What does death penalty accomplish?

What should one consider when trying to decide to lift the moratorium on the death penalty (Daily Herald editorial, Sept. 22)? I would suggest that rather than looking at individual cases, try looking at what benefits society as a whole.

The first two goals would be keeping our communities safe and imposing justice. Life without the possibility of parole, which is permanent incarceration, solves both of these goals.

What does the state killing of less than 1 percent of all murderers do for us? It causes us to spend large sums of money on capital murder trials, which are different than non-capital murder trials, endure decades of appeals, and with the high amount of wrongful convictions that exist in any justice system, it puts innocent people at risk of being executed.

As to being a deterrent, studies have shown that it is not. If for no other reason, the punishment comes too long after the crime.

All murder victims' families want justice, not just the 1 percent of cases that qualify for the death penalty, and so do I. Permanent incarceration gives us that without putting anyone at risk of a wrongful execution.

Nancy Oliveira

San Francisco, Calif.