I used to be strongly pro-death penalty. I still have little sympathy for people who find that kind of anti-social behavior acceptable or even pleasant. (I may believe that the concept that murder is wring is a social one, and not a universal truth, but it's still our society, our rules, and those rules makes for a more orderly one.) Over time, I have become very anti-dealth penalty, at least in the practical application if not the moral application.

The truth is, justice is not certain and innocent people die. Even one is too many. Being fallible humans, this uncertainly about applying the death penalty isn't going to change short of some major evolution.

Secondly, I don't believe it's a deterrant. Instead, I think it has the opposite effect. By sanctioning killing as a penalty for killing, it blurs the moral issue, particulary for the very young (and impressionable) or those of defective intelligence -- and many murderers are.

Making a sport and spectacle of it is even worse, like the attempts to televise McVeigh's execution. Ironically, those who champion this are often the first ones to whine about how violent video games and movies are corrupting youth.

And third, I think the vast sums of effort and money spent trying to be sure the guy is really (or is not guilty), plus the huge cost of the execution itself, could be better spent on prevention. Very little effort goes into determining WHY these people are they way they are and how they get created. Maybe it's mental illness. Maybe it's physical illness.

Detour: About 80 years ago, a dentist by the name of Weston Price was searching for the cause of cavities and came across some astonishing correlation between the diet of both parents preceeding conceptionand the proponderance of both cavities and facial deformities in their children. Some of his research compared common facial deformities in mug shots of notorious criminals with those caused by nutritional deficiencies in parents -- many matches. Correcting facial deformities in children with Down's Syndrome (by using a new-fangled technique called 'orthidontry') improved behavior and brain function. Even he recogonized that these coincidences needed further research. (At the time, the theory was that physical deformities were caused by racial mixing, but the deformities he is speaking of are ones that wouldn't be obvious to the average layman as such. The photos in the book are most illuminating.)

And yet, no one every dicusses criminal behavior as a potential disease that can be a) prevented or b) corrected. It's always "the upbringing" or the person is "just bad." Some might be one or either -- but what about other triggers and causes that might substantially reduce violent crime? Isn't that better than killing the guy AFTER he's made comeone a victim?

Then again, we could tell potential parents that eating ice cream definately caused mass-murdering children, and sales would probable still tick along. End Detour.

And finally, I have no desire to kill anyone save in a last ditch self-defense. We live in a democracy (still, I think), so when the government kills someone I think the blood is on every citizen's hands. It's like folks who eat meat but wouldn't kill to survive. Just because someone else does the dirty work, it doesn't you aren't responsible for it.