"The 29-21 vote capped a stirring 1 1/2-hour debate with Bible quotes, cursing and a last-minute conversion in favor of the moratorium..." a few days ago, the north carolina state senate voted 29-21 for a 2 year moratorium to rethink their ways of dealing with capitol punishment. in other words, no executions for 2 years. some senators were quoted saying that they really didnt want to execute anyone who is really innocent and they would feel like its their fault if they went ahead and still kept the death penalty. so far, at least 2 people have been taken off death row because the police witheld evidence that would release them. north carolina, who started capitol punishment again in the mid 80's (we have executed 23) currently has over 200 people on death row, the 6th largest death row in the country. how horrible is this? 200+ people waiting to die. spending every moment of their lives hopeless... this decision, which still has to go to the house for debate, has made me very happy, the flaming liberal that i am. i think the death penalty is a terrible, barbaric, cruel, and just about unjustified way to deal with our criminals. like it would be that much more expensive to keep them in jail? i dont think money is really a problem here. not that we dont have too many people in jail anyway... seriously though, can you really tell me that an execution by the state is any more justified than an execution by someone over drug money? how is this death any different from the original one? now get this, people seem to think the criminals deserve to die. as soon as someone deserves to die, their life holds no value. the only value of life, after all, is living. even if the victim was a horrible person himself, the criminal still deserves to die for his death? by taking this view we are saying the victims life was much more important than the criminal's waning life. can we really devalue someone like that? thats all these executions do, take another life but call it ok because he deserved it because he did something wrong. im not saying that its ok for people to kill others and not be punished, shit, throw the bastards in jail but death shouldnt be an option. this should be covered by the 8th amendment in the bill of rights which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." how is death not cruel? we as a society have no right to say someone should die. currently, about 38 states support the death penalty. soooo, what about the other 12? are they wrong or right? you cant really say an entire state is wrong because they wouldnt support taking lives of their citizens. you can call me a hippie, that doesnt bother me... if you think about it though, if youre religious, you shouldnt kill... if you aren't, isnt it cruel? nobody can give any justification for these vile acts besides that they deserved it, our prisons are too overcrowded or its too expensive etc... its stupid.