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The penalties for breaking laws have two purposes. The first is a punishment for the crime that is intended to prevent the infraction being committed again. The second purpose is for the punishment to be a deterrent that will hopefully prevent the law being broken in the first place.
Life imprisonment may provide the same punishment value (they will never murder again, or at least that is the goal) but it does not provide the same deterrent value as the death penalty. I will admit that it is possible for someone to be convicted falsely but that is why we have the "beyond a reasonable doubt" method. Pulling punches because of the inherent uncertainty in life is a road to nonsense; after all it is quite possible that someone who is found not guilty might in fact be guilty, so should we take that into account and punish them a little?
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