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Straw man. The innocent are punished for crimes they didn't commit regardless of the crime or punishment. It's irrelevant to my issue of how the guilty are to be punished.

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One key difference being that the death penalty removes the ability for later appeals and compensation if they are found to be innocent. According to one study the wrongful conviction rate of prisoners on death row could be around 4.1% [1] - that equates to around 120 innocent people currently being on death row.

[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-prisoners-on-...

Why doesn't that argument apply to all punishments? Isn't it better to let the guilty go free than falsely imprison someone for life? There's more than an estimated 20,000 innocent in prison who are not on death row. Why are the innocent good enough to be spared the death penalty but not life in prison?

If an imprisoned man is later found innocent, you release him.

If an executed man is later found innocent, you can... uh...

Solution: forced cryonics, with elements of Demolition Man thrown in as desired.

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