As i wrote before it is NOT a detterent AT ALL. I will explain again.
Once that penality is handed down you have years and years before you will killed. They clog our court systems with BS and drive up costs for the taxpayers.
You want it to be a true deterrent? Death the next day high noon...
The 10,000 people killed by people who were convicted of murder and NOT excuted are 10,000 reasons why the death penalty is a deterrent.
On that, I completely agree.
I don't see how execution is a deterrent. How many kids know who is being executed and for what they are being executed?
I don't even follow that. So to think that a young person is going to stop in the middle of committing a murder, or even contemplating a murder, and think... whoops... I'm gonna die for this...
On the other hand... my sister did something very stupid at age 18 and was sent to federal prison. Her roommate was a girl of 20 who several years before, together with her boyfriend, beat an old woman to death for $1.75.
She had life in prison. She was pregnant when she went to prison and had her baby taken away and she will never know who has the child or know anything at all about that child.
She was a totally broken person. Drugs, bad decisions, bad boyfriend had led to a fatal action which she will spend the rest of her life paying for. She has no promise for anything better.
My sister was horrified with the reality of spending life in prison and realized she was on the same path. It could just as easily be her. Talk about a deterrent! My sister turned her life completely around after that. She is in her 40's now and has led a moral and legitimate lifestyle ever since.
Had that girl been on death row and executed, my sister would never have met her. Without such an impact, who knows what choices she would have made.
I am satisfied knowing the other girl will never be out of prison. We may never know how many lives she will impact in that time... how many other cellmates will turn their lives around seeing the reality of what a life sentence really means.
I hope they put young cellmates in with her all the time. That is the only good she can do in this world now... turning others away from what she had done.
I believe the death penalty should be reserved for those 18 and older... not for younger. A life sentence for youths is a huge penalty.