For proponents of capital punishment, address this:

Assume now, for the purposes of discussion, that no matter how

meticulous the Prosecution in a death penalty case may be, there will be

the unintended execution of an innocent person.

Does the inevitability of such an innocent death cause you to doubt your

position in support of the death penalty? If not, why not?

Stephen Markman:

Former United States Attorney in Michigan

“This is clearly the strongest argument against the death penalty.

Despite all the procedures and due process that can be

introduced, it is a human system and there is the possibility of

error in that system.

Although there is no clear evidence that there has in fact been

that erroneous execution in this century, I think we have to

assume that it is possible. The argument against that is this: that

there are many things we do in society that carry that kind of

tragic possibility - we have surgeries, medicines, traffic,

construction etc. Each of these institutions ultimately leads to the

death of innocents in some statistically certain number of

circumstances. I think we have to look at this as a system that

ultimately saves many more lives than the inadvertent life that

is occasionally tragically lost in the system.

For every innocent who is executed, and again, we don’t have the

statistics, I would suggest that there are many more innocent lives

that would be lost with the alternative. Even with life with parole,

we’ve lost many more lives as a result of escapees and prisoners

killing other prisoners, prisoners killing guards.

There is no perfect system but I would suggest that we have lost

many more lives with prisoners escaping and killing others. The

larger argument is that we have saved thousands and thousands

of lives with the deterrent element of capital punishment and that

would totally be lost if we abolish the deathpenalty.”