A word to those against the death penalty...

Okay, so you've caught and solidly convicted Jack the Ripper.  He's out of appeals, as every angle conceivable has been covered.  So he's going to be there for a long time, well past his natural life span.

Um, there's a problem.  Infact, three problems.

1. The current jails are overcrowded, irrespective of race and gender.  Alot of them are shuffling around, or giving out good behavior credits like candy.  Unfortunately, you can't build any more due to the budget and the usual "Not In My Back Yard" syndrome everyone is afflicted with.
   
2. They are also understaffed due to budget cuts, and the staff there is constantly put into stressful conditions.
3. And in the long term, a lifer (w/o parole or parole past his natural lifespan) will use more financial resources than a death row inmate.  In some cases, the lifer uses much more year-to-year than the death row inmate.

So you want all death row inmates to be lifers?  You need to come up with solutions to the above, without increasing the financial strains and blowing up the budget.  Besides, Maryland's in a long-term deficit, and the feds aren't much better now with a war going on and whatnot.

You can't.  You need more resources, and it's a growing problem.  While you can legislate some of the problem away (adjusting what is a crime, and their penalties), you need to address overcrowding.  The cheapest way is the death penalty.

Is it humane?  NO IT'S NOT.  NETHER IS GETTING KILLED/ROBBED/MAIMED/ETC.  So stop saying it's so.  We know already, and you're missing the other side of the coin.

So?  I'm for the death penalty.  I'm against "life w/o parole" as it's a waste of money and space.  I'm for a law which requires judges to upgrade the sentence to death for any sentence that gives the convicted at least 150 years of jailtime before parole.  And frankly put, I'd give them a time limit of 10 years for direct-from-inmate appeals while raising the bar for third-party appeals.