I would 100% in favor of eliminating the death penalty if there was an alternative that did not merely shift the injustice to the innocent public that now has to support/care for the convict.

But I strongly believe there are some people have no business in civilization and cannot be rehabilitated/returned to civilization.

Life in prison, without parole actually costs the tax payers less than a death sentence.

In many ways death is more merciful than lengthy prison terms.

The main problem with the death penalty is it's shown to not actually deter crime. So by shortcutting the appeals process you're basically just executing more innocent people in order to save money. It doesn't increase the number of guilty people executed, and because the death penalty doesn't deter crime it doesn't reduce the crime rate.

Really? I'm willing to bet if you took a poll of people on death row which they would prefer, nearly all would chose not to be on death row.

That assumes the main goal is a reduction in the crime rate. I tend to think its more about getting our pound of flesh.

Life in prison, without parole actually costs the tax payers less than a death sentence.

Which has absolutely no bearing on my comment, unless you were just adding some already well documented knowledge?

But the appeals process is expensive, no doubt, but no less expensive than the appeals process for non-death row inmates that have their legal fees picked up by tax payers. The difference in cost comes from the manner in which death row inmates are housed. The guard to inmate ratio goes way up, the living space per inmate goes way up, etc.

The crux of your comment was cost, so I assumed that because you weren't advocating life in prison, you didn't understand that it was cheaper.

If your main goal is to reduce the cost to tax payers for criminals that should not be re-introduced into society, then life in prison is the obvious answer.

Why is that the obvious answer? Reducing the length of appeals and cutting down on the high overhead for housing death row inmates would work too.

You're misusing the fallacy.

Since we're talking about something that is a matter of opinion rather than fact. (Humane is an abstract that is in the eye of the beholder) Then the fact that the majority of those for whom the decision is relevant feel one particular way, then yes, it is perfectly valid.

California has 5 automatic appeals - does anyone here think that is a good idea?

If we simply require DNA evidence (from two different labs) for a death penalty case we could do away with a lot of appeals, shorten the process and make it much cheaper.

Just because death row inmates would choose life if given the choice does not mean it is actually more humane; humane is somewhat subjective but harm can also be assessed through observation. That's why it's an appeal to popularity. A dog, like a death row inmate has a survival instinct. If hit by a car it will try to get away and live, but that does not make it more humane to let the thing suffer on the off chance it will recover. You shoot the injured dog unless there is good reason to think it can be saved.

Just because I'm a contrary old fart, I'm tying this into a point you raised earlier... As it applies to people, the concept that a convict can be "saved" is, for me anyway, rooted in the concept of penitence. The concept of a "pound of flesh" is rooted in retribution. There's a reason we call our prisons penitentiaries, and pounds of flesh have no place in sentencing in my concept of justice. We're strictly punishing criminals at that juncture, in my understanding. We have civil suits for rewarding victims.

I don't see anything wrong with retribution as part of justice, when it's applied after a lawful finding of guilt.

Keeping an innocent man in prison for 35 years is no more correctable than executing him. It is no less a miscarriage of justice, or whatever else you want to call it.

So revenge should be the standard? If that is the case why don't we allow the victims to determine sentences?