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Originally Posted by Amarth
Maybe I'm just naive about our justice system, but if someone makes a successful appeal, isn't the idea behind that that they are probably innocent (or at least there is a chance of it)? It's silly to try to kill someone before they get a chance to appeal, because that increases the chance of taking the life of someone who didn't commit the crime. (Spoken as though I thought it was okay to kill someone who did.)
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I was speaking in terms of a guilty person getting off on account of a technicality or such. And just because someone is found innocent by a judge or jury of a crime, does not mean that are innocent of the crime, sometimes it just means that they could not be proven guilty. Plus people do make mistakes, and it goes both ways, guilty parties can be found innocent. And a justice system that finds the guilty innocent is just as bad as one that finds the innocent guilty.
SecretMethod70,
A person appealing a life sentence can have court costs just as high as a person appealing a death sentence. As far as I can tell, keeping a person in prison for 15 years or so and then killing them is a lot cheaper then keeping them in prison for 50+ years. The actual shot cannot cost enough to make up the difference. So unless I'm missing some extra expenses in there, I think I stick with the death penalty being cheaper.