Death Penalty Should Be Retained and Used More Often

I just posted a piece on the death penalty on the main Dakota Voice website. A much shorter version of this had been planned for my Rapid City Journal column.

I had planned an altogether different piece for the RCJ this week, but I was unable to complete a series of interviews necessary to do an informed piece in time to make my deadline. The shorter version of this death penalty piece was Plan B, but when the House bill for the repeal of the death penalty died in committee Friday, I had a third column already written and sitting on the back burner that I considered more pertinent, now that the repeals chances went from slim to almost nil. You’ll see that Plan C one Tuesday in the Journal (it’s no less pertinent, just a matter of timing with committee hearings, votes, etc.).

This death penalty piece is intended to address many of the flawed arguments floating around regarding the death penalty. Those include everything from bleeding heart liberals who never met a guilty criminal, to misguided pro-life people who somehow manage to find moral equivalency between killing an innocent unborn human being and the state execution of a murderer who would brutally torture and take the life of another human being. The shorter version of this I had planned for the Journal barely allowed me to cover the ground I needed to in the 500 words allowed me in that forum, so at least by posting it online at DakotaVoice.com, I was able to lay out the facts and rationale a little better.

In the final analysis, there is absolutely no reason to repeal the death penalty, and every reason to not only keep it, but to drastically step up not only its frequency of use, and reduce the pathetic 12-year-average it takes from sentencing to execution.