[Melusine]

I'm not talking down to you and yes, I do find it crass to refer to concern about the death penalty as a silly thing and to compare innocents being executed to natural death.

You live in a first world country and try to help people who are poor. I could say that that is silly too, that you should concentrate on big things. People in third world countries have it a hell of a lot worse than even the poorest of people in the Western World.
But I'm not saying that. Firstly because I think that the poor in the first world *should* be helped, because even in the richest countries, there are horrible tales of people living on society's edge. Secondly because contrary to you I think it's fantastic if people try to make a difference, and it doesn't matter if that means they volunteer at a day-care centre (full of spoiled, well-fed western kids) or put their lives on the line providing medical care to people in Rwanda. It's the desire to make a difference, the fact that they're *thinking* about how they can help people, that matters to me. If all people had that attitude, it would help tremendously.
You consider the death penalty a small matter to concern yourself with. I don't. Many people don't. I'm an active member of Amnesty International and I just started a job trying to make more people members. One of our points of interest is the death penalty. Again you may think it immaterial, but like I said, many people might consider YOUR volunteer work unnecessary and immaterial. There are ALWAYS worse things in the world. Does that mean we should only help the one person in the whole world who has it the worst of all?
Oh, and you forget: I find it a good cause to stop death penalty because I'm against it on principle. So that means I don't care whether death row inmates are guilty or not. The fact that innocents do end up there is simply more incentive.
Bottom line is, I find it arrogant to decide that the lives of (possibly innocent) people on death row aren't important enough to worry about, and that people who do so are being silly and don't concern themselves with important things. Like I said bringing food to poor western families is silly in some people's eyes (not mine, BTW, absolutely not! - I'm just turning your reasoning around) but that doesn't mean it's not valuable work.