It is really a death penalty or life in prison?

Patrick Stollar of Washington was sentenced to death the other day for the exceedingly brutal 2003 murder of an elderly Upper St. Clair woman. I have serious doubts whether I'll still be alive when that sentence is carried out. The reason for my doubts? For one, there are three Washington County killers - Roland Steele, Tippy Wallace and Thomas Gorby - who all have been on death row for the past 20 years. Secondly, the last person executed in this state was Philadelphia "House of Horrors" killer Gary Heidnik, and that was nearly a decade ago. Third, as of Jan. 1, 2007, there were 226 people on Pennsylvania's death row, and apparently not a single one of them has exhausted his or her appeals, even though some have been facing a death sentence for more than a QUARTER CENTURY. If we are to have a death penalty - and that's a whole other argument - what justice is there in it if the person sentenced to die is more likely to succumb to old age? My opinion is that people sentenced to death should be given every opportunity to challenge their conviction, whether it be through access to DNA testing or public financing of top-notch lawyers to handle those appeals. But they should be required to make any and ALL arguments they have in a single appeal, not a never-ending series of usually-frivolous filings, and never should it take 25 years for this process to be completed. In cases like Stollar's, in which he admitted killing the woman, though claiming a mental defect, the process should be a very short one. Perhaps those who contemplate a murder would be much less likely to commit the crime if they knew that the time lapse between their victim's death and their own could be a very short one.