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* "51 percent of Americans say they'd support a law replacing the death penalty with mandatory life; 46 percent would oppose such legislation."

The word "capital" in "capital punishment" refers to a
person's head. In the past, people were often executed
by severing their head from their body.

Most Americans believe tht life in prison is a more reasonable and
practical sentence than judicial homicide.  And neither represent
a majority.   We can, indeed, do better.  Every other western

inductrialized democracy has done so, and it is time we joined them.

Here is the documentation:
 
Declining Support for Kentucky's Death Penalty
An editorial published by the Lexington Herald-Leader noted that support for Kentucky's death penalty has declined since the state resumed executions a decade ago. The paper stated that 68% of state residents questioned in a recent poll preferred a long prison sentence over execution for those convicted of murder. The Herald-Leader concluded that Kentuckians' growing unease about capital punishment is reflective of a broader national trend away from the death penalty and that the death penalty is often more a matter of chance than of justice.

By Peter Smith   psmith@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

More than two-thirds of Kentuckians surveyed say that a lengthy prison

sentence is the "most appropriate" punishment for someone convicted of

aggravated murder, while about a third chose the death penalty, according to a

University of Kentucky poll. 

And in Ohio:

59% would support an alternative to execution if it involved life in prison without chance of parole and a requirement that the inmate work while in prison with the money going to the victim's family. 31% supported the death penalty in preference to this alternative. An inmate working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, over a 25 year sentence at $3.00 an hour would generate $150,000 for the family of the victim.

And the most recent national poll indiates a Majority who favor life in prison over death

An ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll finds broad agreement with two other arguments against the death penalty: That it's applied unfairly across jurisdictions, and that innocent people are sometimes executed. And the strongest argument in favor — that it prevents killers from killing again — is also achieved by life in prison without parole.

*Life

Given these views, 51 percent of Americans say they'd support a law replacing the death penalty with mandatory life; 46 percent would oppose such legislation. Equal numbers would support it "strongly" as oppose it strongly — about a quarter on each side.

Fifty-one percent also say they'd support a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty while a commission studies whether it's been administered fairly. And when people are told that such a moratorium currently exists in Illinois, support for a national moratorium advances to 57 percent.

 


 Support or Oppose
   Support Oppose
Law replacing death with life/no parole 51% 46
National moratorium on death penalty 51 43
National moratorium (Illinois noted) 57 46
 

And here are the facts

"The death penalty costs more, delivers less,
and puts innocent lives at risk. Life without parole
provides swift, severe, and certain punishment.
It provides justice to survivors of murder victims
and allows more resources to be invested into
solving other murders and preventing violence.
Sentencing people to die in prison is the
sensible alternative for public safety and murder
victims’ families."
 

and more:

Mario Cuomo, Former Mayor of New York City,
in a June 17, 1989 article for the New York Times titled
"New York State Shouldn't Kill People," wrote:

"What makes the risk of wrongful execution all the more unacceptable is that there is an effective alternative to burning the life out of human beings in the name of public safety. That alternative is just as permanent, at least as great a deterrent and - for those who are so inclined - far less expensive than the exhaustive legal appeals required in capital cases.

That alternative is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. No 'minimums' or 'maximums.' No time off for good behavior. No chance of release by a parole board, ever. Not even the possibility of clemency. It is, in practical effect, a sentence of death in incarceration.

Life without parole is achievable immediately. The Legislature could enact it Monday. I would sign the measure Tuesday. It would apply to crimes committed the next day. In fact, the only thing preventing the next cop killer from spending every day of the rest of his life in jail is the politics of death."

and here is some interesting commentary from a more mature nation

 

Life in Prison: A Fate Worse than Execution?

August 1, 2007

For those of my readers who advocate the death penalty as the ultimate punishment — the ultimate justice — for the ultimate crime, I have a quote for you:

We are tired of dying a litttle bit each day. We have decided to die once and for all, and we ask that our penalties of life imprisonment be converted to penalties of death. To be now dead but not alive either — life imprisonment turns light into shadow, it kills you inside bit by bit: a death in small doeses. It renders life useless, makes the future seem the same as the past. It crushes the present and takes away hope. To a life prisoner, only life remains. But life without a future is less than nothing. It is flat and everlasting. Life imprisonment is the invention of an Antichrist with a malice that transcends the imagination. It is a victory over death, stronger than death itself.

This impassioned plea comes from 310 Italian murderers serving life sentences. Italy has no death penalty.

I advocate for an abolition of the death penalty ... it’s expensive and potentially cruel and unusual — see the research done on lethal injection methods — 

Finally, I don’t believe that the state should have the right to kill people in any situation outside wartime.

But for those of you who believe that life in prison is letting murderers off easy, look at the 310 murderers who are begging for a release from their life-sentence torment via the very means you advocate as their ultimate punishment. Perhaps it’s time to rethink whether the death penalty is more than the lowest of the low deserve.

Food for thought.  
best regards, Tim 

Death Penalty

The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights. By working towards the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, Amnesty International USA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign looks to end the cycle of violence created by a system riddled with economic and racial bias and human error.

Moratorium on executions now!

On 18 December 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, by a large majority, a second resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Read more about the UNGA resolution

 
Use of the death penalty around the world (as of Sep. 2007).
     Abolished for all offenses (92)      Abolished for all offenses except under special circumstances (10)      Retains, though not used for at least 10 years (32)      Retains death penalty (64)* *Note that, while laws vary between U.S. states, it is considered retentionist because the federal death penalty is still in active use.
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