by Dayna Rutherford

Created on: April 09, 2011

People have been debating the death penalty for years.  Stating that if we, as a society kill someone with the " eye for an eye" approach, that makes us no better than they are.  What if we are wrong?  What if we kill someone and they are innocent?  All of that sounds valid and reasonable but think for a second.

Look at the cost to the taxpayer and society in general of someone like the man who planned and took determined steps to shoot with intent to kill the Congresswoman in Arizona during her town hall meeting, did in fact kill several other valued citizens including a nine year old girl that had her whole life ahead of her.  Now he feels like a rock star, going to court smiling at his actions and claiming mental incompetency.  I agree, he could possibly be crazy, I think more likely he is just evil.  There is no question he is the one who did this, there is no doubt he is a menace to society.  Does this man have a right to live and enjoy his life when he took it upon himself to take that away from so many other people?  Jeffrey Dahmer took it upon himself to abuse butcher and eat children, should he have the right to live...at all?

I don't believe the justice system is perfect, I think they need to work on many issues.  Look at the man that was recently released from prison on a loophole after he was convicted of raping several young girls.  He gave these girls a life sentence, he changed their lives forever.  He changed the dynamics of their families forever and the way everyone that knows them looks at the world and he is back in society to very likely commit these same acts again.  Should this ever happen? If he is guilty... he is guilty, but because they determined he was mentally incompetent that gives him the right to go free to do this again.  Arlington Va put in place a facility that would confine sex offenders that were deemed dangerous to society past their criminal offense based on mental instability.  The cost to this " hospital facility"  was estimated to be around $91,000 annually per resident of the tax payer's money.  BECAUSE THEY ARE DANGEROUS TO SOCIETY.

The California Commission on the fair Administration of Justice estimates the annual costs of death penalty trials, (about 20 million), plus death penalty appeals (about 54.4 million), plus the cost of death penalty confinement (about 60.93 million) is about 135 million dollars

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