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The alternatives are either to eliminate the death penalty, or to deny people their legal appeals.

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<font color="red">WARNING: FALSE DICHOTOMY!</font>

My solution is as follows.

STEP 1: Remove the discretion to seek capital punishment from local prosecutors. Vest this discretion with the state AG.

Benefit: greater consistency in death penalty cases; reservation of capital charges for only the most "heinous" crimes; elimination of local biases inflamed by local media considerations.

STEP 2: Create a federal law requiring states proceeding with capital crime charges to adhere to a "minimum competence" standard. This would include things like defense counsel experienced in defending capital crimes, reasonable public financing for experts, investigators, DNA testing, etc.

Benefit: Reduced error rate at trial. Combined with the more standardized prosecutions that would occur from step #1, it is likely that only the strongest capital cases would be brought. The public would have increased confidence that the innocent are not being wrongfully convicted.

STEP 3: Expedited appeal. Following a trial, an expedited appeal process occurs. Intermediate state appellate courts review jury factual findings with deference, and principally focus on whether an adequate defense was afforded. Federal habeas process, which can raise certain news issues, is also limited. From conviction to execution should take no more than 2 years.

STEP 4: Public executions. Rather than executions done in the middle of the night, executions should be conducted on weekends in the middle of the day. They should be open to a limited amount of media and public, but they should not be a spectacle. As far as method of execution goes, it should not be deliberately cruel, but I have no problem if the condemed man feels discomfort, even pain. My general preference would be for firing squad--multiple head shots from a .308 rifle is as close to instantaneous as I can imagine. The only thing I dont like about firing squad is that it is a pain to clean up afterwards (ditto for the chair and gas chamber, when the condemned man often loses bowel control or he gets cooked). Lethal injection seems popular these days, and Im fine with that. Since we do this to our dogs and horses, I reckon its just fine for scumbag criminals.