[Hoot Gibson]

I support the death penalty but the current system is broken and diminishes what should be a strong deterrent for would-be murderers.

The death penalty should be rare and require a very high degree of proof. The government should ensure that the defendant in capital cases receive the best legal representation available. At all steps in the prosecution of capital offenses, these cases should automatically move to the top of the docket to ensure that appeals do not drag out for years.

Having provided defendants with the best available legal representation, upon the exhaustion of all appeals, people convicted in these cases should be executed immediately.

We will never totally eliminate the possibility that innocent people will sometimes be wrongly convicted of serious crimes because we are human. I am sure that I am not the only American who would rather be wrongfully convicted of a capital offense than wrongfully convicted of a crime and sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole.

I think that too much time is spent on debating the death penalty, where wrongful convictions are extremely rare and too little time investigating the many people who are incarcerated everyday because of incompetent lawyers.

We should address the problems with death penalty cases but it is not the most serious issue facing our justice system.