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I think life imprisonment is a really bad thing to have happen to you, only marginally better than death. I'm honestly not sure I'd prefer life imprisonment to death at all, in fact. I also don't object to either one as punishment for the worst criminals.
That's my moral stance.
On to practicalities: lots of people hate the death penalty and will devote effort to making certain the wrong person is not executed. These people will not devote the same effort to preventing wrongful life imprisonment. Similarly, a wrongful execution is an outrage, whereas wrongful life imprisonment barely makes the news.
Thus, I see the choice as the following: some number of wrongful executions, or some larger number of wrongful life imprisonments. I prefer the smaller number of people who wrongfully lose their life.
That is less and less the case, given the collapse of local/regional investigative journalism, and also spectacularly unequal. The press or non-profit organizations should not be put in the position where it is responsible for providing a robust defense for people accused of capital crimes.
The fact that there is such inequity in the manner defense is provided against prosecution makes me completely against the general practice of the death penalty, given the possible injustices it may render when weighed against the possible justice it may mete out against truly heinous crimes.
Agreed - the justice system should be doing this. They aren't. Until they do, I feel the sunlight that the death penalty attracts is highly valuable.
...inequity in the manner defense is provided against prosecution makes me completely against the general practice of the death penalty...
Is the inequity greater for the death penalty than for life imprisonment? If not, then do you also oppose life imprisonment?
There are too many instances of prosecutorial malfeasance or justice denied to continue with the death penalty, even in cases where the guilty parties certainly deserve to die (Bernardo and probably Homolka, in Canada).
