I believe Manson WAS originally sentenced to death, until California abolished the death penalty. (You gotta admit, his parole hearings are entertaining. But then, I have a really sick mind)
Some of us feel killing an innocent is such a horrible scar against the society that does it, that executions are wrong. It is not OK to accept a few deaths of wrongly convicted. I suppose those who find it an acceptable risk will inform us what is an acceptable percentage. Would 50 percent be too much? How about 25?
For a lot of people one is too many. It is fundamentally wrong for a society to sanction killing of people once they have them completely in their power. It is enough to incarcerate them.
We are in the group of nations that show little respect for human life. It includes some of the most repressive governments and police states in the world. We belong there.
That would require an actual attempt to determine innocence of someone who has been executed by people who care if innocent people are executed and have to resources to investigate. All of those people are too busy trying to prove the innocence of the people who aren’t dead yet. But people on death row have been proven innocent, so it’s inevitable that some of the people who didn’t get the benefit of such an investigation were innocent and executed.
Depends what you mean by acceptable. I’ll oppose it for any offense (that which I come closest to supporting it for is violent attempts to impinge on the integrity of the criminal justice system such as killing a judge), because I don’t think it works, but if the person is truly guilty, then my opposition comes from a different ground. In the US at least, I think the death penalty as currently implemented is unconstitutional on a federal level and so must be ended as a legal matter, regardless of the moral aspects.
I don’t think it’s inherently unconstitutional - its pretty clear the constitution itself contemplates use of the death penalty. However, as applied in the US, its unconstitutional. A large element of this is the racial bias involved - the law seems to value the life of a white victim significantly higher than that of a black victim of crime, at least if the penalties imposed are considered.
And also look at the number of people serving life without parole who took plea bargains to avoid the death penalty who may well be factually innocent.
It’s been said at length in other responses, but bears repeating: If an innocent person is convicted, the system has failed.