Death penalty opponents say that the death penalty has a foundation in hatred and revenge. Such is a false claim.
A death sentence requires pre existing statutes, trial and appeals, considerations of guilt and due process, extreme protections for defendants and those convicted. Revenge requires none of these and, in fact, does not even require guilt or a crime.
Unlike revenge, those directly affected by the murder are not allowed to be fact finders in a legal case.
The pre trial, trial. appellate and executive clemency/commutation processes offer much greater time and human resources to capital cases than they do to any other cases, meaning that the facts tell us that defendants and convicted murderers, subject to the death penalty, receive much greater care and concern than those not facing the death penalty – the opposite of a system identified with either hatred or vengeance.

April, 2009
When polls correctly ask about true capital, death penalty eligible
murders, support is around 80%.
Most familiar polls wrongly ask a variation of “Do you support the death
penalty for murder?”, usually getting replies in the 60-75% range.
However, in the US, the death penalty is only allowed for those who commit
capital murders. Therefore, all polls, which only refer to murders are
irrelevant when asking about death penalty support.
Death penalty support is much deeper and much wider than we are often led
to believe.

Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty?
Unlikely.
Enhanced Due Process
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
Enhanced Incapacitation

Subject:”Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists”, by Michael Radelet, Traci Lacock (1)
There appears to be a lot of confusion, with regard to the actual findings of the subject review/survey (hereinafter “Survey”).
SOME REALITY
Within this Survey, the response to question 12 finds that 100% (or 77) of the criminologists agree that the death penalty may deter some.
It is a rational conclusion. All prospects of a negative outcome/consequence deter the behavior of some. It is a truism.
The responses to question 8 found that 61% (or 46) of the criminologists found some support for the deterrent effects of the death penalty through the empirical, social science studies.
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses (2), find for death penalty deterrence. These studies find executions deter from 4-28 murders per execution.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life. No surprise.
If your public policy question is “Does the death penalty deter?” The answer is “Of course it does.”
Game over? Not quite.

the fact that almost two-thirds of the U.S. population supports the death penalty is some, albeit weak (because it does not measure intensity of preference), evidence bearing on the comparison.” Judge Posner (“The Economics of Capital Punishment–Posner”, Becker-Posner Blog, Decemer 18, 2005)
Look closer.
When polls correctly ask about capital murders, death penalty support is around 80%.

Reasonable and responsible protocols, currently in use, will produce a death penalty which costs no more, or will cost less, than Life Without Parole (LWOP).
Death penalty states could better implement justice, as given by jurors, and save taxpayers money, currently wasted by many irresponsible state systems.
1) Obvious solution, Improve the system
Virginia executes in 5-7 years. 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed. Only 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned. The national averages are 11 years, 14% and 36%, respectively.
With the high costs of long term imprisonment, a true life sentence will be more expensive than such a death penalty protocol.
2) Current cost study problems
a) Geriatric care: Most cost studies exclude geriatric care, recently found to be $60,000-$90,000/inmate/yr., a significant omission from life sentence costs. Prisoners are often found to be geriatric at relatively young ages, 50-55, because of lifestyle.

” . . .makes you realize the Dead Man Walking truly belongs on the shelf in the library in the Fiction category.” “Being devout Catholics, ‘the norm’ would be to look to the church for support and healing. Again, this need for spiritual stability was stolen by Sister Prejean.” The Bourques, Victim Survivors, Dead Family Walking
“On November 5, 1977, the Bourque’s teenage daughter, Loretta, was found murdered in a trash pile near the city of New Iberia, Louisiana lying side by side near her boyfriend–with three well-placed bullet holes behind each head. ”

…

  From Dudley Sharp, contact info below   1.   ” . . .state officials estimate that an average prisoner costs California about $35,000 a year and that elderly inmates, who require more care, cost an average of $70,000.”“The price of

Farmer’s killer convicted of capital murder again
30 Aug 2000
CATHY FRYE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
STAR CITY — Three prison guards stood behind an impassive Kenneth Williams on Tuesday afternoon as he was convicted a second time of capital murder, this time for the shooting death of a 57-year-old farmer from Grady.

. ” . . .state officials estimate that an average prisoner costs California about $35,000 a year and that elderly inmates, who require more care, cost an average of $70,000.”
“The price of punishment”SCOTT SMITH. The Record, Jan 29, 2006
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060129/NEWS01/601290307/1001/ARCHIVE