Home state pride!

Woo hoo! Go North Carolina!
(*sigh*)

Honestly, I don't particularly care. Personally, I'm against the death penalty, mostly because it's pointless. It's demonstrably not a deterrent, both statistically and logically. I mean, if you're fucked up enough to kill your wife and father-in-law in front of two of your children, do you honestly think you're actually going to say to yourself on the front porch, "You know, I'd really like to fuck up my wife and father-in-law in front of two of my children. I'd be okay with spending the rest of my life in prison, but you know, I'd really prefer not to be killed quickly by the state. Fuck it...nevermind. Stupid death penalty..."?

So clearly it's just bloodlust. People feel better if the stupid fuck is killed. Which, though fun, don't really have a place in law. Law is about maintaining order, deterring crime, and arguably rehabilitating criminals. And it's not like killing the guy is going to make the victims' families feel any better. Doesn't exactly bring back the victims, now does it? Doesn't even help them cope psychologically. Just kind of pisses us off that the guy killed people and we'd like to fuck with him. And that really isn't a good basis for a law, now is it?

That said, the number of executions that actually take place is so small, and the likely fraction of erroneous convictions within that small population is so small, that it seems kind of silly to get worked up about the issue from a public policy standpoint. It just doesn't have much of an impact on the crime rate or society in general one way or another. So while I think the idea in general is stupid, I don't really worry about it very much. Many more people die in the world every day for much stupider and more pointless reasons.