General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Jodi Arias is about to give a statement [View all]Chan790
(20,176 posts)I actually think life-without-parole is a harsher sentence. I think one has to take an agnostic view of what awaits on the other side when assessing that difference, regardless of what one's religious beliefs are...because we do not know.
Death row is unpleasant, maximum-security and above-maximum (The so-called federal Supermax and some states have equivalents) holding is just as much so. Imagine being confined to a miserable, unclean, lonely, uncomfortable, brutal place (and prison to some real extent regardless of best-efforts will always be those things) where you have minimal to non-existent autonomy. Once in a while, your family can come visit but that's not comfort for you...it's brief, so highly-restricted as to feel incomplete, and infrequent enough that when it occurs it does little but remind you of what has been taken away from you...by you. Not by a jury, not by the judge or your victim(s)...you. You did this to you. You have nothing to do with all that time but dwell on what you have done...nobody as dangerous as you will ever be allowed work-release at-all or a prison-job that is not highly restricted and monitored. Now imagine having to face 20, 30, 40, 50+ years of that. The next time the sun will shine on your face outside a prison wall...you'll be dead. No reprieve. No hope. Just waiting for death...followed by death. It's pretty bleak.
Now imagine execution. Imagine there is nothing on the other side. It's just the cessation of life. You have ceased to be. You get to avoid all of that time in prison. Doesn't it feel like that just might be a reprieve? A blessing? A small kindness? The lifting of a curse or weight upon you?
Time. Time is the real Hell.
There's a reason why the suicide rate for people facing life-without-parole or capital-punishment is more than twice that for other inmates...and the rate for inmates is higher than the rest of the population.