Poll: Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?

Two men were executed Wednesday night, both by lethal injection, and in two of the most racially charged cases in recent memory.

In Georgia, Troy Davis, a black man who was convicted of killing a white off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989, was executed. The other, Lawrence Brewer, a white man who in 1998 participated in the grisly murder of James Byrd Jr., a black man.

The difference between the two death penalty cases:

• There was reasonable doubt in the Davis case, and Davis maintained his innocence. No weapon or physical evidence was ever found linking Davis to the killing of officer Mark MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot. Seven of nine witnesses who initially fingered him have since recanted.

• Brewer admitted to the Byrd murder. In jailhouse letters written after Brewer was arrested for the murder, he boasted about the killing and the thrill of it. "Well, I did it," Brewer wrote in a letter introduced during court proceedings, according to published reports. "And no longer am I a virgin. It was a rush, and I'm still licking my lips for more."

While many people feel the death penalty is justified punishment for murder, some people believe the risk of killing an innocent person is too great a risk.

A worldwide audience has watched the executions, and people are asking, "Is it ever 'right' to kill someone for commiting murder or crime?" and "Should the death penalty be abolished?"

Watch the Amnesty International video featuring people around the world commenting on Georgia's Troy Davis execution and the death penalty.

Vote in the poll and leave a comment, below.