When you're dead, you're dead

OK, that's my atheist point of view and not shared by the majority of the population. I say it because these kind of lawsuits bug me.

I agree that the death penalty should be eliminated, but not necessarily for the reasons these people claim. Personally, I think they hinder attempts to outlaw the death penalty. Supporters of the death penalty, something I used to be, will not be persuaded by these arguments. The criminals have been convicted of taking the life of an innocent* person or persons. Most times those killings were heinous. Often times the convicted murderer has a long record of criminal activity.

Death penalty advocates ultimately are looking for revenge. They will talk about other reasons for the death penalty (often deterrence) and they may not easily admit it but revenge is what they want. Appealing to these people for mercy is a lost cause. At best, appealing to them for a painless, civilized method of enacting their revenge will fall on deaf ears. More likely, they see the appeal as forgiving the murderer. As an attempt to thwart justice, aka their revenge.

Again, I know. I was a death penalty supporter. When I heard these arguments I thought the people who made them were weak and squeamish. "Leave the justice to us," I thought, "We know what we're doing. We can handle it." It was the clear data, the clear facts, that our justice system was making mistakes and would continue to make mistakes that finally turned me against the death penalty. I won't say that other arguments can't work on other people but telling them that a heinous murderer should be put to death humanely is a waste of breath and counter productive.


* Many studies show that the people who get sentenced to death are not killing other criminals. They've killed a person seen as an innocent bystander or an innocent victim.