Rex, your mention of the rich committing crimes is actually a really good reminder-the death penalty is skewed against poor people of color, while rich whites tend to receive more lenient sentences. Racism and Class oppression have always been linked with the death penalty in America, another reason why I can never condone it.

Assuming you don’t curtail the rights of the accused to fair trial, the ratio of costs stands. Some information gathered by the Dallas Morning News in a March 8th 1993 evaluation of death penalty policy shows that the cost of processing and execution is 2.3 million dollars, or 3 times the cost of 40 years in prison.
More recent data (2003) from Kansas shows the cost of capital cases exceed those of non-capital cases by 70%, while a 2000 study found Florida’s death penalty costs 51 million more than it would to keep the same men locked up for life. Anyone in the mood for fiscal responsibility? STOP KILLING PEOPLE. IT WILL SAVE US MONEY.

MrsCaptJack, with regard to your last point, I agree that forgiveness, say, in the case of a brutal hate crime like this one is unlikely to be received (and far less likely to be deserved), our justice system should not be based on vengeance. Our justice system should be aimed at rehabilitation in most cases, and prevention of recidivism in cases where rehabilitation is not an attractive option. Prevention of recidivism can involve keeping the villain locked up in humane but spartan conditions for his entire miserable life. Personally, I believe the death penalty is wrong in principle, while you apparently do not. We can continue to argue the morality of it, and never satisfy the other of the justness of our respective causes but, barring the curtailment of the right to trial, no set of numbers can suggest that execution is economically responsible.

That said, I still think it’s wrong, and a horrible human rights violation. We must reform the penal system, and abolish execution once and for all.

As far as the death penalty goes, a lot of money would be saved if the automatic appeal process was removed. I’m not talking about an appeal on the merits of the case, I’m talking about the automatic appeal they get when the death penalty is involved.

Assemble a firing squad, give one guy the real bullet and shoot. Very, very few people out there are capable of forgiving a person who tortured or killed someone they love/loved.

Lawrence Russell Brewer was proven guilty via DNA and witnesses. Brewer’ decision to murder James Byrd Jr. in this gruesome and horrific manner were himself and his associates.

Many people are brought up in poverty and never commit any crime at all. However, when poverty, drugs, and hate are combined, even wealthy people have been known to commit crimes, even hate crimes.

I regard every execution as a tragedy. If we invested some of the money we spend on prisons, frequently unfair trials, and costly poison, we could stop a lot of crimes before they start.
End the death penalty. End poverty. We’ll all be better off.

A racist pig and a probably innocent black man were both arbitrarily killed by the state last night, and I cry for them both. We are one of only 2 “democracies” in the world who still do this. We need to stop.