I was asked why I work to abolish the Oregon death penalty

"A system committed to having a death penalty is a system that forces the state to pretend to have attained a standard of perfection and fairness that is absurdly far from the reality of the legal system in America today. Thus, having death in the system freezes everything because, if our system is so good today that it can be just to kill people with it, then it needs no improvement--and, in fact, all improvements in procedure and research into sources of error only call into question the claim to existing perfection, and thus the moral claim for the existing death sentences and past executions. And that means that having death locks us into a terribly flawed system that actively resists evidence of systematic errors and necessary improvements.  And it turns what should be a quest for justice into a war to justify the status quo against all evidence of its many failings." -- John Gear, attorney at law

I could give many more reasons, but one of the ones that people least understand is how insanely expensive it is to maintain the machinery of capital punishment.  Life without opportunity for parole (but WITH the opportunity to correct a mistake if new evidence is discovered!) is much, much less expensive than the capital punishment system. So while the moral reasons against death penalty laws are compelling, the practical financial reasons are strong too -- we can't afford to maintain the death penalty.  That's partly why former Chief Justices Paul DeMuniz and Edwin Peterson (a former death penalty supporter) have come out against it.

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