How I Changed My Mind on the Death Penalty

Regarding the data the author shares:

• The percentage of death row inmates who are black, 41%, is almost the same as the percentage of convicted murderers overall who are black, which is 42%. When one puts things in the proper context--percentage of death row inmates vs. percentage of convicted murderers--things are about right. (unless the entire prosecution mechanism is biased against blacks, which is an entirely different question)
• He's on better ground when he points out that about 10% of people sentenced to death get exonerated--but that is a problem with the prosecution process again, not the death penalty.
• Pointing to other capital crimes from the Mosaic Law is something of a straw man, because the Church is bound by the New Testament completion of parts of that law.
• Regarding the early church's restraint towards capital punishment, Rome also had a huge number of crimes that they'd kill you for. I'd argue that it's a mismatch of human law vs. God's law, not a reason to ignore the Romans 13 fact that God gave the sword to the state.
• Regarding a notion that the modern church ought to follow a total creed of nonviolence, that seems contrary to the instructions John, Jesus, and others gave regarding soldiers--basically "don't pillage", not "don't ever wage war"--and I think it misses the reality that if Christians aren't willing to serve as soldiers/police/etc., that leaves all our neighbors defenseless. Plus, how does one serve as a police officer without the possibility of using lethal force against a dangerous perp who doesn't want to be aprehended?

Overall, my take is that the question is not whether we ought to have a death penalty or not, but rather whether our systems for prosecuting criminals of any degree are fair and effective, and whether the crimes for which that penalty can be imposed match reasonably with Biblical guidelines. I've personally seen way too many cases where prosecutors have been caught suppressing exculpatory evidence, and yet more that a lot of police departments don't really do a good job investigating crimes at all. Thankfully, however, we do have the penalty limited to things like aggravated murder, which I think is appropriate.

Regarding not doing a good job investigating, a 2017 Minnesota Star-Tribune investigation found that in a number of Minnesota cities, only about 20% of sexual assault allegations get a good basic investigation--no heroics here, just things like "was an investigator assigned?", "were potential witnesses interviewed?", and "was a follow-up interview of the accuser conducted?". Interestingly, while only 20% got a good basic investigation, 26% went to prosecutors--meaning 6% of those accused had to fund the investigation of the crime themselves.

So with some pretty serious crimes, we have a pattern of a complete failure to do decent investigations, while all the while we have a lot of people who could be doing investigations handing out speeding tickets instead. Priorities....