>This is a lynch mob mentality. The legal system moves very slowly for
>good reason. Once you circumvent the procedures designed to protect the
>innocent, then who gets to decide when it's OK to do this and when it
>isn't? I sure don't want to be the victim of a capricious legal system.

>You can't bring the girl back. There can be no justice in lynching the
>guy. It's not easy to do the right thing, but we need to anyway.

Not entirely. The point is, the deterent effect of capital punishment is
eroded when the time required to administer it is extended. The current delays
in the system are not functions of the complexity of the investigation and
determining a "beyond reasonable doubt" truth, but of a procedural compromise
between opponents and proponents of the death penalty.

Meanwhile, opponents hope to erode support for eliminating it by making it so
difficult to apply, and by eliminating so much public trauma from its
implementation, that its value as a deterent, itself, erodes.

Supporters of the death penalty may hope that advances in forensic science and
data analysis can make investigations dispositive, convictions more credible,
and rapid executions thus less objectionable. But I doubt that will happen
quickly enough to override the present trend in public policy.

Neil