South Carolina can execute death row inmates by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair, the state's high court ruled Wednesday, opening the door to restart executions after more than a decade.
All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two of the justices said...
I oppose the death penalty, but not because I think it’s wrong to kill some criminals. I am perfectly fine with ending people like Tim McVeigh or Susan Smith. My problem is that I don’t have confidence courts can reliably tell who deserves and who doesn’t.
They always say the death penalty is for the “worst of the worst”, but many arbitrary factors can make the difference. The race /social class of the criminal/ victim. The ambition of the prosecutor. The location of the crime.
I oppose the death penalty, but not because I think it’s wrong to kill some criminals. I am perfectly fine with ending people like Tim McVeigh or Susan Smith. My problem is that I don’t have confidence courts can reliably tell who deserves and who doesn’t.
They always say the death penalty is for the “worst of the worst”, but many arbitrary factors can make the difference. The race /social class of the criminal/ victim. The ambition of the prosecutor. The location of the crime.
Just the fact that multiple people have been exonerated, sometimes posthumously, shows that the whole thing is highly flawed.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/database/innocence
200 cases at least.
You only need to look at the imbalance in death penalties by skin color to know something is wrong.