I think the key in defeating the death penalty is focusing the message on sparing the innocent a wrongful execution and not anything to do with the guilty. Too many people are obsessed with punishing the guilty to ever make ground there. The death penalty will always have an error rate and that means innocent people are murdered by the state. The only way to prevent a wrongful execution is to have none at all
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2025
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There's also the fact that it incentivizes crime. If you commit a crime for which the punishment is death, you might as well do even more crimes to not get caught. Killed a guy? Might as well kill any potential witnesses too, it's not like they can kill you twice. When you've maxed out the punishment, any more crimes are freebies.
Also incentivizes fighting to the death rather than allowing yourself to be taken into custody alive.
The death penalty breaks the social contract regarding peaceful surrender to law enforcement.
You can try that, but in my experience with my own conservative family they just don't care. It's the inverse of "I'd rather ten grifters take advantage of my charity in case I help at least one real person". They're okay with killing innocent people so they can get the few criminals. They know and understand completely. But they live in an echo chamber and never think about how it impacts them, that they themselves even risk being the murdered innocents.
Thats something Ive seen as well. Its best to begin with the innocent being wrongfully executed so if they admit that innocent deaths are fine as long as the guilty also get killed then you know they just like the idea of murder without consequence and can stop there.
The best argument against the death penalty, at least to give to people that dont see a moral issue with it, is that its vastly more expensive than putting people in prison for life. Its effectively a luxury we pay for the state to be able to kill people, so is it something worth paying ridiculous amounts of taxpayer money on?
For one, we already pay to imprison them for decades of appeals, and foot the bill for the appeals process. If they still are going to be executed, then we have to pay for the extremely expensive drugs (made by only one company at this point IIRC). And then, if the drugs dont work right the person can sue. Or their family can sue if they still die, but not as intended. Then, if it turns out they were innocent it costs millions upon millions in a settlement. Is all of this worth it for us to be paying for, considering we could just lock them up for life? How many schools or hospitals or whatever could be built using the money we pay for the sake of revenge?
I disagree because the cost could come down eventually, or you get the people arguing to "just put a bullet in the guilty."
The best argument is the one that focuses on sparing the innocent.
I've tried arguing that its not about the guilty. Its about us. We are the ones preforming the execution. Killing a killer doesn't reduce the number of killers. It just brings us down to their level. In my mind, if you take pleasure in the suffering of others, whether they deserve it or not, its sadism. People need to realize that the positive feeling they get from vengeance is just another form of sadism. If you want to think of yourself as a good person then you shouldn't feed that personality trait.
I dont think that works because it seems that people generally love the idea of punishing the guilty. As in, a person being guilty with 100% certainty should be punished. To many there are crimes that justify execution. So we cannot convince those people that killing the guilty is wrong.
However sparing an innocent person the same fate is a much easier hill to climb. Most people agree that innocent deaths are inexcusable and will consider a reality where there is no death penalty to ensure we arent killing the wrong people. You just have to appease their punishment fetish first. So I find the best approach is first to establish the reality that no system is 100% accurate 100% of the time and therefor innocent people will be executed, as many already have. Then follow that up by highlighting how life imprisonment accomplishes two things: a lifelong punishment for the guilty AND a timeline to allow for the possible exoneration of the innocent.
If their punishment fetish is what allows them to be ok with potentially killing innocent people, then they deserve to be next in line. They are no different than those they want to punish. I don't even think punish is the right word. Executions would be vengeance. They have that fetish because they think of themselves as righteous, good people. They are not. People who support the death penalty are no different than medieval peasants cheering on the gruesome torture of a "criminal" like its entertainment. That is sadism. They can not be the good person they see themselves as and be sadistic at the same time. They just love to feed the sadistic part of themselves. I just try to get them to be more introspective, and that if their goal is to be a rightous person, they need to stop feeding their own sadism.
I agree that ppl accepting innocent deaths from the death penalty are wrong. I dont think those people can be convinced otherwise and its not worth it to try.
I know its unlikely they will hear anything I say, but I like to point out, with solid logic, people who see themselves as rightous (without any actual introspection) are actually giant pieces of shit. I have yet to hear any good argument from them in response.
Executions are just another form circus to distract people from the crimes of those in power. We all know who should be on Death Row right now, and it’s not some nobody murderer.
I'm more concerned about crimes perpetrated by the state than I am street criminals. And history is rather clear on this as well.
You must either believe the state is infallible or that the death penalty is wrong. You can't sensibly believe that the state can be wrong and the death penalty is right. It is the only sentence that cannot be reversed.
Nope, there are absolutely people who are fine with innocents being murdered by the state as long as the guilty also die. It's sort of a, 'gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette,' mentality.