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I never said 68% error rate is that they are shown to be not guilty. 68% error rate means there was some error in the application of justice. The #1 error was incompetant council - an important thing to not have when you're on trial for your life - and prosecutorial misconduct is another one of the most common errors. Both things that can easily cause an innocent person to be found guilty. On average, it took 11 years to uncover an error in a trial - far too long. If one person who is innocent of a crime is put to death, that is one too many for the death penalty to be a good solution. This is consistant with the fact our entire justice system is designed to focus on protecting innocent people as opposed to punishing guilty ones. There have also been numerous studies showing that there is great racial disparity between the application of the death penalty and likewise economic disparity. For example, if a black person kills a black person, they are less likely to be put to death than if they kill a white person. The opposite does not hold true however - if a white person kills a black person, they are less likely to be put to death than if they kill a white person. In the end, a person who kills a white person is more likely to be put to death than one who kills a black person.
Lowering the cost is also not easy. The only way to do so would be to limit a person's right to appeals and so forth - something which a justice system that values innocent life cannot do in good conscience.
As for the ast argument, I'm not even going to bother addressing it beyond stating two simple words: secular state.
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Le temps détruit tout
"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling
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