As a benighted resident of Massachusetts, I have a ready answer to anyone who says "life without parole." That answer, of course, is "Michael Dukakis."

This guy came up with furloughs for people sentenced to "life without parole." And then he got nominated for the Presidency, which sends the wrong message as far as I'm concerned.

I used to be against the death penalty, I suspect mainly because of the irony - as a society, we treat a crime of passion as less heinous than a cold-blooded murder: and you cannot name me a killing more cold-blooded than execution. First, elected representatives deliberate and choose to allow executions in their state; then an impartial jury recommends execution; and finally, a judge sworn to arbitrate fairly and blindly, chooses to have a man be put to death.

But eventually, I grew up and realized that irony is not an argument, it's just irony.

And while I still don't feel comfortable with the death penalty, there are SO MANY OTHER THINGS I can spend my time worrying about - the fate of those awful bastards who shattered families and stole lives and terrified innocent people? I might vote against the death penalty if I were a state senator, but to fight for those folks? No. Fuck them.

One small quibble with your conclusions. I have tried a murder case, and there is a serious imbalance of power between those who represent the state and those who, sometimes appointed by a judge, represent the defendant. You cannot get a feel for the imbalance until you are in the courtroom. Is this a debate-ending argument against the death penalty? No. But it is a cause for pause.

That's a good point to keep in mind. It applies to most criminal cases, so it has no specific relevance to the Death Penalty. But it's still a legitimate argument.

But it bears on somethng that comes up frequently in these debates. We are entitled to a fair trial. We are NOT entitled to a standard of perfect certainty. Anti-death penalty types often twist their arguments that way, but it's bogus. Nothing human works perfectly.

It's reasonable to complain if you didn't get a fair trial. It's not reasonable to complain if some new technology that might have prove you innocent is invented the week after you are executed. That's life.

Two things:

1) I am not so much for the death penalty as I am against abolishing it. This is because when the penalty is abolished, the more ardent opponents of it prevail in deciding law enforcement policy. This happened in the 70s, when crime soared.

2) I find it interesting that many death penalty opponents are also abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide proponents. They only object to the killing of vicious murderers.

Ethan Hahn writes "you cannot name me a killing more cold-blooded than execution". I can: Gary Gilmore told a hotel clerk "your money AND your life" and then laughed at his own stupid joke as he shot the man dead. That seems far more inhuman and cold-blooded than any recent official U.S. execution. If challenged, I could easily come up with the names of dozens more murderers who slowly tortured their victims to death, or videotaped the whole process, or did other things that showed a totally cold-blooded inhuman contempt for their victims. The only way execution is worse than the kind of murder that earns one the death penalty is that the length of time between knowing you will die and actually dying is so much longer. But that hardly makes it more cold-blooded. And actually knowing for a fact that you will die is something even death-row inmates can put off admitting to themselves until the last day or hour. Just as an ordinary victim in the power of a psychopath or a subhuman brute can keep hoping until very near the end that the killer will change his mind, a death-row inmate can keep on hoping (probably more realistically) for a very long time that a higher court or a call from the governor will delay or even cancel his own well-deserved execution.

I would say that executions are not "cold blooded" except in the sense that no one's flying off the handle and shooting. But they are not cold-blooded in the sense that the people taking responsibility are callous or indifferent. If you've ever served on a jury you know that ordinary people take these matters with great concern and seriousness.

One of my gripes with the anti's is their propaganda portraying the American justice system as a bunch of, well, cold-blooded red-neck killers. I think that's a LIE, and one that comes from the same polluted well as the lies about our troops being baby-killers, or that we killed 100,000 civilians in Iraq, or the Jenin "massacre," or that we are going to war for oil...all the usual lefty bullshit.

I think we're dancing around definitions of "cold-blooded" here...I'm trying to focus on the pre-meditated aspect of it - the justice system doesn't come home and find its neighbor in bed with its wife and beat him to death - it methodically plans every step of the process over the course of months and years.

And the ideal we attempt to reach is of dispassionate analysis of facts, unbiased weighing of the evidence, and a decision to condemn a man to death made without being clouded by emotion. Are juries and judges emotional in such cases? Of course. And can you name me more heinous acts of barbary, committed by non-compassionate people? Obviously. Dr. Weevil, it's called hyperbole. My point was just twofold:

1) We view [let's just call it] pre-meditated murder as more heinous than a crime of passion, and yet we think our justice system is more just when it kills a man with as little passion as possible, and with as full a pre-meditation as we can muster.

