Good. The death penalty ensures a false incarceration can never be corrected, costs millions of tax payer dollars because of the long appeals processes, and shows no correlation with decreased crime rates (states with out the death penalty consistently have lower crime rates according to the FBI [0])<p>[0] - <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates" rel="nofollow">http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-de...</a>
Good on them. I've seen way too many instances of people on death row that are eventually proved to be innocent. I think that even if the accuracy of death sentences was 99% (for every 99 criminals that truly did the crime, there is 1 that is innocent), that is unacceptably low. Furthermore, I am unconvinced that the death penalty actually deters crime. If you are committing a crime that results in you being sentenced to death, I don't think you are sane enough to have even considered the punishment.
Going to be contrarian here. I see in other comments<p>> costs millions of tax payer dollars because of the long appeals processes<p>Well... yes, but the alternative is that you throw someone in prison for life (likely without parole). And since there is no upcoming "event" to force an appeals process (aka execution), it will just never happen. Is that really a better fate for someone wrongfully accused? If you are sentencing them to life in a cage, be honest and call it a death penalty.<p>So sure you can save some money by getting rid of the death penalty, but it is not likely to make Justice any better served, it will just make you feel better and leave people in prison forever without a guaranteed appeals process.
Welcome to civilised society Nebraska! :)<p>Good to see another state abolish this but as someone not too familiar with how the US law system works why is something like this decided at the state level? Shouldn't something like government sanctioned killing of humans be controlled at a federal level? Also does the federal government have a position on capital punishment?
Intelligence Squared had a pretty good debate on capital punishment a few weeks ago:<p><a href="http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1254-abolish-the-death-penalty" rel="nofollow">http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1...</a>