Ros,
I would be agreeable to the abolition of the death penalty for PROVEN wanton murderers on those terms.
This is the same silly, vacuous argument I already rebutted.
It is already an absolute principle of every system of justice that you do not sentence anyone to anything unless guilt is proven beyond any reasonable doubt. If there is any room for doubt, you acquit. No question!
You seem to suggest a two-level verdict system for murderers: innocent, probably guilty and proven guilty, and where the "proven guilty" are executed and the "probably guilty" are sent to prison. Can you imagine the increase in innocent people being sent to prison? I hope you have just not given this any serious thought.
Your attempt to make this into a question of money just makes me sick. "Kill them because it's cheaper!" Don't you have any morality whatsoever?
- Jan
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Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]