The best argument against the death penalty, at least to give to people that dont see a moral issue with it, is that its vastly more expensive than putting people in prison for life. Its effectively a luxury we pay for the state to be able to kill people, so is it something worth paying ridiculous amounts of taxpayer money on?

For one, we already pay to imprison them for decades of appeals, and foot the bill for the appeals process. If they still are going to be executed, then we have to pay for the extremely expensive drugs (made by only one company at this point IIRC). And then, if the drugs dont work right the person can sue. Or their family can sue if they still die, but not as intended. Then, if it turns out they were innocent it costs millions upon millions in a settlement. Is all of this worth it for us to be paying for, considering we could just lock them up for life? How many schools or hospitals or whatever could be built using the money we pay for the sake of revenge?