The lawyers have more to do with it than the liberals.........automatic appeals = Big $$$$
Again, I'm just talking about smoking gun candidates, but there's got to be something seriously wrong with our society if we don't put to death the most heineous of criminals because it costs too much. That right there says something's F-d up. Like this Colorado dude caught in the act. The Bill of Rights guarantees a fair and impartial trial. Not a prohibitively expensive and drawn out trial over a decade or more long to the point that a fair and humane punishment is even impossible.
I say give the guy a court appointed attorney NEXT WEEK. Run all of the eye witnesses by the witness stand in ONE DAY, and take the POS out back and shot the F'er. Done.
This crap with stringing these things out for years on end, and spending millions making these attorney's rich to defend these creeps would make our founding fathers roll over in their graves. The whole system had been bastardized.
Once we filter through the smoking gun, caught in the act guys, then spend the money to sort out the questionable cases.