-Caveat Lector-
So what if the death penalty deters?
Steven Goldberg
National Review, June 30, 1989 v41 n12 p42(2)
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Opponents of the death penalty have many reasons for their opposition that
innocent people may be executed, that the death penalty is 'uncivilized',-
that the state should not take lives. But what these arguments come down to
is.
DOES THE THREAT of the death penalty deter people from murderous behavior
more than the threat of imprisonment for life? We do not yet know with
anything even approaching certainty whether the death penalty does or does
not deter. The question is clearly empirical; and it is likely that
sophisticated statistical techniques will eventually permit us an answer.
Professor Isaac Ehrlich and his colleagues, utilizing his statistical
techniques, argue that there can be little doubt about the ability of the
death penalty to deter. Ehrlich concludes that each additional execution
prevents about seven or eight people from committing murder. All statistical
arguments on the death penalty are, however, excruciatingly complex. Some
critics, for example, have argued that increased likelihood of execution
leads juries to convict fewer people, thereby offsetting the deterrent
effect. If anything, the empirical evidence is that the death penalty does
deter. But this is inevitably open to dispute. As a result, firm conclusions
that the death penalty either does or does not deter are unwarranted and
usually determined by one's psychological and moral leanings.
In academic and media circles, psychological and moral resistance to the
idea of the death penalty usually leads to the assertion that it does not
deter. These people's conclusion may or may not be correct, but it does not
follow from the arguments they deploy. Since many murders result from
emotional impulse (e.g., the angry husband who kills his wife), the death
penalty could have, at best only the slightest deterrent effect, If the
death penalty deters, it is likely that it does so through society's saying
that certain acts are so unacceptable that society will kill someone who
commits them. The individual internalizes the association of the act and the
penalty throughout his life, constantly increasing his resistance to
committing the act. Note that there is no implication here that the
potential murderer consciously weighs the alternatives and decides that the
crime is worth life in prison, but not death. No serious theory of
deterrence claims that such rational calculation of punishment (as opposed
to no rational calculation, or calculation only of the probability of
getting caught) plays a role.
There is no a priori reason for assuming that this process is less relevant
to emotional acts than rational acts; most husbands, when angry, slam doors,
shout, or sulk. Neither the death penalty nor anything else deterred the
husband who did murder his wife, so the question is not what deterred the
person who did murder (nothing did), but what deterred the person who
didn't. If the death penalty deters, it is, in all likelihood, primarily
because it instills a psychological resistance to the act, not because it
offers a rational argument against committing the act at the time that the
decision is being made. In short, it is only legislators who calculate (or
at least should calculate) the deterrent effect of the death penalty.
Potential murderers simply act; the deterrent effect of the death penalty,
if there is one, acts upon them. If it acts with sufficient strength, it
prevents their becoming murderers. The legislator is the physicist studying
the forces that move particles; the potential murderers are the moving
particles.
There is no evidence that the death penalty deters. This is simply untrue.
Ehrlich's complex statistical techniques establish a real case that the
death penalty deters. But here let us assume, for argument's sake, that
there was no such evidence. The more important point is that there is a
crucial difference between there being no evidence that two things are
correlated and there being evidence that two things are not correlated. The
latter means that we have good evidence that the two things are not related;
the former means simply that we have no evidence on either side of the case.
Now, it is quite true that we must have some sort of evidence in order to
even entertain the idea that two things are related. Our reason for not
believing that tall Italian men are smarter than short Italian men is not
simply that we have no direct evidence, but also because we have no informal
evidence suggesting that this is true-and so we do not bother to even
investigate the possibility. It is the lack of relevant informal evidence
that permits us to ignore the difference between not having evidence that
the hypothesis is true and having evidence that the hypothesis is not true.
But, in the case of penalties, we have an enormous amount of both informal
and formal evidence-from everyday experience of socializing children and
limiting adult behavior and from such "experiments" as increasing the fees
for parking violations-that, as a general rule, the greater a punishment,
the fewer people will behave in the punished way. Thus, it is perfectly
reasonable to expect that the death penalty would have a more dissuasive
effect than would life imprisonment.
