BECAUSE HUMANS CAN’T BE TRUSTED WITH IT:

Public support for the death penalty is still at its low. Here’s why. (JOHN SIDES , JANUARY 3, 2024, Good Authority)

[A]merican support for the death penalty remains low. That is the conclusion of an October 2023 Gallup poll, which didn’t get much headline coverage. In that poll, only 53% of Americans favored “the death penalty for a person convicted of murder,” while 44% opposed it.

This is basically where opinion has been for the past 7 years, which represents a nearly 30-point decline from the high point of support in the early 1990s.