THERE ARE THOSE WHO contend that the death penalty serves no purpose.
It doesn't prevent others from committing heinous crimes - murder, rape, mutilation - and there is some evidence to support this theory.
The death penalty, however, DOES effectively prevent recidivism.
Ahh, the anti-capital punishment people respond, most of murderers were one-time killers; they won't do it again.
They also will remind us that there have been far too many innocent people on death row, many thankfully found innocent before their execution. No argument there.
JEWISH LAW - BIBLICAL LAW - requires two witnesses to a capital crime and at least one of those witnesses must warn the person about to commit a murder of the consequences.
It's a good law and one that seems to very well protect against sending an innocent person to the executioner.
Unfortunately, we find that many of the people charged with murder, particularly terrorists, when released return to their pre-arrest ways; they are repeat offenders.
The U.S, learned the lesson - well, perhaps it failed to learn the lesson - when it released terrorists captured in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel, which repeatedly caves to terrorist pressure to "trade" hundreds of jailed terrorists for one or two Israelis - frequently already dead Israelis - has too much experience with recidivistic killers.
In Israel, a Member of Knesset (parliament) tried to propose a bill that would make capital punishment part of Israeli law. (Israel is a democracy and is home to people of many different beliefs, not all based on the Bible.) In all its modern history there has only been one court-sanctioned execution, that of Adolf Eichmann.
The country's prime minister sent the proposal to committee to prevent the entire parliament from debating the bill and possibly failing to vote his way. (Meanwhile fanatics continue to murder civilians - infants to the elderly - knowing they will sit in an Israeli jail, getting their masters degrees before being traded back to do it all again.)
The only people who are guaranteed NOT to be recidivists are the suicide murders who succeed in their plans.
While I agree with the anti-capital punishment folks that
a) Some innocent people have been executed; thanks to DNA this potential execution of an innocent is greatly reduced.
b) That many murders were committed in the heat of passion (which usually precludes murder in the first degree for which the death penalty is an option) and, therefore, the murderer probably won't commit another murder in another "fit of passion.
The above does NOT apply to rapists who typically have a history of rape and sexual perversion on unwilling victims.
c) Execution is not a deterrent; if it was there would be no more murders and rapes.
HOWEVER, execution does prevent recidivism. Murderers will not murder others; rapists will never rape another woman or molest another child.
Limit the death penalty. It's less expensive to incarcerate a a person for life-and-a-day than it is to execute the person, given the cost of automatic appeals, etc. (I have no objection to automatic appeals.)
There is a place for the death penalty, and there is a reason for the death penalty.
Persons convicted of murder as a means to terrorize the population should be the prime candidates for the executioner.
