DANCING WITH DEATH

Young people, especially young men, have been dancing with death since before we were humans. In ancient Crete, young men and women did gymnastics over the heads of bulls. In modern Spain, young men run with the bulls.

I am worried that our death penalty is making the gangs use of murder as an initiation into a kind of dance with death.

In other words, I think that the death penalty is counter productive in discouraging the gang members from committing murder. Life in prison without the possibility of parole is much less sexy than risking the death penalty.

In other murders, the death penalty is not discouraging because the murderer feels justified in his/her actions.

Getting a person executed is very expensive. DNA evidence has shown that juries can convict the wrong person. Now prosecutors are using deteriorated DNA, which is much less reliable, to convict on cold cases. As romantic as it is to solve an old murder, the chances of an incorrect conviction greatly increase because alibi evidence becomes impossible to prove.

It is way too easy to convict the innocent. Prosecutors have the services of an entire police department. Defense attorneys are lucky if they have the funds for even one investigator.

In my opinion, the death penalty should be abolished.