FINALLY, NEARLY EVERY popular article and a good many academic articles
invoke the experience of the British with public hanging of pickpockets as
proof that the death penalty does not deter. The argument sees the fact that
pickpocketing continued long after the introduction of (public) hanging as
demonstrating that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. It
demonstrates no such thing, of course; at best, it demonstrates that not
every pickpocket was dissuaded, a fact no one would doubt. Even if it could
be shown that all practicing pickpockets continued to pick pockets at the
same rate, this would still not address the more important question of
whether some people who had not yet become pickpockets were dissuaded from
doing so by the death penalty. I have no idea whether they were, but neither
do those who deny the death penalty's effect.
The death penalty will inevitably be imposed on some innocent people. This
is, of course, true. But it is also true that, if the death penalty deters,
the number of innocent people whose lives are saved will, in all likelihood,
dwarf the number of people executed-and a fortiori, the number wrongfully
executed. Moreover, even the opponent of the death penalty who emphasizes
wrongful executions is willing to sacrifice thousands of lives each year for
the social advantages of motor vehicles. Realizing this, the opponent
differentiates between the death penalty and the use of motor vehicles on
the grounds that:
In the case of the death penalty, it is the state that takes a life. This
seems to be an argument but is, in fact, merely a restatement of the basic
ad-hoc moral objection to the death penalty. Therefore, it is fair to point
out that those basing their opposition to the death penalty on the fact that
it is the state that takes a life are, if the death penalty deters,
maintaining their belief by sacrificing the (innocent) people who will be
murdered because the death penalty is not invoked.
The death penalty exchanges "real lives" (those of the executed) for
"statistical lives" (those of the people who will not if the death penalty
deters and is invoked, be murdered). This argument is essentially a
sentimental shrinking from reality. But even if one grants this dubious
distinction, this defense is available only to the pure pacifist. The most
justified military action makes exactly this exchange when it sacrifices
many of society's young men in order to avoid a greater loss of life.
If we do not know whether the death penalty deters, we should not use it. As
we have seen, if the death penalty deters, it deters the murder of people
who are, in addition to being innocent, in all likelihood more numerous than
the murderers who are executed. Thus, if society does invoke the death
penalty on the assumption that the death penalty deters and is incorrect in
this assumption, it unnecessarily accepts the deaths of a relatively small
number of (nearly always guilty) individuals. On the other hand, if society
refuses to invoke the death penalty on the assumption that the death penalty
does not deter and is incorrect in this assumption, then it unnecessarily
accepts the deaths of a relatively large number of innocent people.
Consideration of this casts doubt on the intuitively plausible claim that,
for as long as it is not known whether the death penalty deters, it should
not be used. Supporters of the death penalty might turn this argument on its
head, viz.: if we do not know for certain that the death penalty does not
deter, then we are obliged to use it to save an unknown number of innocent
lives.
The death penalty is "uncivilized." If the death penalty deters, then, by
definition, it results in a society in which there are fewer murders than
there would be if the death penalty were not invoked. The opponent of the
death penalty can, of course, render this fact irrelevant and immunize his
argument by detaching it from deterrence altogether; he can assert that the
death penalty is wrong even if it deters. He can, in other words, see the
death penalty as analogous to torture for theft: the threat of torture would
no doubt deter some people from theft, but would still be unjustified. This
is what is implied in the rejection of the death penalty on the grounds that
it is "uncivilized" or that it "increases the climate of violence."
Ultimately, these defenses of opposition are as invulnerable to refutation
as they are incapable of persuading anyone who does not already accept their
assumption that the deterrence of murders would not justify the use of the
death penalty.
One might ask, however, what, precisely, are the definitions of
"civilization" that see as "more civilized" a society in which more
(innocent) people are murdered than would be the case if the society did not
refuse to use the death penalty. Indeed, one might ask the opponent of the
death penalty just how many innocent people he is willing to sacrifice to
avoid executing the guilty.
It is those who oppose the death penalty who act out of humane motives.
