Virtually all British people are against the death penalty. It is a knee jerk human reaction to want to kill somebody who has killed another person but also a very primitive one. There are all sorts of reasons as to why it shouldn't be done. The most obvious being that often innocent people are convicted. You can release an innocent person from jail but you can't bring them back from the dead. Furthermore, if we kill murderers does that make us any better than the murderer. The idea of revenge killing is very outdated in the UK. Of course the situation in America is very different, maybe an American would like to explain that.

I am opposed to the death penalty for one main reason; the risk that an innocent person may be killed is unacceptable in my eyes.

Anyone who assaults and kills another person must be put to death.

The purpose of a justice system is, or should be, to mete out justice. I support the the death penalty, because some crimes are so heinous that the death penalty is the only just penalty. If we fear to execute people who are convicted of unspeakable crimes on the ground they may have been wrongly convicted, then we can use the same rationale for not incarcerating them for lengthy periods of time. For example, in the instance mentioned by Michael, a man spent 27 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Can anyone think of a way to give him those 27 years back? If not -- if those years cannot be given back to him -- does that mean that we must not imprison, because many years later we may learn he was innocent?

i think it depends on the crime