Capital Punishment For Murderers

[RJT]

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I believe that the issue can be decided without emotions or high falootin philosophy or religion. Assuming we are talking about cold blooded murders, committed by "sane" defendents, I see the following four things as objective reasons to be for or against the punishment, as opposed to life without parole.

1. Will it dissuade others from committing murder?

2. Is there more than a micro chance that the life sentence will allow an eventual release or escape?

3. Does it cost more to keep him alive?

4. Is there more than a micro chance that the defendent is innocent?

There may be other factors that deserve consideration that I haven't thought of but I doubt it.

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1) It seems that the answer to this question might be answered based on statistics - but the reason the stats are what they are (it does or does not dissuade) come about because of emotions. The killers (or would be killers) are affected (to kill or not to kill) by their own emotions.

2) And/or if he does get released will he kill again?

3) Kind of a barbaric metric, but a valid one.

4) Here’s where opinion, subjectivity, emotion or “high falootin philosophy” comes into play - -do we go with probability or do will go with “better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man hanged”? (Ftw, I vote if even one person is wrongly hanged - over a sample size of a zillion - then none of it is worth it.)