Motivation is irrelevant to the correctness of an empirical claim. However,
since nearly every article on the subject accords to the opponent of the
death penalty the right to claim a greater humanity (a right the opponent
invokes with alacrity), it is worth noting there are alternative views of
the opponent's motivation.
One such view is that the opponent's opposition flows not from feelings of
humanity, but from the fact that the opponent can picture the murderer being
executed, while he cannot picture the statistical group of innocent people
who will be murdered if the death penalty deters but is not employed. The
picture of the execution is capable, as the murder of the statistically
expected victims is not, of eliciting guilt and fear of aggression with
which the opponent cannot deal. He rationalizes his avoidance of these with
feelings of humanity which bolster self-esteem and avoid awareness of his
true motivation.
It is every bit as reasonable to see this as the opponent's motivation as it
is to accept that his opposition flows from his self-proclaimed greater
humanity. Like opponents of the death penalty, I too hope that the death
penalty does not deter. If this proves to be the case, we will avoid the
terrible choice that deterrence forces upon us. Unlike the opponents of the
death penalty, however, I do not fool myself into thinking that this hope
speaks well of one's character. After all, it is a hope that is willing to
sacrifice the possibility of saving innocent people in order to avoid
personal psychological pain. This doesn't count as altruism where I come
from.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ric Carter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 25 September 1999 05:22
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [CTRL] Zap the Bastards
-Caveat Lector-
http://news.excite.com/news/r/990924/19/news-crime-electricchair
Florida High Court Again OKs Electric Chair
By Michael Peltier
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - The Florida Supreme Court Friday ruled the use
of the state's electric chair in executions was constitutional and is not
cruel or usual punishment.
But the court also agreed that the state legislature should give death row
inmates a choice between electrocution and lethal injection.
In a 4-3 vote, Florida's highest court ended months of uncertainly following
a bloody spectacle at Florida's last execution in July.
When blood flowed from the nose of Allen "Tiny" Davis during his execution,
attorneys for Thomas Provenzano, the next inmate scheduled to die in the
electric chair, began a legal challenge, arguing the use of the chair was
unconstitutionally cruel.
The court, for the second time in two years, disagreed.
"The record in this case reveals abundant evidence that execution by
electrocution renders an inmate instantaneously unconscious, thereby making
it impossible to feel pain," the court's majority wrote. "The record also
contains evidence that the chair is and has been functioning properly and
that the electrical circuitry is being maintained."
The use of the electric chair has been under legal scrutiny in Florida for
years. Most of the 38 U.S. states where capital punishment is legal have
switched to lethal injection, a process some say is a less objectionable
method of executing inmates.
In October 1997, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the chair's use by a 4-3
majority. Its constitutionality was challenged after flames leaped from the
mask covering the head of Pedro Medina during his execution in March of that
year.
The Medina execution was the second in a decade in which fire erupted when
the executioner threw the switch. In 1990, a synthetic sponge placed on the
head of inmate Jesse Tafero burst into flames.
Despite their support for electrocution, the Supreme Court Friday urged
lawmakers to offer inmates a choice other than the electric chair, which has
been the state's sole means of execution since 1924.
"I urge the Legislature to revisit this issue and pass legislation giving
inmates the choice between lethal injection and electrocution as the method
of carrying out the death penalty," Chief Justice Major Harding wrote.
Three dissenting justices agreed.
"I am convinced that the time has now come to address this issue head on,"
wrote Justice Leander Shaw. "It is my conclusion that electrocution as it is
administered in Florida is unconstitutional."
The high court's action was denounced by human rights groups and death
penalty opponents, who said the decision not only kept intact a cruel form
of punishment but reinforced the death penalty despite growing international
opposition.
Sam Jordan, director of Amnesty International's efforts to abolish the death
penalty, said the court's decision is a giant leap back.
"This throws our civilization backward to a dependence on a cycle of
violence and vengeance," he said. "This is about getting even."
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hailed the court's ruling.
"The court's decision is a resounding victory for all Floridians, especially
those who have been victimized by the cruel and malicious acts of those
inmates on death row," Bush said.
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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