[Troubleshooter]

My turn...

Ok, defining whether capital punishment works or not requires defining your goals.

For myself, capital punisment should serve two purposes.

1) Prevention

Well, to be sure, death is rather likely to prevent recidivism.

2) Deterrence

Here is where we run into the problem. To be a true deterrent, any punishment must not only be noted for its certainty, but also for its severity. Well, we're sure of the seveity, but the certainty of it has been in question for quite a while now.

Everyone is familiar with the term "deadline," but most people aren't familiar with where it came from. Back in the day, prisons didn't have walls, just a line on the ground. If you crossed the line, you died. When people began to doubt that, prisons got walls.

Now a question on my part:

What numbers are that statement about it being cheaper to keep them than to kill them based on?

As to innocent people being executed:

It's going to happen, no matter how good the system would ever become. It can be improved and any case without ironclad evidence such as video, or DNA or anything similiar would raise the question of whether death is an option.

Life sentences should exclude cable, conjugal visits, cigarettes, weights, and just about any other commodity that is, in many cases, denied our service members.

On the other side of the coin, I'm against many of the restrictions that are placed on people that have paid their price under the present system. Either their price has been paid or change the way the system classifies them.