The problem with the death penality is its obvious finality, which makes any subsequent evidence of innocence very embarrasing.

State governors do not like being embarrassed; and when the possibility of a financially and politically powerful person being embarrased arises, such a possibility is paid off or taken out.

Why do state governors even have the power of clemency? They're not part of the judiciary.

The whole system is extremely unsatisfactory. Having an apology or remorseful confession helps use to alleiviate our discomfort, because the bad man admitted it. But as people have commented, what if people were admitting stuff in the perhaps vain hope of escpaping the death penalty in exchange for 20 years of prison and the stigma of being labelled a killer?

And don't a lot of these southern State Governors get electoral milage out of being good, God-fearing christians? If so, then what happened to the fundamental Biblical injunctions "thou shalt not kill" and "judge not, lest ye be judged". What is the death penalty, if not a judgment that a certain person should be killed?

I think the liberal Americans know in their hearts the truth, that the sooner the inhumane and logically, socialogically and morally dubious death penalty is abolished, along with the ridiculously archaic interpretation of the 2nd amendment that allows free gun ownership, the better.