Since 1977, in Illinois, 13 men on Death Row have been exonerated for various reasons, including new DNA evidence and recanted testimony by prosecution witnesses.
In 2007 the US ranked 4th in the world in executions, coming in behind China, Iran, Saudia Arabia and Pakistan and just ahead of Iraq, Not very good company to be in.
Again, doesn't the fact that they were exonerated prior to the needle being put in their arm provide some credibility to the argument that the system is working. yes - people, unfortunately, have been wrongly imprisoned, but I don't think there's a single anti-death penalty group who can conclusively point to s a single individual in the United States, who has been executed by mistake and say "see - the system doesn't work".
As for the list of countries you referred to, I wonder how many countries would have a death penalty IF the government of the country put it to a popular vote..??
As I mentioned in a previous post here, when I emigrated to Canada, back in the late 70's, polls continually showed that a majority of Canadians were in favour of capital punishment for the worst criminals. But the government continually refused to re-open the issue and/or put it to a popular vote. I find this of interest:
All of Canada's national political parties formally oppose the reintroduction of the death penalty, with the exception of the Reform Party which supports a binding national referendum on the issue.
A motion to reintroduce capital punishment was debated in the House of Commons in 1987. On June 30, the motion was soundly defeated on a free vote (148-127), despite public opinion polls indicating majority support for the death penalty.
A national poll conducted in June, 1995 found that 69% of Canadians moderately or strongly favoured the return of the death penalty, exactly the same level of support as 20 years ago. However, other surveys suggest that this abstract support is 'a mile wide and an inch deep'. In 1996, a cross-section of 1500 Canadians were asked to name the major concerns and issues facing the country; not one named reinstatement of the death penalty as a priority. (For comparison, a similar sample in the USA would be 15,000 individuals; polls of this size are considered to be accurate within 2.5 percentage points 95% of the time). When the motion to reintroduce capital punishment was announced in February of 1987, popular support for reintroduction stood at 73% . By June (when the parliamentary vote was taken), popular support had slipped to an all-time low of 61%, following widespread discussion of death penalty issues in the media.
Even the "all-time low" of 61%, if my math is correct, still represents a majority.
I have no idea how Canadians feel about it today, but it's clear to me that the wishes of the majority - at least as evidenced by the polls I saw and read about - were ignored.