@blablarg18 I understand where you're coming from, but I respectfully must disagree. IMHO, the death penalty is too easy of an out for the person. I personally would much rather see them have to suffer under insufferable circumstances for the remainder of their natural life, which would be much longer, and could be dragged on and carried out in such a way as to make the person wish that they were to be executed for a very long time.
Granted, I think that many of the things that come to my mind to make the suffering drag on would be considered cruel and unusual punishment (at least under Canadian law where I am), however the whole point of it is to make the person endure more suffering for the rest of their natural life than the suffering that they brought onto their victims and their families. After all, for many of the families of the victims, the suffering will stay with them for the rest of their natural life, so to me it only seems fair to make the punishment of eternal suffering match the permanent suffering that the families of the victims must endure.
I will concede though that keeping inmates in any form of prison or confinement does take up resources, which in all fairness could be spent on more useful and/or productive things. My only trouble with this in general is that as @raphjd mentioned, there are far too many cases of innocent people being executed, only to find out later through undeniable evidence such as a DNA test that they were actually innocent, but were executed for anyway. With the death penalty, there is no way to come back from that in cases where that happens. With the option of life without parole, at least the innocent person can eventually be released, compensated for their wrongful imprisonment, granted a new identity, and able to live out the rest of their life.
Having been wrongfully convicted and jailed myself for a crime I did not commit, I can sympathize with these cases, as I know first hand just how bad things can get over a crime you didn't commit. While MOST of the people who are executed are indeed guilty, IMHO I stand with @raphjd that too many of them aren't in fact guilty of the crimes for which they have been accused.
It should also be noted that in my case, there was undeniable evidence that I did not commit the crime that I was accused of, wrongfully convicted of, and jailed for, but that didn't stop it all from happening anyway. Now here we are some 12 years later, and I am still suffering consequences for a crime I did not commit, trying valiantly to clear my name so that I can get back into good standing with the legal system and move forward from the whole thing. That is to say that to this very day, I still pay a heavy price for a crime I did not commit, which really makes my heart go out to those people who are indeed wrongfully convicted. I know first hand how hard it can be to come back and recover from such a thing.
