Issue Position:The Death Penalty

Issue Position

Issue Position: Death Penalty

With the advent of DNA examination, some 150 convictions have been overturned when the new technique produced proof of innocence.

The justice system is not perfect. Nothing that Man creates can be. The death penalty assumes either that man has created something perfect, or that killing innocent people is acceptable to achieve an end. There are innocent people in prison for crimes they did not commit, as is the nature of our world. Our right to life is God-given and courts should not be permitted to take that away. Every innocent convict has the right to live to be exonerated.

The death penalty is an infraction on the right to life and the right to justice.

Some argue that the death penalty discourages crime. But think about this: Capital punishment is ordinarily only for murder convictions, and since a deadly attack can be met with the same in self-defense, a killer has already put his life at risk to commit the crime in the first place. Not only that, but people rarely commit capital crimes expecting to be convicted. And in crimes of passion, would it make a difference to a crazed killer, whether the sentence would be "life without parole" or execution?

And although it should be a state and not federal concern, it's worth noting that the price of the death penalty is enormous. (source) New York, according to the source, averaged $23 million per execution. This is more than most of us will spend in our entire lives.

Are our tax dollars worth this? Life without parole is no picnic. Is the enormous expense of the death penalty justified by the possible, but un-substantiated suggestion that it may deter crime? Is this hypothetical deterrent worth the occasional killing of innocent lives?

Too often, good people overlook the cost to the innocent of punishing the guilty. As with intrusive regulatory measures that diminish the freedom of law-abiding people as a cost of fighting corruption, good intentions can have bad consequences. I would prefer that many evil people suffer a lifetime of incarceration instead of a quick death, than even a few wrongfully convicted, good people are killed.

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