Rod – I’m not saying you’re unprincipled in your position. Rather the principle you’re upholding isn’t one I disagree with. No supporter of the death penalty I know of actually favors an error rate of any kind. The question is whether or not we are willing to tolerate error — in the abstract — in order to maintain the death penalty. I find it more than a little objectionable when anti-death penalty proponents say proponents favor the execution of innocent people. But that’s an argument we’ve all heard by now.

But as for your comments about Columbia or impoverished nations needing the death penalty more, I find that a very morally problematic argument. It places the justification for the death penalty in pure utilitarianism. I think deterrence matters and that utilitarianism is a legitimate consideration. And I agree that in such a country the death penalty might be more useful than it is here, the question still boils down to justice. Is the death penalty just? Yes. Is it moral? Yes. So if a person deserves and we can prove he and he alone deserves it, concerns about the larger problems with the death penalty don’t matter. Here’s a <a href=”http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg052202.asp

” target=”_blank”> longer column I wrote which addresses some of this.