As one who once bought into some of the arguments against the death penalty, it’s time to again refute both those and other common errors concerning it:

Modern technology, such as DNA, has released many who were wrongfully convicted.

Granted. Now grant back that the same technology will make it far more difficult to wrongfully convict in the future.

“Better (pick a number) guilty go free that one innocent be executed/imprisoned.” What irrational rubbish. It demands human perfection, an impossible guideline to meet. In the process it justifies allowing an untold number of predators to be loose to inflict further injury and death on countless innocents. The “give ‘em a break” and “perfect trial” mentality is why a Connecticut family was recently murdered by a pair of deranged thugs with long rap sheets who were out on parole.

Life without the possiblity of parole is a better option.

There is no such thing as “life without possibility of parole.” Laws can be changed or ignored all together. Politicians, judges and bureaucrats do that with great regularity — see “border, South.” There is also a  ludicrous belief prevalent throughout the new therapeutic state that “everybody can be rehabilitated.” Nothing can stop future legislators from changing laws and applying them retroactively, nor are future governors restricted from pardoning anyone. It is hardly impossible that a bleeding heart therapy advocate might be elected governor here or anywhere else. And future judicial activism could as easily and arbitrarily determine that a life sentence is as “cruel and unusual” as many now view death.

The costs are too high.

A classic piece of sophistry on a par with “the defendant should be given leniency for killing his parents because he is an orphan.” Inmates awaiting the death penalty in Arizona have not one but two attorneys assigned to their appeals. The costs are high because death penalty opponents have caused them by challenging any and all real or supposed imperfections in the process.

There are also jail breaks. We hear about “escaped killers” with great regularity. We also have prison riots in which not only other prisoners but guards are the victims. Try this — in an average year there are more prisoners killed by each other than are formally executed.

It doesn’t work as a deterrent as claimed.

Debatable but irrelevant. It is clearly a deterrent to the executed — the only iron-clad stopper for recidivism. And the real issue is justice — that part of the criminal justice system too often placed on hold. Committing certain heinous crimes should result in death — period.

The death penalty is unfair because it contains too many racial disparities.
Statistically correct but attributable more to culture and economics — and to the limited reasons for its use. If it was expanded to include such reprehensible crimes as pedofilia and serial rape, the racial figures would change. Interesting that most murderers tend to be male. Perhaps militant feminism and pathological egalitarianism will correct this over time.

Moral superiority.

Those who belch morally superior clichés about the evils of putting anyone to death, blah blah, are classic examples of a pathological egalitarianism that places the value of a child molester on a par with the child. It is NOT morally superior; it is morally bankrupt.

Our ponderous legal system is under constant pressure from therapists, most liberals and the media. Actual executions have been reduced to a fraction of those sentenced.

Meanwhile, each year, Americans perform about 1,500 justifiable homicides.

Once again, the private sector proves its efficiency.