Not Guilty" person, (which, like OJ Simson, is a whole lot different than "Innocent") might get the ultimate penalty, merely for being in the Wrong place at the Right time, it bothers me not a wit. Most of the cases I investigated, were about thousands of people like that. You're far more liable to be killed by a mugger than be executed. Life is an IQ test, and generally the stupid ones die first (and in the wild, they get eaten). And for the record, I know of no case of a convict executed in Virginia being remotely innocent.

People claim that blacks are discriminated against, but the truth is, that if the penalty was applied perfectly equally throughout America, a higher rate of blacks would go under the needle than do now. You have no idea of the black crime rate in the US, and most of the states with high black populations have no death penalty or have never used one that exists. Thus their statistics are withheld from the database.

We have the diddybop "studies" which are presented with ritualistic press conferences condemning "racisim" which, when seen in the light of day, are statistical garbage, and destroyed by proper data, and when the rebutting reports are finally presented for peer review, they get no press at all.

You don't look at the racial percentage of the population to compare rates, you look at the rate of Capital crime committed by the races, and as the study that was just released by the Justice Department (started several years ago under Clinton, and then withheld during the Gore campaign) stated last week, there is NO instance of the death penalty being used in a racially discriminatory manner, a finding consistant with over thirty years of the same information, presented during the many studies filed with the Supreme Court.

All of these folks have a chance at a lie detector test whose results can only be used to clear them, and any incriminating results cannot be introduced against them. Yet there is no line up at the polygraph...

Is it working? I believe it is. I've seen convicts rat out their brother to avoid it. I've seen hostage takers with all else lost, give up because they wanted to live. And if the Irish had swung off IRA and Ulster Defensemen upon proper evidence, do you think that many of them would still be around to muck up the peace?

And I'm not alone, why do you think those who have seen the worst most often, would want to impose it the most often?