I am in favor of the death penalty in certain cases, as long as we are 100% certain we execute the correct person. When it is demonstrated that we executed someone who did not commit the crime, I will be completely opposed to the death penalty ever again being used.
With DNA testing foolproof you have almost a 100% chance of getting it right where blood or skin samples have been retrieved from a perp.
Of course not all cases involve perp DNA. And many cases there are no witnesses.
It’s a crap shoot. But fast execution (a year at most...not decades) is need at this time to make execution a deterant.
OK, so they did not commit the crime. That’s ok. But what if they had a mile long rap sheet and society would be better off without them around? I’d feel guilty about it for 10 minutes.
Too many confounding variables.