So we have lots of public witnesses when years later we found out we hung the wrong guy?
Technically because of the way our legal system is set up no innocent person has ever been executed.
If we accept the premise that if a jury rules “not guilty” regardless of the facts (and we later learn that person was in fact guilty) in the eyes of the law, they are innocent.
The reverse is also true. We have safeguards and appeals. By the time the death penalty is applied the condemned has had multiple reviews of their case.
Even if after all that, we discover that the person was in fact did not commit the crime, they are still “guilty” having been found so by a jury of their peers.
While the death penalty is not 100% free from mistakes, there is one thing we all can agree on, no one that has been executed has ever killed an innocent person again. That can not be said for the many once convicted death row inmates that somehow found themselves out among the people again.
How many innocent victims must there be to satisfy those that oppose the death penalty?
One last item. Life is unfair. People die everyday from things other than old age. Accidents, war, murders, diseases, why is it the only thing that concerns the left is the death penalty.
I am sure the victims of these convicted killers wished they had years of appeals before they died.
At least that is my opinion