In order to securely submit someone to a death penalty, it must be known that it would be better for society as a whole if the person in question was dead rather than alive. This creates a sticky concept of balancing morals. If a man plans on killing one who would use his life to create genocide, is it truly murder? One could argue that it is in fact more noble than if he had not killed the man. At the same time, if a soldier is sent overseas and shoots into a house which is believed to contain enemies of the state, and it instead has innocent civilians, is the soldier doing his duty with an unintended mistake, or is it the slaughtering of innocence? One could easily argue that such soldiers are not heroes and need to come to justice. The point I'm trying to get across here is that there is no absolute when it comes to death and murder. As sad as a fact as it is, killing some people are more socially acceptable than it is to kill others. Point and case; if a man were to serve in the military and go overseas and take out many people, some enemies and some innocent, he may very well return home to a hero's welcome despite the fact that he did kill people, even if for a cause being pushed for by the government. If one were to kill a community hero, such as the former war hero, and the culprit were to be found and determined guilty to the degree in which it were fact, the community would be calling for his head. I'm not here to say that either man was right to kill, or that either man was wrong to kill. I'm saying that it would inherently be wrong to subject one to capital punishment and not the other.

Confliction

It's an interesting bit of irony that the claims of a lowered murder rate since 1976 ignore the fact that the the regions of the US which have had the most executions since then tend to have higher. For example, the south has had over 970 executions since 1976, but they hold the highest murder rate in the nation, averaging on the high end of 6 and hitting 7 for every one hundred thousand people. On the contrary, the northeast has balanced around the low to middle 4 area for every one hundred thousand people. These results are clear and simple; more executions do not prevent murders from occurring. As a matter of fact, in 2008, the average murder rate for states with the death penalty was 5.2 for every one hundred thousand people, where as the rate for states without capital punishment was only 3.3.

I'm terrible at transitions, but I have recently come across a relatively inactive blog of a death row inmate, and provoked some thought. Firstly, the new age of technology grants some who in the past were completely silent a voice. These people may have committed murder, but by no means is that a reason to deny them the right to free speech. Anyways, Vernon Evans wrote the blog linked on death row, and I suppose it grabs my attention as he always contests his innocence, and he even supports his request for life in prison with reason. He claims that one can not make up for what they have done through death, but a life dedicated to making a positive difference. It is true that other than feeding a desire for revenge, no good has come of using capital punishment. No studies found on the dead bodies for their motives, and no rehabilitation either. The death penalty impairs our judgment and puts our humanity in question.

Death Penalty Info
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

Meet Vernon
http://www.meetvernon.blogspot.com/

And now, for a very important Public Service Announcement!

What can truly be known?

Without dabbling into philosophical ideas of how nothing is truly known because of a "brain in a vat" theory, it can still be said that nothing, no matter how certain or guaranteed is truly known. There are ways to fool the eyes, the mouth, the ears, the nose, and even our sense of feeling without the use of a hypothetical electrical stimulation in a simulated world, and thus there is a way to fool the mind of what it believes is knowledge. Because of this, is there any way to be certain of what one knows?
One argument against this is that if one claims to have done something they should not have, and they have no signs of mental instability, their statement is truth. Otherwise there would seem to be no reasoning behind such a confession.
Sadly, this has proven to not be the case. Multiple times there have been confessions proven to have been false confessions. As reported in the Texas Death Penalty Blog, Max Soffer has been sitting on death row for thirty years because of a false confession, and he has not received an opportunity to prove his true innocence in this time. This man has already, in essence, lost his life due to a mistake.
There is already at least one occurrence of a wrongful conviction resulting in a wrongful death. Deathpenaltyinfo.org reports that Cameron Willingham was sentenced to death for killing his three children in a fire, and years after he was executed, it was found that the trial was horribly flawed and that it is extremely unlikely that he performed any of the actions he was sentenced for.
It's awful enough that anyone should be found wrongfully guilty of any crime, but for even one life to be killed for it is inexcusable. At least with a life sentence, there is an opportunity to increase certainty and save more innocent lives and insure that the true murderer is found, because even in the most solid case, nothing is certain.

Texas Death Penalty Blog
http://texasdeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2010/03/aclu-asks-supreme-court-to-review-case.html

Death Penalty Info
http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ongoing-investigation-texas-execution-throws-new-doubt-defendants-guilt