-— Can you cite one case where a person who was “clearly innocent” has been executed in the United States. (Not counting lynchings.) I don’t think there can be more than a handful.-—
Also, tbis risk has to be weighed against the risk to prison guards and other prisoners from those serving life sentences.
Another risk is that “lifers” may be released by a future administration, with the opportunity to murder again.
I forgot to exclude the Salem Witch trials, which are remarkable when compared to similar contemporaneous events in Europe and England, not for their savagery, but for the fact that the authorities very soon repudiated the treatment of the convicts. They took place in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, when their was no royal governor in Massachusetts. When a replacement was sent after restoration of the Crown, he took measures to repudiate the act.