re: #532 Walter L. Newton

At least you are honest about it. Many who are against the death penalty are simply against it in any form, for any reason.

It’s actually the Talmudic view on it. Pretty much any argument you could make about capital punishment is in there from both sides - by really smart people.

The conclusion was that yes, it is on the books, but they hated the responsibility of having to do it, for fear of falsely convicting an innocent. Again, this was not so much as to show undue mercy to the clearly guilty, but rather to spare the state from committing murder.

As such, the rules of evidence and procedure for a capital case were exceptionally strict. They would only execute if they were absolutely as certain as humanly possible that they had the right guy.