An argument against the death penalty

I was listening to talk radio the other day as I often do on my commute home, and there was a blurb on some guy getting the death penalty. Now before I proceed, I should state that I actually believe, in principle, that the death penalty has its place; however, knowing that the death penalty is not administered consistently or seemingly with any logical rationale, I found myself revising my stance as follows: If we're not going to employ the death penalty with consistency--and to those most deserving of the ultimate penalty--then we ought not bother ourselves as a society with having a death penalty at all.

Liberals often argue that criminal justice is about rehabilitation, when in fact, it's about punishment. Surely, the death penalty is the ultimate punishment. In fact, it should be the Superbowl of penalties, with no question and no doubt as to the reasoning behind the assignment of such a sentence. The reality is our justice system doles the sentence out like so much candy, and there's no coming back from it. No recovery. No mulligan. No undelete. No Sci-Fi, cryogenic restoration to cover ourselves just in case someone screwed up. No consolation prize for DNA proving innocence or a reluctant witness coming forward at a later point in time. No, my friends, death is final. Death is absolute. Which is seemingly why it takes so long with appeals and cost so much in tax dollars to get the deed done. We have an inordinate amount of checks and balances, yet our "system" still finds ways to screw it up. People have already made the argument that it's cheaper to send someone away for life without the possibility of parole, then to give them the death penalty. So one could argue on the economic merits alone that we should do away with the death penalty.

Cost of carrying out the death sentence notwithstanding, let's make the argument that the system gets it right 99% of the time. That's a helluva batting or free throw average, but would you want to be the 1% of the people who gets the electric chair or lethal injection incorrectly?
"[Executioner]: Whoops! Sorry about that, Homey! We goofed. My Bad!" Not to trivialize the matter, but death does (sometimes) bring closure to the victims and/or the victims families...of course, it doesn't undo the deed that predicated the execution in the first place. Admittedly, I know full well how I would react if one of my loved ones fell victim to the unthinkable. Call it my Minority report, call it my pre-crime confession, call it pre-meditated insanity, call it what you will...I'm just telling you now, it wouldn't be pretty. And to keep it real, some people really deserve death, don't they? Case in point: Anyone remember Susan Smith? A decade ago, Susan killed her kids by strapping them in a car and pushing the car into a lake. We were supposed to feel sorry for her...apparently the jury did, although I can't see how...

This is the woman who after sleeping with three guys and getting dumped by one via a "Dear John" letter was sooooooo distraught, because "her man" told her that he couldn't deal with her having two kids. So what does Susan do? Why what any small town, blonde would do in a similar situation: she proceeded to strap her two sons in the back seat of a car and pushed her car into a lake. Then she told police that a "Black Man" carjacked her before she finally confessed that her story was a lie to cover up murdering her kids. This story received national coverage for weeks. It's ten years later and I am still pissed off by the outcome, not because Black men got bad press during that time, not because she destroyed a perfectly good Mustang, but because as a parent I was outraged at how someone could do that to their kids! Sadly, the jury apparently wasn't outraged at all, and tried to make sense out of non-sense--translated: Susan Smith did not get the death penalty, despite being more than deserving in my humble opinion.

So there you have it. Just one example, among many, of a person who deserved the death penalty, but failed to get it. As my father used to say, "If you're going to do something half-assed, then you might as well not do it all." Ladies and gentlemen, our society's doling out of the death penalty is clearly half-assed! Need I say more? Disagree? State your case.
Peace,
+THINKER