Some states use death as a punishment for certain crimes.  The problem with this punishment is that if the person is later found to be innocent nothing can be done, whereas if the person is in prison they can be released.

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Quoting from an article by the editors of Scientific American on March 19, 2024: "Study after study shows that the death penalty does not deter crime, puts innocent people to death, is racially biased and is cruel and inhumane.  It is state-sanctioned homicide, wholly ineffective, often botched and a much more expensive punishment than life imprisonment.  There is no ethical, scientifically supported, medically acceptable or morally justified way to carry it out."  In a November 1989 article in ​the Loyola University of Los Angeles Law Review R.S. Spangenberg and E.R. Walsh report that capital punishment is more expensive than life imprisonment.  A New York study mentioned in the article showed a cost of $1.4 million for the death penalty versus $600,000 for 40 years imprisonment.  Florida estimated a cost of $3.2 million for death penalty cases.

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The state can best show respect for all human lives by eliminating the death penalty.  Even if it is correct in 95 percent of the cases that means that 5 percent of people executed are wrongly executed.