What about the dispproportionate number of people of color sentenced to death for crimes where white folks are more likely to live?
What about those who are innocent but found guilty?
Death is irreversible and there have been many wrongly convicted who have later been exonerated.
What about the effect of the death penalty on a convicted person's innocent family and friends?
What about the execution of the developmentally disabled? What about the mentally ill?
Juries are filled with every day folks, often desperate to return to work, who have no training regarding racism or xenophobia or other diseases of the overculture. They convict based on "beyond a REASONABLE doubt" but some innocent people look guilty to jurors using their most conscientious reason.
I've served on a capital murder jury. It's not like matlock. The ends are not all neatly tied up. There are holes everywhere. I was not impressed with the process, the lawyers or most of the jurors.