Many people have been proven innocent after they were on death row.

If there is any question of guilt, then the death penalty would not be an appropriate sentence. There are many examples where there is no question of guilt, where I feel the death penalty would be completely appropriate. Admitted serial killers for example. I'm not advocating a liberal use of the death sentence, but I still feel that there are cases where it's needed. If anyone doesn't agree, make an argument instead of downvoting. HN is better than that.

> Admitted serial killers for example.

Like this man? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sture_Bergwall

"With no eyewitnesses or technical forensic evidence to connect him to the crimes..."

So no, not like that at all.

He was at one point convicted of eight murders, and had confessed to more than 20 more. Who, if not that man, would you nominate for a death penalty? Or is a conviction not a conviction?

I'm thinking more along the lines of a Jeffery Dahmer. There was overwhelming forensic evidence of guilt, along with full confessions. In that case, guilt was all but irrefutable. I've yet to hear an argument as to why someone like that, and under those circumstances, should be allowed to remain alive.

I submit that allowing such unrepentant and irredeemable evil to exist is more barbaric than a quick death.

You still have not clearly defined how you would differentiate between the two cases. Both were convicted, with forensic evidence, and had confessed, to multiple murders. If a conviction is not enough, what would be?

I'm not a lawyer or a legislator. I don't have the legal wherewithal to know exactly how to word a potential codification of death penalty requirements based on a large amount of forensic evidence and a confession. It doesn't change my opinion that there are some people (in extremely rare cases) that should lose their lives.

For what it's worth, the article you cited states that there was a lack of technical forensic evidence, which was not a problem in the Dahmer case.

So what you seem to be saying is that the death penalty is only for when we’re really, really sure that the person is guilty. The problem is, we already have such a thing, and we call it a conviction in court. This is already only supposed to happen when we’re really, really sure of a person’s guilt. What you are proposing is some sort of “super-conviction”, and the question of where to draw the line between the two forms of conviction, and how they should be defined, becomes extremly subjective. Until you have some concrete objective measures which can stand up to legislative scrutiny, I doubt the possibility of even doing such a thing.

There's guilty, where you have evidence that points to a suspects guilt, and then there's (for example) "I did this thing in full view of 100 people and cameras" guilty. That's already pretty big difference between levels of assurance of guilt.

As I said before, I can't come up with legal, concrete, and objective measures because I haven't studied law. It's completely unreasonable for you to ask that. Furthermore, as a taxpayer and regular voter, I help fund and choose the people that have said training. It's up to them to figure out how to implement a solution. I can't be expected to do everything.

I don't understand this insistence on inflicting the death penalty on murderers. Given that a prison sentence is somewhat similar to being kidnapped, should it be reserved to kidnappers only?

If we admit that the death penalty is a penalty like any other, then why should it be applied to murderers, who by the way are often poor, deranged or sick people, with troubled or violent upbringing, low IQs and levels of instruction? Why don't apply it to affluent and powerful people who screwed whole nations from the comfort of their offices' chairs, like for example George W. Bush and Colin Powell?

I'm not advocating the death penalty in crimes of passion of even simple murder. I'm advocating for the death penalty for the "monsters" of the world such as Jeffrey Dahmer.

Have an upvote. Imo, there is no point having a discussion on a contentious issue if well written comments are downvoted into oblivion just because they are on the 'wrong' side of the issue.

I thought that there there was consensus amomg statitians that the death penalty has a deterrent effect and each execution saves between 3 and 18 lives:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html

While there was still people who were challenging the studies the statisticians had moved on because it was considered a settled question.

Interesting. I've only ever seen studies suggesting that the death penalty has no deterrent effect whatsoever (when compared to penal systems without death penalty).

I think many arguments on the death penalty come down to debates about which actions are grizzly or heinous enough and what standard of proof is sufficient. The latter seems to be the one folks seem to have the larger issue with. There are numerous instances of an overzealous or corrupt legal system deciding someone is expendable in order to close a case, advance a career, etc.