Julie Borowski is a libertarian who has made a bit of a name for herself by posting quirky videos on some serious subjects.

In the video below, she explains how she went from being a proponent of capital punishment to an opponent.

Readers can watch the clip for themselves and determine if her facts are accurate and her arguments valid, but I’ve provided a quick summary of her points here:

1. Capital punishment doesn’t deter crime.
2. Capital punishment doesn’t save money.  (Quite the opposite: a death penalty case costs three times as much as housing an inmate for 40 years in a maximum security prison, on average, she claims.) 
3. People are fallible; eyewitnesses make mistakes.  
4. Government does not have a great track record of competence or efficiency.
5. Since 1973, some 140 people have been released from death row based on exculpatory evidence or testimony. That’s about 10 percent of death row cases. 
6. Considering the previous three points, it’s intuitive that some innocent people have been and will continue to be executed by the state.   
7. Unfortunately, unlike prisoners confined for life, you can’t go back and release falsely convicted victims of the system after they’ve been shot up with potassium chloride.

What do you think? Does Borowski make a convincing case?

Assuming you do believe the death penalty is immoral and should be banned, who should enact the prohibition? Would it matter to you if capital punishment was outlawed by the Supreme Court or the federal government instead of the states?

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Jon Miltimore is the Senior Editor of Intellectual Takeout.  He is the former Senior Editor of The History Channel Magazine and a former Managing Editor at Scout Media. Follow him on Facebook.

  [Image Credit: Castle Rock Entertainment/Green Mile/Youtube]