I don't understand how anyone could be in favor of the death penalty.
Forget about the fact that sometimes innocent people get executed. Forget about how expensive it is to execute someone. Forget about the idea that the state shouldn't have the power to kill its own citizens.
Even forgetting all of that, I still can't see why you'd want to execute someone.
Is it that people want justice? Revenge? (What's the difference, here?) If so, fine. Is killing somebody really justice? Would it not be more just for someone to rot in a cage for all their years, instead of receiving the mercy of death? You can't teach a lesson to a dead man.
Solitary confinement is a torture, and should never be used, even for the most reprehensible of people. You may mean that they be physically sequestered from other people if they're dangerous, which death row inmates often are, but no human deserves to be isolated from others for anything more than a short period.
some crime statutes include "without parole" as a sentencing guideline. The legislature could fix the 'released and kill again' issue without resorting to capital punishment.
As for prisons, solitary is an option, however one could argue that it's even more inhumane then capital punishment.
That doesn't preclude a change in the law at some future point. Or some sort of massive amnesty that we see sometimes in times of political upheaval. The death penalty is society decisively deciding that this person must never be allowed to kill or harm anyone else again.
The prison one is one that never gets enough focus, mainly because we have an attitude of writing off people that go to jail and that whatever happens to them there a rough form of justice. But then it's not really great to have people sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole now performing this kind of "justice" to other people that might have a chance to reform and go back into society.
Just as a single example, Freddy Geas was a mafia hitman who was sentenced to life in prison. He killed Whitey Bulger, another murderer. Sure, Whitey wasn't innocent, but did he deserve to be beat to death by another murderer under state care?
Forget about the fact that sometimes innocent people get executed. Forget about how expensive it is to execute someone. Forget about the idea that the state shouldn't have the power to kill its own citizens.
Even forgetting all of that, I still can't see why you'd want to execute someone.
Is it that people want justice? Revenge? (What's the difference, here?) If so, fine. Is killing somebody really justice? Would it not be more just for someone to rot in a cage for all their years, instead of receiving the mercy of death? You can't teach a lesson to a dead man.
What's the point?