One of the reasons for allowing the possible execution of innocent people is that it helps bring closure to most victims’ families. Yeah, let's not think of actually killing an innocent person, taking away a life, let's think of people's feelings. But isn't killing because of feelings one of the reasons serial killers murder? They feel like it?

The truth is, the Death Penalty does not in fact help families at all; consider someone who has dealt with dozens of families who have had loved ones murdered:

theguardian.com, 28 Apr 2014, Oklahoma former prison warden: death penalty does not help families

Prisoners reach through the bars in the F Cellhouse at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary where they are housed in old-fashioned cells with metal bars. Photograph: Associated Press.

As Oklahoma prepares for its first double-execution since 1937 after an unprecedented dispute between two courts, the governor and the legislature, the former warden of the state prison says he has come to see the death penalty as a very expensive punishment that fails to deter crime or bring closure to most victims’ families.

Randy Workman saw intimate details of the death penalty that are kept from the public eye in the United States. As the warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester he handpicked secret executioners, walked people to their deaths and saw the process of obtaining lethal injection drugs. He participated in 32 executions during various jobs in more than two decades working for the corrections department before retiring in 2012.

"... Is it [the death penalty] cost effective? Gosh no. We spend millions of dollars on these cases and going through the process and the end result is the family, do they feel vindicated? I’d say 90% of the time the people I’ve seen don’t."

It is easy to see why so many families do not feel vindicated. Most families are unaware that the execution rate since 1977 of those on death row is less than 2% and so they get hyped up by an overzealous prosecutor promising to fry the perpetrator but whose prosecutorial misconduct eventually leads to a sentence reversal - more than half in and in some cases almost two-thirds of all murder convictions are overturned. Even without misconduct, the defendant will spend decades on death row leading to years and years of disappointment for families waiting for an execution that will statistically rarely happen (1).

As in all situations in life, unrealistic expectations can only lead to frustration and anger, not closure.