Death Penalty

>>"Ok how can you say that it is usual to strap a person down to a table and inject him with poisons that will kill him. how is it usual to strap a person to a chair with sponges up there buts and masks over there face to keep them from vomiting and craping all over the place while your send thousands of volts through there body there is not anything usual about that." You argue the specifics of the nature of execution. We're talking about capital punishment in general. Appealing to specifics is immaterial when considering execution as a general topic. If you want to debate methods, fine, but it needs to be done on a state-by-state basis. Obviously there are states where this is NOT unusual. >>"when on death row you have a unlimited amout of appeals that are all paid for by our court systems. plus various other expences so yes even an 18 yr old sitting in jail for the rest of there life is cheaper then the death penalty. infact it cost." Again - the fact that the appeals of inmates are paid for by the court is a failure of the judiciary system. Wonderful - I'm interested in capital punishment, not the failures of the judiciary system. >>"At the trial level, death penalty cases are estimated to generate roughly $470,000 in additional costs to the prosecution and defense over the cost of trying the same case as an aggravated murder without the death penalty and costs of $47,000 to $70,000 for court personnel. On direct appeal, the cost of appellate defense averages $100,000 more in death penalty cases, than in non-death penalty murder cases. Personal restraint petitions filed in death penalty cases on average cost an additional $137,000 in public defense costs." You want to argue economics... very well... "Total annual costs for all U.S. Prisons, State and Federal, was $17.7 billion in 1994 along with a total prison population of 1.1 million inmates. That amounts to $16100 per inmate/year. (GOA report and testimony FY-97 GGD-97-15)." Keeping an inmate alive to the average age of 75 costs about $805,000 if they are 25 at the time of imprisonment. If they are 18, that figure rises to $917,700. Inmates only need to spend a little over 62 years in prison to cost 1 million to taxpayers, NOT COUNTING MEDICAL EXPENSES AS THEY AGE. It's perfectly reasonable for a person to live to 80. Imprisoned at 18, lives till 80 = 1 Million. You argue that it costs roughly $800,000 assuming ALL the above costs from your copied argument are actual. This is still less than 50 years in prison. And on top of that, here's an interesting little fact: The cost for the lethal injection drugs is only about $86 (http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us...) So somehow, the costs associated with the death penalty must go from that $86 to nearly $800,000 in costs OTHER THAN COURT CASES for the argument against the death penalty to hold water. Because the inmate could appeal his case and win, making the costs not relevant to the case. Lets consider a guilty person in a trial where the death penalty is sought. If they plead guilty and go to prison, they cost the taxpayer the $800,000 and are not killed. If they are guilty and given the death penalty, they cost the persons financially responsible for the guilty party the additional $470,000, plus the cost of injection ($86). The taxpayer's cost is IMMENSELY less to kill a person, rather than keep him alive for 50 years. There's also the consideration of the taxpayer - do they want to pay to keep a criminal alive, or do they want to pay to kill him? Current figures say about 65% will pay to kill him. >>"when innocent people die that is an issue with the death penalty. because if the death penalty was not used then those people would have a chance to prove. the death penalty is too perminate." When innocent people die, that is obviously because the court has improperly rendered a verdict. Blaming the death penalty for these deaths is like saying that if someone aims a gun at the wrong target the gun is to blame for the death. That's ludicrous. The court is at fault for innocent deaths, not the death penalty. Besides, if they're innocent and get life in prison, you've argued that this is a worse penalty... so by your own logic, we should keep the death penalty because to do otherwise would impose a worse punishment on the innocent. >>"isnt life enough because studies show that people when kept away from other people go crazy and nuts litterally. and there life is over anyway so this is a worse punishment." Somehow execution is cruel and unusual but purposeful degradation into insanity is not? I'm not sure I follow your (lack of) logic on this one...