[IROC]

Since we're on the eve of killing the 1000th person since the death penalty was re-instated back in 1977, this seems an appropriate topic.

Is the death penalty a good thing or no?

I have mixed thoughts on the subject. On one hand there are alot of people that need to be removed from society and the death penalty achieves that end without having the taxpayers support them in prison for 30 or 40 years (although some of them stay on death row for a long time). On the other hand, I don't think that the death penalty really provides any sort of deterrent, so I doubt it - in and of itself - has resulted in less crime and hence it's real value is questionable.

I guess there is a sense of "justice" in a way when you see a guy executed who killed a 5 year old girl because of he needed some cocaine and she saw him steal a VCR to pay for it, but I also can't seem to get over the fact that killing people just because they killed someone doesn't make it "right"...

Then again, I always chuckled at Steve Martin's solution for over-population - "Death penalty for parking violations"....

Mike