oooo yes!!!

[Guy]

Many states in the US have the death penalty, doesn't appear to work as much of a deterrent there? 

[The Mighty Elvi]

Statistics old boy.

[The Mighty Elvi]

“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.”

“The evidence on whether it has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. “I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified"

Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in their own Stanford Law Review article that “the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent power and unanimity,’ ” quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.

“Capital punishment may well save lives,” the two professors continued. “Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html?pagewanted=all

Etc..

[Diamond Hell]

My objection isn't on the basis of 'protecting life' it's on the basis of doing something irreparable and also on the basis that I'm not comfortable with the state having the ability to take my life.

You're comfortable with the state taking your life, are you?

Forensic science will improve, controls will be found and things will be put in place to ensure processes don't go wrong.  At every turn techniques to deceive forensic science, defeat the controls and pervert the processes will develop alongside the initial developments.  This is why no decision is 100% and no guilt is ever 100%.

I never want to be the 0.1 or 1% that things fail for, especially if it involves the state taking my life mistakenly, because someone decided they wanted to see me responsible for something they did.

As Guy has already pointed out - the death penalty hasn't been much of a deterrent in the United State of Cluster-f*ckery.  As I've pointed out criminals don't start out thinking they'll get caught, or they wouldn't do what they do in the first place.

[mac7]

My objection isn't on the basis of 'protecting life' it's on the basis of doing something irreparable and also on the basis that I'm not comfortable with the state having the ability to take my life.

I am not opposed to the death penalty provided reasonable safeguards exist against killing an innocent person. It's partly for this reason that prisoners sentenced to death in the US stay on death row on average for a decade – although you can never be 100% certain (not much in life is), that seems like more than a reasonable length of time to establish guilt or innocence.

As Guy has already pointed out - the death penalty hasn't been much of a deterrent in the United State of Cluster-f*ckery.  As I've pointed out criminals don't start out thinking they'll get caught, or they wouldn't do what they do in the first place.

I agree with this – it’s not a deterrant because criminals either don’t think they’ll get caught or at the time of the crime they just don’t think of the consequences. Before applying any penalty it should be established which of these is the case – stupid people can be rehabilitated.

We are all destined to die. If a murder was pre-meditated why not just bring forward the inevitable to a more convenient time for the rest of us? It’s costly to house and feed a person for 40 or 50 years. But if you are going to keep them locked up for decades then at least put them to work – a person is also a valuable resource.

[DOA]

As good a deterant as the death penalty "may" be as indicated by Elvi's research into studies done, I suspect that real hard labour along with reduced human rights in terms of what the prisoners can be forced to do would be a more effective deterant. Add in the fact that it provides more than adequate time to prove inocence if required and the fact that the prisoners can be used to better others lifes through the work these people are forced to do and the potential to pay for their own upkeep and its a powerfull case. Of course this would never happen due to logistics, investment, human rights protests, the potential for corruption and not to mention having a government strong enough to bring such a penalty to life. Just like they will never bring the death penalty back in purely on the grounds that the govenrment dont have the balls to do it. Either way, I would never vote for either option but I would definately vote in favour of making the prison system far more harsh than it already is, as others have said, it just is not a deterant any more (I know a couple of people who have been to jail and while they certainly didnt enjoy it, they were very surprised just how easy it was in reality and just how good a place for criminal networking it really is).