The executions were a public event, in which most of the town would attend, just the same as in England. It has been here since our inception as a nation and has no signs of changing. Domestic approval for the death penalty remains well over sixty percent. In fact, the closest execution has ever come to being illegal was back in 1972, when the Supreme Court, in its 5-4 decision Furman vs. Georgia, struck down the capital punishment statutes of 39 states. Even then, although the court ruled that the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, it emphasized that it was only illegal in the way it was then administered. Execution itself, it said, was not unconstitutional. Opponents equate execution and mu!.
rder, believing that if two acts have the same ending or result, then those two acts are morally equivalent. This is a morally untenable position. Is the legal taking of property to satisfy a debt the same as auto theft? Both result in loss of property. Are kidnapping and legal incarceration the same? Both involve imprisonment against one's will. Is killing in self-defense the same as capital murder? Both end in taking human life. Is rape and making love the same? Both may result in sexual intercourse. How absurd. Opponents' flawed logic and moral confusion mirror their "factual" arguments - there is, often, an absence of reality. The moral confusion of some opponents is astounding. Some equate the American death penalty with the Nazi holocaust. Opponents see no moral distinction between the slaughter of 12 million totally innocent men, women and children and the just execution of society's worst human rights violators. .
There is also the argument over the cost of death row prisoners compare prisoners who have been given a sentence of life without parole. There is no question that the up front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent life without parole cases.