Great! That's the spirit, Silver! And DrkTr14ce, you know you can't escape being pulled into this after saying that, right?
Now then, where was I? Ah, yes... I was cursing the fact that I'm always outnumbered, (4:1 as of yet... where's the justice?!
) but putting that aside, I believe I can deliver a competent counter to your claim, Silver, that the Death Penalty works as a proper deterrent to such heinous crimes as murder. I believe the best example of the fallacy of that claim can be found in one of the US', (one of the very few developed countries where capital punishment is still practised) states, Texas. You see, Texas has, by far, committed the most modern government-approved murders than any of the rest of the states. Before 1976, however, the State of Texas had only committed 755 murders, a decent number, but it pales in comparison to many of the original Thirteen colonies, whose numbers per state would go well above 1000. This is understandable as the original colonies were more densely populated and were also around for a bit longer than Texas, which came about during the American Imperialism era of the 1840's. [I absolutely cannot find the crime rates for each state since they were first formed and I'm not too sure that they even exist... If anyone can find them for me, I'd be very appreciative]
Those numbers aren't as important to my counter-claim as this next part; they're really just there to provide an enormous contrast to what came after the 1976 reform in the Death Penalty, which supposedly made it more "humane."
After the reform, and into the more modern age, we see an enormous shift in numbers. From 1976 to 2007, no state in the US has committed more than 98 government-issued murders on it's own... except for one... Texas. From 1976 to 2007, Texas has committed a total of 405 government-issued murders. How can this be? Why, all of a sudden, is Texas killing off it's less-desirable population so rapidly? I honestly have no idea... but what I do know, and what the point of this whole post is, is that Texas' murder rate, (that is, the number of murders committed by citizens for every 100,000th person) is 5.9; a number that is neither much higher nor much lower than the rest of the states; This number is in fact average. An average murder rate coupled with an astronomically high number of executions leads to the logical conclusion that, despite popular belief amongst it's supporters, the Death Penalty is
NOT an effective deterrent to murder. In the words of some awesome Indian guy, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
Sources for all statistics within post
Death Penalty Information Center
Posted: Fri Mar 21, '08, 2:50 am 
) but I'll leave this post by stating that in my opinion, this man should definitely be tied down by the most severe charges of attempted murder that exist, as there just isn't much in the world more horrible than a father, someone who is supposed to defend their child with their life, attempting to kill his daughter in such a painful and horrible fashion.