An Innocent Man

Well we finally done it. We finally killed an innocent man. Check this out.
http://news.yahoo.com/wrong-man-executed-texas-probe-says-051125159.html
For years proponents of the death penalty argued that it had not been proven that an innocent person had been put to death in modern times. From now on they can not say this. This poor fellow was on parole. Last time I checked that was not a penalty punishable by death.
There is a saying that it is better than 10 guilty people go free rather than 1 innocent person is punished. Well that is not the exact saying but you get what I mean. I hate that saying. It implies that we can never punish someone because there is the slightest possibility that an innocent person may be punished. Do you want to live in a society where we put NO ONE in jail. I don't. There are despicable people who need to be behind bars. It is not as much as I have a desire to punish them but I want myself and my family to be safe.
But behind bars and dead are two different things. If we find out someone is innocent 20 years after the fact then that is sad. But at least we can give that person the rest of their life back. If we kill them then, well you see where that gets us in the story above. So I hate the original saying. But I do support this saying. Better 10 guilty people get to live rather than 1 innocent person be put to death. Let me do it one better. Better 100,000 guilty people get to live behind bars for the rest of their life then 1 innocent person be put to death. What is unreasonable about that?
The saddest thing about the death penalty is that there is no real need for it. Our prisons are practically escape proof. It costs more money to put someone to death, after all of the appeals and such, than to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives. So the death penalty does not save us money. And in a society where there is still class and race advantages we know that the death penalty can not be fairly applied. Oh yeah. And we now know that we have killed an innocent man.
I fully support life without parole. For some that may be a worse punishment than the death penalty. And we can make sure that tragedies such as this one can never happen again. Until we have God's wisdom and can guarantee that such tragedies will never not occur that should be the standard of a society humble enough to know that mistakes can be made.

Sincerely,

Trouble-Maker