The Death Penalty - are you for or against it and why?

[technophobe]

VOTING INSTRUCTIONS: If you support the death penalty for ANY reason, or for ANY law, then you support the death penalty on this poll. So, for example, if you support the death penalty for murder but not for rape then you would vote "I support it". If you are completely against the death penalty then you vote would vote "I oppose it".

If you post on this discussion, I only ask that you vote in the poll (either before or after discussion) as well so that we can see how this strong atheist community views the death penalty.

I started this thread as the result of a conversation with Ashendant so that we can discuss it more indepth and in topic with the rest of the membership on this wonderful forum.

Thankyou

I am against the DP. It is unfairly applied and executed, no pun intended. In the U.S., if you are a person of color and you commit a capital offense, you are more likely than a white defendant to be charged under the DP. Ditto if you are poor. Few of those who receive the DP receive an adequate defense... the State has an almost infinite amount of resources to mount a prosecution, but few defendants are able to spare no expense. Most have public defenders and even those who don't often have attorneys who are paid for with public funds. Rarely can a defendant pay for an adequate defense that may (and should) involve separate investigators and private/independent examination of the evidence. Then there is the expense of appeals, which can run the cost of an execution into the millions and for those who say "Oh, fuck the appeals, they're guilty anyway," they need to stop and consider how many INNOCENT individuals have been released in the past decade due to DNA exoneration.

And mostly..... I'm against the death penalty because it's just plain fucking wrong to kill another human being, no matter how heinous their crime. Two wrongs will never make it right.