Clarence Allen

Allen was convicted in the 1974 murder of a 17-year-old robbery accomplice who had snitched on him. While in prison, he ordered the murders of three witnesses who had testified against him. He was sentenced to death in 1982 for those killings.

Three dead because they did not smoke him for the first murder.  

Lemuel Smith

In 1981, Lemuel Smith was in the maximum-security Greenhaven Correctional Facility. On May 15, 1981, Greenhaven Corrections Officer Donna Payant was on duty when she received a phone call and told her co-worker she needed to take care of a problem. Her fellow officer returned to work at the end of the shift to pick Donna up, when she never came out, hundreds of corrections officers combed the entire prison grounds throughout the night and into the following morning. Trash dumpsters were emptied into a garbage truck, which two senior Correction Officers escorted to a dumpsite twenty miles away. When the garbage was spread out, officers finally found Payant's mutilated body.

It was the first time in the United States that a female corrections officer had ever been killed inside a prison. More than five thousand officers attended Payant's funeral and New York governor Hugh Carey officially vowed "a swift response".

The same examiner that observed bite marks on Maralie Wilson was coincidentally called to examine bite marks on Payant's body. He quickly recognized the bite marks and Lemuel Smith was charged with Payant's murder on June 6, 1981. A conviction for the charge carried a mandatory death sentence.

Michael Mazza

Michael Mazza, 40, was charged with first-degree murder, robbery, carjacking and escape. He is being held without bail and will likely be arraigned next month, according to prosecutor Michael J. Satz.

Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti said Mazza was serving two life sentences....

Why are some people sentenced to death when others in the same state are sentenced to LWOP? For deterrence to be of any value justice must be certain but in this case it is uncertain because the penalty could be either the DP or LWOP.

Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
 
That is. logically, conclusive.
 
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses,  find for death penalty deterrence.
 
Is this a surprise? No. Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
 
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don't. Studies which don't find for deterrence don't say no one is deterred, but that they couldn't measure those deterred.
 
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn't deter some? There isn't one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
 
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is  compelling and un refuted  that death is feared more than life - even in prison.
 
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it's a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
 
Reality paints a very different picture.
 
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
 
What percentage of convicted capital murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
 
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
 
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
 
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
 
Furthermore, history tells us that "lifers" have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc..

In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
 
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Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 20-25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have been released upon post conviction review. There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.