GUEST COLUMN: Capital punishment is not the answer; save Dennis Skillicorn

Nearly four years have passed since Missouri officials executed a human being. The sky has not fallen since then, but state homicide rates have decreased slightly. In fact, more people were murdered statewide in 2005 (402, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics) than in any year during the past decade, even though we executed five men, one of the busier years this century for Missouri’s executioners. Capital punishment doesn’t necessarily make us safer. It does, however, make us murderers.