kane

Not to sound like a tree hugging hippy liberal but this won't work.

First, putting someone to death actually costs more than it does to keep them in jail for life. The reason for this is that there are a lot of appeals and legal procedures that have to be gone through and since the prisoner has no money the states pick up the bill so they are actually paying both the prosecution and defense costs. If you shorten the appeals process it very much could cost a lot more in the end. All that needs to happen is to have one person put to death that was actually innocent (and with DNA evidence they have been finding innocent people on death row recently) and then the family of that person, or the ACLU or a group like it sues the state and it costs a boat load. If a jury is going to give a woman that spilled hot coffee on herself a million dollars how much are they going to give a wife who's husband was wrongly put to death? As soon as that case is over every death row inmate nationwide will file suite and we just created more work and cost then before.

Second, it has been proven that people who commit crimes that are punishable by death do not see the death sentence as a deterrent. Look at states like Texas. They kill more people than any other state in the nation and they still have no decline or shortage of people on death row.

The death penalty only really works if you use it like they do in some third world countries. you get arrested, you get convicted, you get shot all in the same day.