I used to be very pro-capital punishment. Lately though, I've been moving away from that position somewhat. In theory, I accept that the death penalty can be an appropriate punishment. If a mentally healthy person willfully takes the life of another, I see that as forfeiting their own right to life. However, in our practice I'm not sure I can support it. There is at the very least
controversy over whether or not the cost of the capital case outweighs that of life in prison, with actual statistics being very hard to come by. There is also the trouble of
exonerated death row inmates and
wrongful executions. In my opinion the difference in punishment between death and life in prison is not worth the chance of wrongful execution, which seems to be significant. There is also the
question of whether the death penalty is equally applied among everyone. Lastly, although I'm not sure I agree with this, some people have argued that the death penalty is not an equal response to murder, because death row inmates must spend years waiting and knowing that they are going to die. It is suggested this is a torture exceeding that which the convicted gave his or her victims. I think this is the weakest argument of them, but it may have some merit. In a perfect world where a 100% guilty person was immediately put to death, with the whole thing costing less than life in prison, I could easily support that, but in our real world I'm not sure anymore that capital punishment is practical.
But I'm curious about how the people on DP feel about it. Especially to see if there are significant groups of people among those who oppose the death penalty who support the idea in theory, but not in reality and those who simply oppose the idea in principle.