I rather think the certainty of executing an innocent person more than outweighs any outrage at the continued existence of a known murder. The justice system is imperfect, it is a human endeavor. Rapid judgement and execution of said judgement is not consistent with my view of a civilized society.

If I take this to the logical extreme, then we should not put anyone in jail because we might incarcerate innocent people too (indeed, we have done so many times because of the low standard of “reasonable doubt”). We should stop jailing people!

People think that the murderers will sit around and contemplate their evil deeds and somehow repent - I assure you it isn’t like that at all. (For the record, in prisons it’s Murderers who have the highest status. At the bottom of the scale are Pedophiles.)

As long as vengeance is the real underpinning motive for capital punishment justic is not served.

Why not? Society has a vested interest in vengeance (and it’s not the ONLY motive), just as people do. We require financial criminals to make restitution (when possible), but with murder it’s not possible. Why some arbitrary rule that says “You can’t pay for an equal crime” for only this category?