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I'm all for taking people off the planet. However I do realize there are innocent people. I favor a 3-strike rule. Pretty hard to be innocent 3 times

Some excerpts from an essay from my freshman year:

In some cases, I could see capital punishment being an acceptable punishment, but there are just too many downsides. One example is lethal injection. The executioners who carry out the act are not skilled enough in the field to assure painless death. Those who are skilled would probably like to keep their high-paying doctor and scientist jobs, rather than have the burden of killing people. The unskilled executioners have used incorrect doses that cause the person to feel pain. In some cases, the executioners use the correct dosage, but the correct dosage is flawed. Regardless of the inmate’s weight, the dosage is always the same. A little pain of missing the vein is not all though, he or she suffers a slow death caused by paralysis to there diaphragm. In this supposedly humane cause of death, the person may actually die in one of the most inhumane ways: suffocation. Other problems may occur, by missing the vein or using blocked IVs, causing failed anesthesia or chemical burns. The researchers write that the inmate would be “fully aware of the progressive suffocation and potassium-induced sensation of burning.” The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment. Even people who believe that capital punishment is acceptable must agree that the Constitution is the highest authority, and that asphyxiation and chemical burning are cruel and unusual.

Do you really believe that we should continue this system based on prejudice and, in some cases, racism? Resarchers have built a computer system that can predict which Death Row inmate will be executed. They put data into the computer such as race, age, sex, highest level of education completed, state they were tried in, and whether they remain on Death Row or were executed. Then they put more data in, leaving out whether they remain on Death Row or were executed. Using the patterns from the first set of data, the computer predicted whether the inmate was executed or not with 92% accuracy, correctly predicting 276 of the 300 inmates included in the second set of data. It found that inmates were selected mostly because of the highest level of education completed, and that although race could have been a deciding factor in many instances, it was not 100% accurate.

Child rapists are not eligible for the death penalty as it stands, don’t you agree that the current system is very flawed? What really determines which crimes can result in the death penalty? The Supreme Court ruled that child rape in which the child lives cannot result in capital punishment.

Also, California executes less than one person per year and the entire nation paid for their billion-plus dollar Death Row "improvements". The whole system is bullshit and there's no perfect way to maintain it, especially with the innocent executed. We should just follow every other civilized country in the world (except Japan and China) and ban it.

As always, "the system" can always be improved. I still believe that the concept is right. 3 strikes for the win! If that was implemented I think less might die and we can get something going like random jury duty except with doctors. There would be a list of registered professional doctors and when someone needs a needle poked, local people are drawn. This would eliminate jobs and thus some un-necessary spending.