Article: Questioning State-Sanctioned Murder

The following questions cover all aspects of the barbarity of the death penalty:

Are we willing to sacrifice the lives of some innocent and wrongly convicted people to get revenge against some guilty people?

If 123 innocent people were released from death row in the last 35 years, how many innocent people were executed?

If 17 innocent people were released from death row in Illinois after a Northwestern University journalism class investigated the cases of people on death row, how many innocent people were executed?

Why don't we consider that 31 people in the last century have been executed in cases where there was extraordinarily strong evidence of their innocence?

When the criminal justice system is less accurate in determining guilt than the postal system is in delivering a letter, how can we trust the criminal justice system to execute someone?

Why aren't victims' rights advocates concerned about the many innocent and wrongly convicted people who are victims of the death penalty?

How do we compensate or exonerate an executed person if evidence comes out later of his innocence?

Would we be willing to be among the many innocent and wrongly convicted victims who are sacrificed so that people can be murdered by the state?

Could we imagine being sentenced to die for a crime we didn't commit?

Why would we support the death penalty when there is a nationwide and worldwide epidemic of corrupt cops knowingly charging people with crimes they didn't commit?

Why don't we consider that many politicians will allow a potentially innocent person to be executed if they think the execution will score them political points?

Why do we want to put a criminal out of his misery by executing him, so he can feel no more pain, instead of punishing him for life?

Isn't life in a cage with no possibility of parole a much harsher penalty than death?

Why don't we realize the death penalty is racist when although black people and white people are murdered in almost equal numbers, black people are frequently executed for killing white people, but white people are almost never executed for killing black people?

Why don't we realize the death penalty is racist when the chance of receiving a death sentence is nearly four times higher if the defendant is black?

Why don't we realize the death penalty is racist when race has a greater effect on death sentencing than smoking does on dying from heart disease?

Why don't we realize that a poor person is much more likely to receive a death sentence than a rich person because of inadequate representation?

Why would we support the death penalty when it makes a jury much more reluctant to convict?

Why would we support the death penalty when it makes many people, such as a suspect's family and friends, much more reluctant to give information leading to a suspect's arrest?

Why don't we take note that executions are frequently botched, which violates the law and causes tremendous torture to the person being executed and his family?

What did the condemned person's family do that they should be punished by having their family member put to death?

Why would we support the death penalty when it prolongs the agony of a murder victim's family for years before they see a sentence carried out?

Why would we support the death penalty when no victim's family ever feels any better at all after the convicted person is executed?

Why do we think DNA evidence can prove a person committed a crime when it can only sometimes prove a person did not commit a crime?

Why don't we realize that many of us don't know enough to consider the many unfair repercussions of the death penalty, such as limiting habeas corpus, in other areas of the criminal justice system?

Why won't public policy allow the state to flog someone, but will allow the state to murder someone?

Why aren't executions broadcast on TV or open to the public like a court trial, so everyone can see the barbarity of the death penalty?

Why would any taxpayer support the death penalty when it costs much more to administer a death penalty than to incarcerate for life?

Why do we want to waste so much money on the death penalty instead of investing the money in health care and education?

What possible benefit does the death penalty have when studies prove it doesn't deter people from committing a crime?

Isn't it especially barbaric to execute mentally retarded people?

Isn't it especially barbaric to execute people who were mentally ill when they committed the crimes for which they were rightly or wrongly convicted?

Isn't it especially barbaric to execute people who are currently mentally ill?

Isn't it especially barbaric to execute people who were juveniles when they committed the crime for which they were rightly or wrongly convicted?

Why don't we feel blood on our hands when we supported a politician who failed to stop the execution of someone who was rightly or wrongly convicted?

Why don't we feel blood on our hands when we supported a politician who legislated the death penalty?

Why is America the only modern western country that still has a death penalty?

Why do we preach about human rights around the world when we have so much work to do at home?

What makes the state any better than the person who did the murder if the state commits murder?

Shouldn't public policy be about righteousness instead of revenge?

Why do we murder people who are rightly or wrongly convicted of murdering people to show that murder is wrong?

When will we wake up?