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The Muddled Cost Argument Against the DP, Part II

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Kent is too generous (although as ever compelling) in his post about the cost argument against the death penalty.  Let me repeat the gist of my post about this subject roughly three months ago.  The cost argument is not merely mistaken; it's absurd:

One of the leading arguments used by death penalty opponents is that capital punishment costs too much.

Let's put to one side the fact that it costs so much mostly because those self-same opponents have spent decades larding it with manufactured procedural delays and gimmicks having nothing to do with either basic fairness or factual guilt.

Aren't the following two sentences a complete answer to the cost argument?

Expense is a reason to be selective and use the death penalty sparingly.  It is no reason intentionally to blind ourselves to unknown future facts, and make capital punishment legally unavailable for any jury, ever.

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If the DP was replaced by LWOP, wouldn't all the time and money that is used to fight the DP simply be spent on fighting LWOP? And, if that's the case, is there any net savings by replacing the DP with LWOP?

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