Death sentence

I do think rape is a terrible crime but to call it as bad as murder is just ridiculous.

Fixed that for you, if I interpreted your meaning correctly. If you don't think rape is a terrible crime, I'm rather speechless.

The only problems I see with the death penalty are:
- When juries convict out of prejudice, when the alleged criminal is actually innocent
- When juries refuse to convict because they think the penalty is too harsh

If those can be solved (or at least just for the most part), the death penalty would be fine. As it is right now, maintaining the death penalty in the United States is moot because we're only executing a few hundreds a year, when the number of murders and rapes committed are far greater. This is because of the numerous appeals that the convicts file. Is there an alternative to this?

I'm worried that if the death penalty is abolished though, there would be a slippery slope: after briefly celebrating their victory, the reformists would target the life sentence as "cruel and unusual", until we have something like something in Germany where the maximum sentence for even the most henious crime is 15 years.