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Really? I didn't know that pine coffins were so expensive.

There's something wrong with your reply on the surface. I haven't looked at the costs, but that "it (routinely) costs more to execute someone than not?" Assumptions, cost measurements, or what: SOMEthing's wrong with that line. Doing a Google search now. Ahh, phrasing: you mean the cost of the legal proceedings, long and drawn out as they are for kill vs non-kill cases while I literally mean the cost to kill them, period; not the previous "set up" costs that must be incurred. Good point, they are different.

If the death penalty was replaced with a sentence of Life Without the Possibility of Parole*, which costs millions less and also ensures that the public is protected while eliminating the risk of an irreversible mistake, the money saved could ...

I hadn't considered that. And it does solve the 100% sure thing, as you don't kill someone, you just effectively "take their life away over a long period of time."

So we'd need more jails if (as?) we get more permanent jail residents. Oh, and don't forget health care, even if they want to change their sex. And visitation rights, and guards, alarms, upkeep, training, and what-now.

Vs an "Escape from New York" setup.

So you take someone, put them in "The Big House", locked up with bars everywhere, ordered around all of the time, take care of them (not being sarcastic here) for as long as they live? I originally was going to say THAT sounds like "cruel and unusual punishment," just like living on death row for 20 years -- see Nathan Dunlap. But Food, AC, heat, dry, bedding, security, and medicine all provided? The more I think about it the more I think I want to go there myself -- everything's all done and provided for me. All I have to do is be there and complain if I'm bored. And as a bonus I even get to take out someone that I absolutely abhor? Depending on who it was: forget being regretful about it, if it was the right person I could have nice dreams about that every night.

So once I cross some magic threshold all you can do to me is lock me up and feed me? For someone serving concurrent or even sequential life sentences: maybe that's all the judge can do, but it's ridiculous non-the-less. So James should have shot more, more "bang for the buck" as it were, right?

And that permanent "without parole" line is so harsh, shouldn't we think of the poor victimized prisoner in the years to come?

Taking someone life against their will should NEVER be an easy, dried and cut thing. That doesn't mean that you don't do it, though. And: let's ask the opinions of their victims. Oh wait, we can't. Their life was cut short -- do we "owe" them anything?

Not all of them would agree with me, though. She's a better person than I.

Then again you've got mob rules, but that's no good either.

Hmmm ... Santa keeps a list of people, I guess I'll have to ask Jason if he's keeps one as well.

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NO I'm not going to go out and kill anyone. I don't hate anyone that much. If they do irritate me I just usually get away from them, or irritate them enough so that they move away from me.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Even if is "cheaper" and nicer to keep most killers alive, it still seems l

Except, at least in the US, it is not necessarily cheaper to execute someone that to imprison them for life. Life without parole (LWOP) cases can cost more depending on how long the individual is imprisoned. However, it's really hard to know the true cost of either as there are different knock on costs from each type.

In the LWOP cases if the person receiving the sentence is really young then it will likely cost roughly between $1-$3 million to imprison that person for the rest of their lives. However, in California's recent past it was determined that executions cost about $3 million per execution. Some might argue that California wasn't very efficient at execution, unlike Texas, but the price for executions in Texas is comparable.

It's actually quite difficult to figure out the actual cost, but we do know a few details to help reason through the costs. Due to the legal system in the US we allow those sentenced to death to exhaust all legal appeal options before the execution. This means many more days in court than the LWOP (roughly 5-6 times as many court appearances).

A quick googling shows some stats (some with deeper links to actual studies):
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000

Yes, while he did not state his source for the information that it costs more to execute, the studies I have seen that support that notion put all the cost on the appeals: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29552692/#.UmqwU1FDuP8 http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

Lifetime imprisonment is actually less expensive than the death penalty. California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment. California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement.

Source: http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
Also see: http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000

Two wrongs never, ever make a right, no matter how much one may try to justify it.

So, explain the death penalty then.

It's wrong - I know some people will bitch about the cost of lifetime imprisonment, but what those people fail to realize is A) it's actually more expensive to execute a prisoner than to keep them locked up for life, and B) if our nation didn't focus so much treasure on incarcerating non-violent drug offenders and the like, there'd be plenty of money for lifetime imprisonments.

the entire Iraq, er, 'conflict'

Also wrong, for so many reasons...

Some people believe god has told them that revenge is good (an eye for an eye).

People have used 'god told me to' as a justification for fucked up behavior for millennia. Still wrong.

It's a nice platitude, but it's far from universally applied.

Not being universally applied does not make it a "trite, meaningless statement." It just means that there are a lot of people out there who have absolutely no respect for one another.

" Mostly we just see circumstantial stories about somebodies innocence."

There are 140 of them.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row

California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment.
California taxpayers pay $90,000 _more_ per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement.
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

Well, given that Sweden's government has treaties in place they must honor, they cannot give him a guarantee he won't be extradited to elsewhere.

There is a clear risk of political persecution for Assange in the USA. Furthermore, US law which fails to guarantee fair treatment for those without sufficient funds and which includes illegal punishments such as the death sentence and chain gangs clearly does not qualify as a proper system of law under European law. For these reasons it is perfectly standard for European countries to refuse extraditions to the US (see the recent sex offender case) or to do with conditions imposed on a case by case basis. In fact; the condition against the death penalty is now so standard that it has become a standard agreement.

Sweden not just could give guarantees against political extradition and torture for Assange. It is duty bound under European human rights law to do so. That the Swedes won't just simply stand up and state this is pretty suspicious.

'Not to mention that in our system it actually costs more to kill someone than to keep them in prison for life.'

The increased cost associated with killing someone is not due to the method of execution. It's the increased cost to house them in a separate more secure part of the prison, "Death row". Not to mention the automatic appeals process that is not afforded to a "normal" prisoner.

A link about death row costs in California: http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=cost&men u=1%22

Sera