We've looked at four main arguments for the death penalty. Given the wrongful conviction rate is, and will remain, non-zero, argument from justice will always fail. Given the low rate of escape, especially escape with further murders committed, argument from public safety fails. Argument from deterrence is functionally impossible to prove either way. Argument from cost works in theory, but doesn't in practice, because of how our system is set up to minimize wrongful executions.
Should we remove those safeguards? Execute more innocent people to save money?
I imagine most of you will say 'no'. I'll propose one last thought experiment instead: suppose we make all trials for either death penalty or life in prison have the same procedural safeguards. I would argue that that is a good idea; after all, sentencing someone to
life in prison is no less taking their life than sentencing someone to
die is. Shouldn't they be equally protected? And now the death penalty may actually be cheaper, like in the naive estimate.
But we just made the whole justice system cost-prohibitive; there are a lot more life-in-prison trials than there are death penalty trials. Can society afford to spent tens of billions of dollars on those increased costs? Once again we're putting a price on justice for the innocent. No matter which way you frame it, no matter whether you're talking about death or life, we're always forced to ask the question: what is the dollar value of saving an innocent life?
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