Is the practice of capital punishment just or unjust?

Essay Requirements
Choose ONE of the ethical dilemmas below and provide a thoughtful and comprehensive essay response that addresses each of the questions at the end of the scenario.
Your response should include an analysis of the situation incorporating the following considerations.
Identify and express the ethical dilemma represented by the scenario.
Identify who is the decision-maker(s) in the scenario and who is impacted by the decision being made.
Identify the relevant facts/data in the scenario.
Identify and explain which ethical values are relevant in the scenario (i.e. autonomy, justice, beneficence, etc.).
Identify which moral theories/philosophers provide the basis for your analysis, and explain how that theory is applied to the scenario, and how it factors into your responses to the questions at the end of the scenario.
Option 1: Is the practice of capital punishment just or unjust?
This scenario is from: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/dpic-year-end-reports/the-death-penalty-in-2019-year-end-report.
In its 2019 year-end report, the Death Penalty Information Center (Fact Sheet) reports that:
… capital punishment has been abolished in half of all U.S. states and the use of the death penalty remains near historic lows with seven states executing a total of 22 prisoners in 2019. Thirty-four new death sentences were imposed, marking the second-lowest number in the modern era of capital punishment.
While most of the nation saw near-historic lows in death sentences and executions, a few jurisdictions bucked the national trend. Death sentences spiked in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio to three in 2019 and five in the last two years, more than in any other county in the country. Executions continued to be geographically isolated, with 91% of all executions taking place in the South, and 41% in Texas alone.
Issues of innocence remained at the forefront of national capital punishment practices. Three more former death-row prisoners were exonerated in 2019, increasing the number of documented U.S. death-row exonerations to 167. Two exonerations came in cases from the 1970s, highlighting the failure of the normal judicial review process to meaningfully protect the innocent. 2019 threatened to be the year of executing the innocent.
The risk of wrongful executions drew public attention and outcry in the cases of James Dailey and Rodney Reed, who faced execution dates despite powerful evidence of innocence. But in less highly publicized cases, two other prisoners with evidence of probable innocence were executed. As new evidence pointing to a different killer emerged, Tennessee refused to conduct available DNA testing that had the potential to exonerate a man it may have wrongfully executed in 2006.
Questions:
Are there some crimes that are so severe and objectionable that the death penalty is the only just punishment?
Are there some people who are so dangerous that even life in prison would not adequately protect society from that person?
If a significant number of innocent people are being sentenced to death, and many of these people are wrongly executed, is this an argument against capital punishment?
Does the possibility of fatal errors in our system of justice suggest that the whole system should be scrapped?

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