Why does the state kill people who kill people to demonstrate that killing is wrong?
It is not a deterrent. If it were then no murders would occur.
It's a difficult one considering the names you mention but there is always a chance that the justice system will get it wrong again.
Imo you either support the death penalty for all found guilty of murder or you do not. I can't support it.
This is a very absolutist statement. How can you be sure? Murders will always occur with or without deterrence, I've had a look at some studies by various criminologist groups, Think tanks, Judicial reports etc. concluding that deterrence does not work. Without exception they are full of disclaimers such as ‘might be’, ‘we think’, ‘points to’, ‘the evidence suggests’ and so on and so on.
There are also reports that say deterrence does work, including one I read that says that for every executed inmate, 7 murders are prevented by deterrence, I take all these reports with a pinch of salt, we all know that reports can say whatever the vested interests who compile them want them to say.
They simply don't know if it works are not, but common sense tells me that if an action has been deterred, it never happened, and how can you prove something didn't happen, How can you count all the murders that
didn’t happen and include them in a report?
You worry that innocent lives could be lost through wrongful executions, and so we should, but if the deterrence value of the death penalty could prevent hundreds of murders over, say, a 5 year period, how many miscarriages are likely to occur? taking into account up to date forensic technology, a few, if any.
