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Everyone understands that the government and the criminal justice system is imperfect. We have them anyway, because the alternatives are worse. Sending an inn
by reality_czech 10y ago
Everyone understands that the government and the criminal justice system is imperfect. We have them anyway, because the alternatives are worse. Sending an innocent man to jail for life is not fundamentally different from executing him. You can't give people back years of their life, and many people die in prison for various reasons.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoThere is a fundamental difference: the living person could continue to lobby his case via extraordinary means (pardon, etc) or wait until there's some meta-analysis of evidence or other event that frees him. Being killed means this never happens. Once the execution takes place, there's no going back. We've seen several of these cases of people in prison for years getting their lives back recently. We don't hear about this happening to the executed, because we can't give life back.
- reality_czech 10y agoI agree that the death penalty is not to be taken lightly, but that is different from arguing that it should not be used at all. There are lots of examples of crime bosses, murderers, and drug kingpins escaping from prison, but no instances of them returning from the dead. Lives may be lost from inaction as well as action, and the philosophy that "we must be 100% certain to do anything in life" is a self-serving and disingenuous argument, which could be applied equally well against any punishment the state might choose to apply.
- hackuser 10y ago> the living person could continue to lobby his case via extraordinary means (pardon, etc) or wait until there's some meta-analysis of evidence or other event that frees him. That's theoretically true, but how often does it happen? My impression is that more people are exonerated on death row than when serving life sentences.