I want to be a better human being than those murderers
My sentiments exactly, juanmaria. I'm sure many of you have seen the bumper sticker slogan "Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" That makes the point quite clearly, I think. Add to that the possibilities for error in the judicial process, and the known fact that such mistakes are made, and I feel the death penalty is absolutely unconscionable.
As to AnnaS's point that it is cheaper for the taxpayers - although I don't have figures handy to back this up, I have read on a number of occasions that, due to the numerous appeals and delays inherent in a capital case (which ideally serve to ensure that the wrong person is not killed by the state), the death penalty ends up being more expensive to the taxpayer than life in prison.
There was a piece in the New Yorker recently about the death penalty, which described it as an issue where politicians who wish to appear hard on crime choose to support it, even when the majority of their constituents don't. Once again, sound-bite politics and the media's (and our own) short attention span present us with an outcome that many, even most, would wish were differerent.
