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

"Well, they lost their right to their life, as I'll expand on later, so technically, the government can do what is necessary to repay for those trials using that life." - So would it be okay for the government to torture the convicted murderer before thier death if they found out that that would sell and recoup the costs? By your statement, the government can basically do anything they want in order to make back the millions of dollars lost by the death penalty, so they can torture these people. This is a violation of human rights. "But if that relative is in solitary confinement, you still can't contact them, and they'd perhaps suffer even longer." - Rarely do victims of families cry out for solitary confinement. They cry out for death. They want the murderer killed. But we cannot simply be swayed by the emotions that people get wrapped up in when these things occur. Justice should be above emotion. We all may feel like the killer of one of our loved ones should die, but justice is above emotion. Justice does not bow to impassioned cries of vengeance. "I'm for the death penalty for people who are absolutely proven to be guilty; this means DNA evidence, security tapes, etc. People should most definitely not be put to a death penalty on only witnesses' testimonies, especially the contradictory ones mentioned in your source. If there isn't hardcore proof, a death penalty should even be attempted." - Even if DNA evidence, security tapes and testimony all lines up and points the finger at one person, their life should not be taken, because of my above (and below) reasons. "Okay, I just assumed the Christianity thing. Sorry. It's just so much tougher to find spirituality without a priest or a book." - Well, I'll have to disagree with people not being able to find spirituality without a priest or book. People do not need organized religion or texts to give them spirituality. There was none of that stuff when mankind began; it had to come out of somewhere. "When you're sentenced to solitary confinement for life, you have nothing left in life to enjoy, either, and they can't get out except through prison escape. http://en.wikipedia.org...... Also, it is possible to come out of a coma. And as for vegetative states, that's another thing up for debate about whether to kill them or not. In that case, I'm in favor of family members deciding, but in a criminal case, it's up to the justice system. And I'm not talking about prisoners killing prisoners; I'm talking about prisoners attacking the security guard who has to feed him. People on death row can all be clumped into one room with much more security that individual cells." - I just think you're making a very blanket value judgment on the meaning of someone's life. Who's to say that people who are completely alone and solitary have less meaning than you or me? I think you are making ill-placed assumptions that a person's life is devoid of meaning if they have nothing or are not surrounded by others. One can do many things internally and find out many things just with reflection, for example. - Also, it would be MUCH safer for the murderers to be locked up in solitary confinement. All you need to do is put some food through a slot in the locked door. Not too hard to protect oneself. Meanwhile, a whole room full of prisoners is much more volatile. How many prison riots do you see on those cop shows? A good deal. It's because there are so many criminals in one area. Security is in fact, less tight in these situations. Solitary confinement would be safest for guards. "I'm just saying that it's a potential hazard of keeping so many criminals in one place. I have no evidence that it has ever happened, but it quite easily could." - I feel as though that we are already keeping "so many criminals in one place" by having prisons in the first place. But we cannot simply kill them all because a natural disaster may or may not occur. It is illogical. "But if they met their sentence immediately, whether it be solitary or death, then they'd lack the opportunity to write a will, or do any religious action, or anything else of the sort." - Well, I did not mean straight from the courtroom right to solitary. They would have an opportunity to write a will and any other religious rites they might need (last meal of sorts or something). They would be allowed such things before they would go into solitary for the remainder of their lives. "Now, to defend why a person's right to life ends once they take the right away from another. If you believe in an unalienable right, you must believe in it for both yourself and all other people. However, if you murder someone, you just took away their right to life, proving that you do not wish to honor such a right. If you do not honor such a right in someone else, you do not honor your own right to life. Thus, they lose their right to life. There, point defended. Continue to attack it, if you must." - I must :) How is it a good idea to kill in order to teach people not to kill? Should I smoke cocaine in front of my kids if I don't wish them to do it? Also, who has the right to take away that life, if the murderer loses the right to life? Do I? Do you? Why does the government? If we go with the idea that a murderer loses the right to life as soon as he/she takes the life of another purposefully, who gets to take that murderer's life? There is no logical answer given your stance. Either we all can or no one can. I'm sure you don't advocate people running around killing around anyone who they deem a murderer, so the only other option is that no one can. In your philosophical stance on the right to life, there is no one who may take the life of anyone, really, and that should include punishments/vengeance. - And government is certainly not the answer to this criticism. It is an imperfect judge and has killed innocent people in the past, making the entity of government a murderer itself, really. So are we allowed to let a murderer judge a murderer? I would think not.