a just society ought not to use the death penalty as a form of punishment

First of all you say that a "just society should not use the death penalty as a form of punishment." This statement depends on how a society determines justice. If you believe in the christian GOD then the death penalty is justice. I don't want to change this debate into one on if GOD exists or not, but right off hand you're using the phrase "a just society" and I'm just trying to show that you use your judgement of what a just society is without giving any explanation as to why you believe that "the only perception of justice is our own." If you believe that justice comes from GOD, or if your muslim and you believe that justice comes from Allah, then your entire argument falls. Also, if people are "the original creators of justice," then how do you know that your idea of justice is right? If their is no "higher power" that set in stone ideas and rules of justice, doesn't justice become an ever changing thing depending on the majority opinion of the time? Your argument implies this by stating that "since we are the original creators the only way to get the most accurate description of justice is to have the most amounts of people alive." If justice is solely based on the majority opinion then Hitler was perfectly just in executing all those jews. Yeah, it sucked for them and their families, but it's what society thought was just at the time. Your argument is contradictory. You claim that the only way we can determine justice is from society because people are the creators of the concepts of justice. You then go on to claim that preserving life is the only way to have justice because the most amount of people are alive to determine what justice is. However, as I've shown with the example of Hitler (and there are many more cases) sometimes what the majority of people believe is just, is to kill the minority. If justice is derived from society then killing the minority is just. (I assume showing that Hitler was unjust is uneccessary) However, if preserving life is the source of justice so that the most amount of people are alive to determine justice, then the majorities were unjust in killing the minorities, meaning that justice is not derived from society. It's also contradictory in another way. America is a democracy. The people rule. The rule is that we still have the death penalty. If society determines justice, then the death penalty is just. This brings up another interesting point. You propose life in prison as a great alternative to the death penalty. However, in the U.S. if someone is in prison for a felony they cannot vote. So you're saying that preserving life is the source for justice because the most amount of people are alive to influence it, but even if the felons are in jail for life and not dead they still cannot vote and therefore still cannot influence justice in any way. Therefore, by your own definition life in prison is also unjust. This leads us to the concept of parole. This website will show you the statistics for repeat violent crime offenders. http://findarticles.com... You make the point that society is not perfect, so there may be mistakes in the death penalty. I agree no one is perfect. However, since you believe that the death penalty is unjust, and since we've established (using your train of thought) that life in prison is also unjust, by that same token, society is not perfect and therefore there may be problems with parole also. As the above website shows, repeat offenders for violent crimes often murder people once out on parole. Now, more people are dead and not able to influence justice. Using your train of reasoning, parole and life in prison are both unjust. This brings us back to the beginning because the only option left to us is the death penalty. The death penalty is not unjust because it keeps violent murderers from getting out of jail and murdering more people. The idea you put forth for deriving justice from the people is nonsense, and often gives the result of less justice (as I've shown with the example of Hitler), and is contradictory to itself. Justice is balance. You murder someone, you die. You steal something, you pay it back. The death penalty is justice. I agree, the people who administer justice are imperfect. However, to try and banish justice because the people who administer it are imperfect is wrong. Instead, we should be trying to perfect this system of justice (the death penalty) so that our imperfections do not play a role in it.