Until we have a way to prove that someone actually committed a sex crime, we can not begin to think of using the death penalty as a deterent. My 31-year-old son was convicted of sexual assault of a child (2 counts) and improper relationship between an educator and a child in July. This was his first accusation and the only accuser was a 14-year-old girl that everyone in the school knew had a "crush" on him. He was able to prove that on the dates and times she named, it was not possible for the events to have happened. In fact, the case was going so poorly for the DA that she presented the girl as a rebuttal witness to "suddenly remember that she felt a very obvious mole on his back". When asked why this was not in her taped testimony with CAC or in her testimony in court earlier, she swore that she had mentioned it (but of course we all saw the video and listened in court and no mention had been made of it). So the defense asked her where the mole was located on my son and she pointed out the spot on her own body that would correspond with where it would be on his body. My son has MANY moles all over his body, but when he raised his shirt to the jury to show them the spot she had indicated, THERE WAS NO MOLE. And although all of the counts had the words "sexual intercourse" in them and the only testimony to that was from this accuser, the jury found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt on all counts. Imagine if this were a second time around and the evidence were circumspect at best. Would you really be in favor of the death penalty for someone like that?