I am against the death penalty.

1. We are seeing far too many cases where the innocent have been falsely convicted of crimes by corrupt police and prosecutors. Nobody can be 100% sure. If you don't believe me, google "GOlubske Kansas City Kansas."

2. Nobody considers the effects on people who carry out the executions. Do we have the right to ask somebody to do such a thing, even if they say it doesn't bother them?

3. Few people have read books about child abuse, brain damage, drug use, gang life, street life, sex trafficking, mental illness... The average juror has little idea of what the usual criminal has been through.

Somebody did a study years ago and found that every man on death row had been beaten about the head as a child while the family took them to a different hospital every time to prevent anybody asking questions. Sadly, nobody paid much attention to the study, as far as I could see.

Why do I say "man"? Because abusers tend to abuse girls by sexually assaulting them and to abuse boys by hitting them in the head. Also, there are far more men and women on death row.

However, I was reading a true crime book which was more recent, and the accused refused to take a scan to see if he had a damaged brain. The stigma among the poor is so powerful that he was too proud to risk it although it might help his case. (So maybe I'm wrong and somebody did pay attention to the study.)

4. Just recently I read about a prosecutor with a very good record on convictions and who told the author that he did not want educated people as jurors. He said he didn't want jurors who "second-guess the witnesses." To me that sounds like he doesn't want anybody who thinks critically or considers the possibility that the witness is lying.