http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2010/12/the-death-penalty-an-opinion-lab/ Smart Conversation about the Constitution Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:04:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2010/12/the-death-penalty-an-opinion-lab/#comment-1654 Katherine LeDuc Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:04:01 +0000 http://blog-dev.constitutioncenter.org/ncc/?p=1748#comment-1654 The death penalty needs to be abolished for at least a couple of reasons. The first is that it is irreversible in case of error. If a person is wrongly convicted and then executed, there is no way to rectify that should new evidence come to light at some later date or should someone else confess to the crime. The second is the inequitable manner in which the penalty is imposed and enforced. The third is expense- even considering the expense of keeping a felon locked up for the rest of his life, it is still more expensive to execute a prisoner because of all the appeals that have to be handled before the sentence is carried out. (Note appeals have noting to do with guilt or innocence- only error on the part of the court or the attorneys- so the argument that the appeals protect the innocent does not apply.)

]]> http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2010/12/the-death-penalty-an-opinion-lab/#comment-1641 William N. Coats Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:33:26 +0000 http://blog-dev.constitutioncenter.org/ncc/?p=1748#comment-1641 The death penalty, if it is to be used at all, should be reserved for those murders that are particularly heinous. It should never be used in those instances of crimes in which no one is killed (such as the famous Chessman case in California-1960).

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