[xorfish]

There are a lot of cases with the innocent project where an innocent person was lucky to be proven innocent.

There must be many more that are not lucky.

Around 4.1% of people on death row are estimated to be innocent.

https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230

I have a hard time imaging, that the rate is lower for lesser crimes where the victims of the justice system can be coerced to accept a "lesser" punishment.

[syshum]

There are because proving innocence is very hard... That is why more pressure needs to put on the Legal System to only convict on an actual "beyond reasonable doubt" standard, unfortunately today some juries seem to operate on more of a preponderance of the evidence or worse "ehh he did something wrong" standard

Personally I believe the 4.1% estimate to be pretty low, and it one of the reasons I strongly oppose capital punishment, I simply do not trust our legal system enough to give them the power and authority to kill people

[JTbane]

>Personally I believe the 4.1% estimate to be pretty low, and it one of the reasons I strongly oppose capital punishment, I simply do not trust our legal system enough to give them the power and authority to kill people

Agreed, because humans are fallible, and a jury is made of humans The courts can always release on appeal. You can't un-kill someone

[totony]

What's the difference between capital punishment and life imprisonment here? The amount of people that have their case re-analyzed to release them must be low. Plus, after decades in prison, coming out of it likely will make life very hard to get back into.

[syshum]

Well that is a very complex answer as I am not a supporter of the current prison system either. I am not a big fan of "prison punishment", instead I believe prison should be use to separate dangerous people from society, and not involve abuse.

That said in broad strokes, Death is final, and while reintegration may be pretty hard, if a person spent 20 years in prison because society made a mistake, I think that person should get a very large settlement from the state to the point where they never have to work again thus making that transition much easier.

[totony]

But the odds of getting released are so low it's not really worth imo. I see life in prison more akin to torture than anything else, which makes it worse than death penalty

[syshum]

I do believe people should have a "choice" (lack of a better term as it not much of a choice) but I am still completely opposed to it as a "punishment"

I am also a supporter of legalized suicide for the general public as well, especially for the terminally ill

[cutemonster]

I think too that prison makes more sense for keeping physically dangerous people away. And if they don't assault anyone within X years in prison, maybe they're now a bit less dangerous.

Combined with some therapy or something.

But not as punishment.

For me, the main reason to oppose the death penalty is also that innocent people get killed.