I agree with Pop, that the slippery slope can work both ways.
I'm curious what the associated costs are between executing someone and having them serve a life sentence. I have heard that executions are not as cheap as people would like to believe, but I haven't found anything to substantiate that claim.
The thing is though, are we okay with killing people just to save on some tax dollars?
It's easy to throw out hypothetical examples too.
Say someone comes home, and finds a guy has broken into his house and his sexually assaulting his 7 year old daughter. In a rage, the guy goes beserk, attacks the man. Gets the child rapist in a situation where he's helpless. In the emotional state that the father is in, he kills the rapist...perhaps even in a rather painful, suffering way.
So we have torture, and we have murder. In the eyes of the law, I'd be surprised if he's not being executed.
See, wasn't that fun?
Or! We get the guy that was framed for someone's murder. And because we have people that want to speed up the appeal progress, and make executions more efficient (hey, we can save some $$$ here too!), the innocent man is executed, and he has less time to try to prove it as a result!!! (and no, DNA evidence is not infalliable. Even then, a creative person looking to frame someone could still plant DNA evidence).
Too bad he was a single father looking after 3 kids, and was well liked in his community!
(hint, hypothetical anecdotal examples are worthless. Unfortunately, they appeal to emotion and people are very easily swayed by them. It's why parents are now deathly afraid of letting their kids out alone, as the overrepresentation in the media gives the images that sexual predators are everywhere. I mean, he could get YOUR child. Do you want to take that chance!??!?!)