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I’m afraid I have to disagree with just about everything I’ve read in the comments, with the caveat that there can be absolutely no doubt as to the persons guilt. My main reason is that, at best, this perspective ignores the value of the victim while valuing the perp. Even worse, with talk of redeeming the perp, we reduce the victim to the level of a stage prop to be used and discarded in the murderer’s process of “redemption” that we assume they actually want. It seems society’s message should be that life is so precious that a taker of it is immediately dealt with severely and permanently.
Can't it be both, though? Leaving room for redemption and incomplete evidence while providing justice for the victim? I guess if the death penalty was a stronger deterrent than life in prison, you could make a case (not sure what the evidence shows). I'd still want to be 100% sure they were guilty.
I don’t think it can be both without undermining the value of the victim’s life
I have always been totally opposed to the death penalty on several grounds. In the general case, I feel that there is no absolute way to be 100% sure of guilt in most cases, and so taking someone's life without being 100% certain just feels wrong and immoral to me. There are some cases where it can be certain (a shooting witnessed by plenty of bystanders or others or recorded live on TV) but even then, I find myself saying we can't take a life for a life. And the state only becomes implicated in handing out death when we do that. So I feel life without possibility of parole and if necessary for safety, in solitary confinement, is an appropriate penalty.
Completely agree. And I can't help feeling that circumstances out of individuals' control can play a big part in how they behave, and therefore there's always hope for redemption.
Death penalty leaves no room for redemption or the possibility of having gotten it wrong and finding new evidence later. While I can see the deterrence value, I can't comfortable it.
if you're voting keep it: does that hold even for cases where DNA testing wasn't around, evidence rots, and the wrong person ends up dead. where's your line