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I'll take a whack on answering your question.

"Are you denying that innocent people have been and will be put to death? Regardless of how well refuted that argument is you, your child, spouse or loved one -- though innocent -- could be put to death. Answer the question please."

The truth is no one really knows if innocents have been executed other than reiterating what somebody has written and possibly bias enters into the equation.

As for your situation ethics comments regarding whether a family member might find themselves in that predicament, as though that should change someone's opinion about whether they agree with the death penalty.....sheesh.....that sounds like a DU posting.

The DP is EITHER morally right or wrong for EVERYONE. Not everyone but my family or yours. There is no light white or dark black.

Forgive me fellow Freeper but I'm just tired of hearing this "situation ethics" garbage from leftists I come across "emoting and feeling" their drivel.

I better go have a glass of vino and a puro.

"Are you denying that innocent people have been and will be put to death?"

Hell no. Of course some innocent people have been and will be put to death. We are dealing with people here, not gods, and people are all too fallible, as we all know. Are you some sort of fool who does not realize that thousands upon thousands of innocent people die every day? Such is life on this vale of tears. Are you some sort of Utopian who would create a hell on earth in the attempt to create a Paradise? Would you have us all drive at five miles an hour, wearing crash helmets, in cars with rubber bumpers extended five feet before and behind, so that no innocent people die in car accidents? The idea is not that no innocent people should never be put to death by the state, the idea is that in the greater scheme of things, the death penalty does more good than it does harm. Given the great number of murders in this country and the very very few number of executions and given the years and years that pass and the multiple reviews and appeals that occur before anyone is executed, the chances of an innocent person being executed is very very small. It is a chance that I am quite willing to live with.

"Regardless of how well refuted that argument is you, your child, spouse or loved one -- though innocent -- could be put to death. Answer the question please."

Yes, I , my child, my spouse, or some other loved one could, in theory, be put to death, though innocent. The chance of that happening is far less than that I or one of my loved ones stepping out of our house and being hit by lighting and it is also far less than the chances of one of us being killed by a stinking criminal. I am willing to risk being put to death for a crime that I did not commit in order to have the death penalty in effect so that at least some murderers are deterred from committing crimes for which they could receive the death penalty. You pays your money and you takes your choices and I fully support the death penalty.

As each person is executed in Texas, the paper runs stories about who is going to be executed, what their background is, what their crime was, what the evidence showed, what issues they appealed upon, etc. I have certainly not seen any cases in which the people being executed over the last few years were not obviously guilty and needed killing in a big way.