One of these things is not like the other one

[David Morris]

Two things about your statement:

1.  "Perfect sentence" would, I assume, mean in the "eye-for-eye"
sense.  So this would apply only in murders with specific parameters
(which I'll decline to pursue here).

2.  It is clearly the "ultimate" sentence, in that there is no
reversal possible after its application (thus your invoking a "perfect
criminal justice system" as a guarantee against what I'll call an
ultimate injustice by the justice system).  Since this is invariably
true, the only reliably just application of capital punishment would
be (assuming #1 above threshold to have been met) in cases where there
is no doubt about the identity of the perpetrator.  This is also an
acheivable threshold.

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
> Capital punishment is the perfect sentence in a perfect criminal justice system. If you acknowledge that the system is not perfect, and you practice capital punishment, you have to be willing to accept that eventually the state will commit murder by executing an innocent person. To deny this is intellectually and morally dishonest. There is no way around this.