Radley Balko at the Agitator does a great service by questioning from a libertarian perspective, many of the short comings of the criminal justice system. I don't always agree with him but he is thought provoking.
He has recently started me thinking about why I oppose the death penalty. As a matter of background, I am a conservative (sometimes lean libertarian, sometimes I think Rush is too liberal) and a christian.
I do not oppose the death penalty because we could get it wrong. There are many untimely and unwarranted deaths of innocent people.
While I believe that life is a precious gift from god, often that gift is cut short. A quick reference to early christian history is all that is necessary to confirm that a life is not overly precious. So I do not oppose it because life is precious.
I oppose the death penalty because to unnecessarily end a life prematurely, reduces the total amount of time that the person has to reconcile with god. To deny anyone the opportunity of reconciliation, is a tremendous sin. One that I could not bear as a christian.
This leads me to the rather odd position in which I now find myself. It is better that an innocent be executed if he is reconciled with the lord and that a guilty person be spared in order to have an opportunity for reconciliation over the days, months and years left in their lives.
