The Death Penalty makes more sense than Solitary Confinement for Life.

"Okay, what if the criminal in question was fined an amount equivalent to the cost of the court case? This would be an easy solution. As long as the criminal carries the burden of the cost, the taxpayers pay nothing." -Expecting a criminal to pay upwards of 3 million dollars is unreasonable (see one of my links in the comment section for the exact numbers), not because it is a burden on the criminal, but because few murderers will be able to pay that money in any form. Therefore, the burden will have to fall on the taxpayers. This can easily be avoided by using solitary confinement instead of the death penalty. In fact, solitary confinement would be especially cheap since it would get rid of the problem of having to pay more for facilities and Internet usage that some prisoners receive. "New technologies should be applied BEFORE the person is placed on death row. Once a person is PROVEN to be guilty, he is guilty, and thus may deserve the death penalty, depending on the severity of the case. Killing an innocent man can be avoided. It is very hard to frame someone into a death penalty." -To this point, I will say that 130 people have been exonerated from death row from DNA evidence as of late last year. That is 130 innocent people who were condemned to die. How many more are killed by the death penalty who are innocent? We can never know... Solitary confinement at least gives them the chance to be exonerated if they are innocent, which does indeed occur. To me, the government execution of one innocent person is entirely unacceptable and any practice that allows for that possibility so blatantly is immoral. -Another argument against the death penalty and for solitary confinement for life is that death is actually less punitive. Solitary confinement forces the prisoner to think about their actions for a lifetime. They do not get the luxury of dying a quick death. Their life is now restricted to one room, with no contact with outsiders, basically. Death row inmates do not have such restrictive prison lives before they finally get a quick death. Which is more punitive? A lifetime of being alone in a small cell, where you contemplate the atrocity you have committed? Or a less restricted prison stay with the end result PROBABLY being your quick death. Justice is not necessarily eye for an eye. If you really want to punish someone, make them live like this from the beginning of their guilty verdict. This isn't the main crux of my argument, it's just another point to bring up. "In conclusion, the death penalty makes more sense than solitary confinement for life, because the death penalty gets it over with, while a life sentence gives you many more worthless years with nothing to do, except escaping, which only puts even more of a burden on the rest of us." -Who does the death penalty "get it over with" for? The prisoner? Are you saying you support it because it's quicker for the prisoner? In that case, isn't it not really that much of a punishment, as I stated in my above paragraph? Also, to say the prisoners have no purpose/meaning in life simply because they are in solitary confinement seems slightly superficial. Meaning can certainly be found in such situations. -I will give you the points about Solitary Confinement and being able to do things, as I briefly forgot that I was fighting for solitary confinement over death penalty, not just jail time.