I guess I'm more for a punishment that will make 100% sure that evil criminals will never hurt anyone again.
Are there statistics on how many convicts have escaped from life imprisonment/solitary confinement and escaped to kill again? It seems like an unlikely proposition.
I don't know the statistics, but I have seen cases in the news in which a liberal judge has overturned a life sentence and ordered the release of a convicted murderer, and not on the grounds of actual innocence.
One recent case was a man who murdered a Lodi, NJ police officer in 1963. He was supposed to get the death penalty, but that was commuted in exchange for a life sentence. A liberal judge ordered his release. Disgraceful.
Charles Manson could be released on parole if they got a liberal enough parole board who would buy into whatever garbage reason was being put forth for his release. The fact that he, who was also sentenced to death, should even be considered for parole is disgraceful. What is the point of a life sentence for a mass murderer if parole is going to be considered? And what good is a life sentence under those circumstances?
The death penalty is like Raid for murderers. It kills them -- dead. No need to worry about those cockroaches further after that.
Dazzleman it seems like you're trying to either use the death penalty as a blunt instrument to fix problems you perceive in the parole system, or use problems in the parole system as an excuse to keep the death penalty. I don't think that's possible. Only a small fraction of violent criminals end up on death row anyways, so unless we start executing people in Chinese numbers it wouldn't be possible to fix any systemic problems in the parole system via the death penalty. Nor do I think the death penalty should be used for that purpose. Any problems in the parole system ought to be dealt with directly.
Also, this argumentation-by-anecdote that characterizes the conservative movement is one of the more negative trends in political dialogue in recent decades, because you can find an anecdote to prove just about anything. Anecdotes are simple little stories that jingle around in your head like a commercial tune, and they make for great political meme starters. I think Ronald Reagan was the first to master this kind of rhetoric and conservatives have been emulating him over it ever since. But the replacement of argumentation with anecdote is condescending, misleading-- especially if you don't have the statistics to back it up-- and may not even be truthful on its own terms.
