Personally, for many reasons, I do not believe in the DP. Religious reasons, but more importantly, so many cases that have turned out to be a false conviction, false confession, etc... Sometimes you can be just so sure ya know? So I don't like the finality of the DP as a whole. (Don't get me wrong, I won't be out protesting in the streets over it either.)
But I wonder sometimes if sparing killers the DP, when they probably deserve the DP, isn't more about their own surviving family members than anything else. Sure-execution is a permanent solution that allow victim families to move on, it takes forever sometimes and just as awful at times. With LWOP, that's it. A plea is struct. They sit in prison forever. No parole hearings, no appeals, no nothing. And yes, that person is still alive, their family can go and see them through the glass if they like and hopefully, the victim's families can find some peace, although they will never truly find peace after such a loss.
Now, just saying this to be the devil's advocate, but for those who may say they are 100% convinced he's guilty because he confessed here is a scenario that may make it seem possible he's not guilty. What if he woke up for work to find that she had killed herself and the kids. Distraught and not thinking clearly, he didn't want anyone to know that she had done this so he tried to cover up for her. Then he confessed under duress because he figured his life was over anyway and hopefully would get the death penalty. Then a lawyer stepped in and talked reason to him and he recanted. Far fetched? Surely. Have similar things happened? I believe they have. People falsely confess for all sorts of reasons, sometimes really stupid ones.
Is this the case here? Obviously 99.9% not but stranger things have happened so I hate the DP in cases where we might just kill one innocent person. And trust me. We've killed a lot of innocent people over the years.
