Can't afford? The U.S. can afford to keep many times the current inmate population in prison. We simply don't want to spend the amount needed. As for extending the death penalty, I seem to remember reading that in the past many countries had the death penalty for dozens of what we would consider relatively minor offenses, yet these crimes still occured pretty regularly. The deterent effect of the death penalty may or may not exist, but it is likely a minimal effect. As for justice, I can go either way on that argument, but in many of the cases I've seen documented the sentence of death didn't seem to fit crime (i.e mitigating circumstances not taken into account).