the death penalty

My feelings on the death penalty are conflicted. It's impossible to ignore the fact that a substantial aim of our judicial system is revenge -- and rightfully so. It is only just that somebody who inflicts pain and suffering on others receives a taste of their own medicine. I can say, in no uncertain terms, that if a member of my family or somebody relatively close to me was raped, murdered, etc. I would want to see them dead.

I'm not particularly troubled with the principle that the state can terminate human life. After all, our country has fought numerous wars in which our country has been willing to see astronomical death on our side and the side of the enemy. And retribution is an understandable and necessary motivation.

That said, I cannot support the death penalty for one crucial reason. There is no way that the state can guarantee, with 100 percent certainty, that every inmate on death row has received a perfectly fair trial with the best possible legal representation available. Death is the end. There is no greater punishment a person can receive. So if it is hypothetically possible, even in an abstract, theoretical sense, that even the worst of the worst monster criminals could have received a better legal defense and given 10 life terms without probation (as opposed to the death penalty), how can we justify killing that person? The fact is that every legal defense and trial is not perfectly fair. Even if the defense attorney is not grossly negligent, how can you guarantee that the attorney didn't provide the best possible defense? How can we guarantee that every single member of the jury wasn't at least, even to a miniscule degree, bias? How can we be sure police officers followed all protocol with perfection?

I think of the plethora of arguments made for and against the death penalty, but the argument made above is all that matters to me. Our fundamentally imperfect judicial system makes killing our own citizens unambiguously unjust.