[dubGucKcolo]

My opinions on the death penalty are often mixed. The legal killing of a human being, to me, sounds cruel, but the death penalty is seldom enforced in New York State. Murders have actually gone down for years as a result, while in states like Texas and Louisiana that "liberally" enforce the death penalty the murder rates are among the nation's highest.

However, the death penalty has been successfully used in this state as a bargaining tool to make accused criminals plead guilty and/or gather information on other cases that has resulted in the capture of other criminals or solving other crimes.

In my opinion, a hefty prison sentence with no possibility of parole is worse, and at the same time more humane, than a death sentence. Plenty of criminals see the death penalty as a way out, to end the insufferable monotony of prison. A prison sentence leaves the convict with the fact that (s)he is never getting out, save for — in the best of possibilities in this scenario — suicide, which is cowardly. That, to me, is more just and more satisfactory than a death sentence.