I personally feel the death penalty is wrong. I do not want a government, that is supposed to represent the people, to have the right to take the lives of it's citizens. Just recently the court fond that a man convicted and spent 20 years in jail was innocent of the crime, he was helped by the Innocents Project.

It has been repeatedly found that the death penalty has been unjustly applied.

See

The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if the victim is white

http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/c...


It is more expensive to put someone to death than life in prison.

See

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29552692/ns/...

We in the US jail way to many of our citizens as it is

List of countries by incarceration rate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...

For these, and many more reasons, I feel the death penalty should be abolished.

I agree with Joe.. The death penalty IS a deterrent but only when your faced with it.. Meanwhile, crime in it's varied levels continues.. Why is this? Because the threat of death is simply that, a threat, that is until you have to face it and I'm afraid it's a little too late at that point and does it's example thwart those who follow in like manner? Not at all until THEIR faced with it (too late). Putting them away until death doesn't seem to placate anyone either (understandably) BUT the act of execution isn't laid upon the shoulders of the otherwise innocent who are thrust into a legal process that most often they don't comprehend and is something they must live with for the rest of their lives as well.