I recognize societies right to take a life, but advocate that we don't because we are bad at it, especially at the state level. I'd rather separate the person from society and keep them alive so if we did screw up, we can fess up and let then have what life remains to them back. To me, giving that innocent person the chance at a remainder of life is worth not executing anyone.

This morning I heard an enlightened Christian (if such a thing can really be) on the C-SPAN call-in program Washington Journal arguing against the death penalty, even for the manifestly guilty (*). The reason was that it risks society executing a guilty person before they have "come to Jesus" and are thereby redeemed in God's eyes. Executing them before that time condemns then to eternal damnation in Hell. So, it is better to keep then on death row indefinitely than to seal their fate prematurely. [ I won't go into why a supposedly all-loving God wouldn't also allow an arbitrarily long period of time in "limbo" during which a soul could "come to Jesus" and repent, and so avoid eternal damnation. ]

(*) What even *does* "manifestly guilty" mean? Someone could very deliberately shoot someone in front of ten witnesses and five cameras for reasons that might later be revealed to be erroneous - aka, "extenuating circumstances". Does that person deserve the death penalty?