Theocracy alive and well in Utah (and considerations of the death penalty)

Your argument assumes a perfect legal justice system. Are you still anxious to support execution given that a percentage of those we send to their deaths will be innocent of their crime?And if you support the execution of those who wrongly take a life, will you march yourself into the gas chamber when it turns out you've supported the murder of an innocent person?To me it's unacceptable for even a single person to be executed wrongly. So I can't support a practical use of the death penalty.

But we can never be sure. That's the problem. Even your waiting period assumes that the appeals process is sufficient to remove doubt about sentencing. It's not.At least in a life sentence you get to stick around to argue your case some more. You've still got a chance. Execution robs even that chance.

Why not just wait until they die naturally? (and why do you think low-profile accused murderers are somehow less deserving of protections? That's where the most innocents get sent to the chair, the low-profile murders.) I don't believe that a "proven killer" could exist. There's just no way to prove. After all, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is still short of "no doubt whatsoever."

But that's every single case. Because jail time isn't permanent. You can let them out of jail if you find out you did something wrong, and in the meantime, you've kept a potentially dangerous person off the streets. If it turns out they weren't dangerous at all, then you let them out and find the right person. But you can't undo lethal injection.Remember, if you send an innocent man to the chair, you're doing two bad things. Killing an innocent person and leaving a dangerous one to walk the streets. After all nobody goes back to look at cases after they've executed somebody for the crime. The appeals process, at least, keeps those cases under some kind of scrutiny.

Nobody gives the death sentence without a jury. Judges can't give the death penalty. Only juries. But if it were possible to "prove" that somebody killed someone, wouldn't they have already done that at the trial? If you've already convicted him, how can you get more sure? The point is, of course, that you can never be sure enough to kill someone.

6 months to one year later, when I'm asked to pull the guy out of a line-up, or identify him at his trial? Not sure enough to kill somebody for it.

How does that follow? The only people that can prove your guilt or innocence are the jury. If you didn't have a jury, it's because it wasn't provable that you committed the crime.If you confess, you don't generally get the death penalty. If the judge wants you to die, he has to convene a jury to decide, I believe. Only juries can give the death penalty. Yes, it's called "presumption of innocence", and it's a basic fundamental law of jurisprudence in this country. Maybe you've heard of it.

Well, that's all I'm saying, I guess. "Eye for an eye" may be a theoretically just way to operate, in some opinions, but in practical use it's just not possible.

And I'm somehow supposed to be sure that he doesn't have an identical twin, or a clone, or even just somebody that really , really looks like him?I mean, I can be as sure that he's the killer as I am that I was alive yesterday, or that there's no God - but that's not absolute certainty. That's only tentative certainty. You can be as certain as you like, but I can always construct scenarios that, while ludicrous and improbable, are always possible. So long as there's another possible scenario besides "he did it" we can't be absolutely sure he did it.Basically I'm saying that while I'm sure know, there's no way that any of us could know that we'll always be sure that he did it. Given that we're talking about someone's life, I think life in prison is a reasonable compromise in the light of our tentative knowledge.

Yes, that's my point. No, what gives it special relevance is that a person's life is on the line. All knowledge may be tentative but you can't tentatively execute someone. Death is absolute. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect absolute knowledge if you're going to absolutely execute someone. Since you can't have that kind of knowledge, execution is unreasonable.What's hard to grasp about that? Is it unreasonable to demand absolute certainty if you're going to give the absolute punishment?

Because you can let them out. Duh.If they've served 20 years and then you find out you made a big mistake, you can let them out. Sure, they've lost 20 years and that totally sucks, but man, that's still way better than having to tell their family that you executed them by mistake. At least they still have the rest of their life left. Again, you can let someone out halfway through their sentence. You can't undo the death penalty. There's an enormous difference between dignity and life. Dignity can be found once it has been lost. Life cannot.

Sorry, in retrospect I guess that was rather dismissive.But it seems obvious to me that life in prison is more humane than death. There's always the hope of release, especially if you're innocent. I was surprised, then, for you to say that you couldn't see that life in prison was the more humane option.This isn't assisted suicide we're talking about, after all. We're talking about killing people who don't want to be killed. What's in the least humane about that? Life is always more humane than an unwanted death.