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Maybe.

I would let the voter decide this once every 4 years or so.

My person opinion...

Is the death penalty morally right or wrong?

Again, there is no morality. It is subjective.

Can the death penalty benefit a society or individuals thereof?

Possibly yes, if...

1) the death penalty deters or has the potential to deter the crime it seeks to prevent.

2) the death penalty prevents a potential repeat crime by the same criminal.

3) a sense of justice or fairness is maintained in a society; this potentially prevents vigilante justice by victim’s family and friends who may then in turn have to face the death penalty.

1 – does the death penalty, already in practice in several US States, seem to prevent or deter these crimes?

No. There is no general decrease in, for instance, percentage of murder per capita over several decades.

2 – does the death penalty prevent future crimes on average?

No. Executed criminals, of course, cannot commit future crimes. However, current murderers are actually less likely to commit future murders than current non-murderers. Most murders are committed by, up until the time of the murder, non-murderers. Most murderers only kill 1 person. Thus in using the reasoning that society should kill murderers [MEANS] to prevent future murder [END GOAL], society should also kill all non-murderers too, since they are more likely to commit future murder. AND THAT MEANS WE ALL GOTTA DIE!

3 – does the death penalty maintain a sense of fairness in society.

Yes. If you are against the death penalty, I ask you what you would want done with a murderer who killed your husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father. If you answer “stick them in jail for awhile” you are most likely lying.

The death penalty may also give an appearance of unfairness when a particular group is executed more than another (blacks over whites, men over women, poor over rich) although there is no evidence to support the fact that these groups are being executed because of belonging to their group and not because of committing an actual crime. One can argue for example that poor are executed more than rich because the rich can afford better lawyers, but this is an argument for fixing money in the legal process more than an argument against the death penalty in its essence. Would you have all poor murderers go free just because some rich ones do? The argument there is to fix the system, and give the death penalty to the rich guys too.

The death penalty gives a definite sense of unfairness, and rightfully so, when the wrong person is executed or almost executed for a crime they didn’t commit and this is known to happen. This, again, however, is not an argument against the death penalty as much as it is an argument against burden-of-proof and fixing the legal process.

Isn’t the death penalty just “2 wrongs don’t make a right”?

No. A murderer can be defined as one who has unjustly taken the life of another. It can be argued that it is just to take the life of one who has unjustly taken the life of another. It does not necessarily logically follow that an innocent person who kills a guilty murderer, becomes a guilty murderer through the act of killing that murderer. We can even create a conditional symbolic argument for this:

1 - If Innocent I kills Innocent A, then Innocent I = Murderer M. (If I ® A, then I = M)

2 - If Innocent I kills Murderer M, then Innocent I ¹ Murderer M. (If I ® M, then I ¹ M) or  (If I ® M, then I = I)

Here, Innocents (I) can only become Murderers (M) if they kill other Innocents (I). Innocents (I) don't become Murderers (M) by killing Murders (M).

You can make opposite arguments that Innocents do become Murderers by killing Murderers too. This too is subjectively defined.

I’m told that every other advanced Western country has banned the death penalty whereas the US has not. Are we non-progressive or non-enlightened because of this?

Again…progressive anti-death penalty mothers in the audience, imagine your newborn baby that you carried for 9 months was just murdered by a competent non-insane person for no reason whatsoever and you and the state have smoking-gun evidence against the killer including videotaped evidence of the murder, several 3^rd-party impartial eye-witnesses, a videotaped confession and a videotaped hearing where the accused pleads guilty. Say for the sake of argument that the murderer has a long history of past murders, claims he will murder again if ever released and will attempt to murder other prisoners whenever able to do so if locked away. Also, say for the sake of argument, this murderer actually wants to be executed

Is it enlightened to let this murderer go free now or eventually?

Is it enlightened to lock up this murderer forever and have the tax-payers pay room & board for the rest of his life? How does this help the victim, the murderer or society in any way, shape or form?

I see no enlightened actions possible for society toward this person, execution or no.

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