2) #1 used to be sufficient argument in my book to be against the death penalty - but then I grew up. As I said above, "I grew up and realized that irony is not an argument, it's just irony."

"More importantly, ANY large undertaking is going to kill or maim some innocent people."

There's a huge difference between a project whose goals is not to kill people and whose activity need not necessarily kill innocent people, and one whose goal is to kill people (those thought "deserving") and whose activity necessarily involves killing innocent people.

Furthermore, I think it's easy to prove that the death penalty is spiritually harmful--just look at the idiotic comment by a prison official commenting on Allen's request not to be resuscitated if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution:

"At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon.

That's a man who doesn't know what "sanctity of life" means.

Finally, I indeed do not "believe" in our laws or our culture or our nation when they prescribe or approve of something like the death penalty. I've decided I have to answer to a higher authority than those fallen Powers to whom so many have given their allegiance, and He has made it very clear what consequences issue from such allegiance. As Isaiah said:

Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death,
and with Sheol we have an agreement;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through
it will not come to us;
for we have made lies our refuge,
and in falsehood we have taken shelter";

Then your covenant with death will be annulled,
and your agreement with Sheol will not stand;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through
you will be beaten down by it.

Alas, Babylon!

The "project" is a system of law and justice that attempts to provide order and safety for all the people. It is a life-saving and life-enhancing project. Your comment merely rips one aspect of the system out of its context. You cold-heartedly ignore, as usual, the victims, and even more importantly, the vast numbers of people who might either have their lives blighted by a crime-dominated environment, or alternatively enjoy a world that encourages them to live honestly and improve their lives. The justice system is just as much a life-saving enterprise as a medical system. (Maybe more, considering the increasing popularity of medically killing various living beings.)

You "pacifists" will have lives to answer for. If you really cared about people you would give your energies to things like helping and guiding and influencing the police, and the legal system. And giving encouragement and support to those boring folk who work hard and obey the law. That would save lives. Instead you are consumed with leftish moral posturing, and you are assuredly killing people by so doing.

Quoting that from Isaiah is utterly meaningless here; I could with equal logic say that you have "made a covenant with death," since you usually only show sympathy for criminals or tyrants, and give no warmth or encouragement to projects that try to improve the lives of ordinary folk through freedom or order or democracy or free enterprise---all of which save lives. (Both of us would be pasting isaiah into our own template without caring what he actually meant.) Isaiah wasn't writing about the death penalty, and I've never heard any evidence that he or any others of the Prophets opposed the proper execution of criminals.

And the prison official phrased himself in a way that's easy to sneer at, but in fact is proper. He is required to preserve the lives of inmates. If an inmate attempts to commit suicide an hour before he is executed, they must try to save him, and it it would be legally and spiritually wrong not to. It is we the citizens, embodied in the state government, who decide to execute criminals, not him. There are various jobs--soldiers, police-- where people must use deadly force to protect society, but all of them should "value the sanctity of life;" inflicting harm only within the law, and with right intention.

So, apparently Dave Trowbridge will allow a person on death row to die of cancer, rather than allow treatment, b/c doing so is hypocritical.

So, apparently Dave Trowbridge will allow a person on death row to choke to death if a piece of food goes down the wrong windpipe, rather than perform a Heimlich maneuver, b/c doing so is hypocritical.

But then, as they say, the Devil can quote Scripture for his own (nefarious) ends.

That wasn't what Dave was saying. His point was that the official was in a seeming spiritual confusion, by helping with an execution yet speaking of the sanctity of life.

(I think Dave's wrong, and is reading from a tattered old leftist playbook where anyone arrested turns into a "victim" of repressive government goons. And being "moral" and caring is reserved for liberal elites, and is unimaginable in a prison guard.)

But he wasn't saying that it's "OK" to allow a person on Death Row to die.

John,

No, he seemed to be criticizing the prison official because he wouldn't allow the Death Row inmate to die.

It appeared to me as though Trowbridge was mocking the official, who said he would resuscitate a Death Row inmate, on the grounds that said official has no understanding of the "sanctity of life," by being part of the death penalty.

I would suggest that Trowbridge is trying to have it both ways. If the official doesn't resuscitate, then he's callous. If he does resuscitate, he's being hypocritical.