NationStates Jolt Archive

Please don't go into abortion many things are related to that including overpopulation society itself (would you prefer a child to be thrown into a garbage can instead?) and this is another topic which may concern death of innocents but this is death penalty not killing innocents.

It relates very specificly to my arguement.

:confused: I'll just ignore you.

Omg, a liberal is going to ignore me????? :confused: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! You guys need to move to a Communist country and have an awakening.

:confused:

Omg, a liberal is going to ignore me????? :confused: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! You guys need to move to a Communist country and have an awakening.

Any chance of sticking to topic? I said liberal, not communist. Do you understand the difference? Please, restrain yourself, answer my question and / or stick to topic. Thank you.

I said liberal, not communist. Do you understand the difference?

Bro, now a days, there is no difference.

Bro, now a days, there is no difference.

I see. You don't.

I'm going to go COMPLETELY PARANORMAL now, and spout a grand
halucination of mine:

Every hardened habitual pathological criminal would tell you, if they were
really completely honest (thus the "hallucination" requirement), that they live
their lives as a suicide mission in hopes of causing as much trouble, pain, and
misery in the world as possible to show those "non-their-kind" normal-people
the pain that they feel for their "sickness".

They are utter masochists who's only pleasure is making "normals" feel pain
by making us do their bidding.

They create their own hell, to show us what hell is.

When we allow them to "make us feel bad" for not rehabilitating them, and
keeping them "caged like animals", they are pleased, and feel effective
through their only tool,.. our own misguided "compassion".

If we were to give them what they "supposedly" wanted, namely "freedom to
live a society of their creation", they'd lose the crowbar of "guilt" (misguided
compassion) to beat us over the head with.
Ok. So you're a psychologist who has made the criminal mind your specialty and can provide sources and piles of research of hundreds of samples to back this up. Right? Unless the first part quoted above was intended to signify sarcasm. If so, what is your point? I thought you were all for this "devil's island" scenario? Either you are very confused or you are simply as irrational as you sound.

I really shouldn't be surprised at some of the things being said on this thread, but I am. It's a bit of a shock when I encounter people with views so radically different from my own. But that's my problem.

As a side note to explain to the person who doesn't understand pro-choice opinions alongside anti death penalty opinions: Those of us who believe in compassion and human rights tend to think that killing doesn't justify killing and that there are more lives involved with childbirth than the child's and that they all have rights, with those already living in the world taking priority. And more importantly that life doesn't end at childbirth, we value the child's life, all of it and accept that the world as it is means abortion has to be legal to protect people from butchery and the crappy welfare system. I don't expect you to understand this pov, since you stamp the words "liberal" and "communist" on everyone with compassionate views!

'What deep insight. It's okay to take ones only life away for no reason, but not okay to torture that person.
Exactly. Death is much more merciful than torture.'
So it's okay to take a life for no reason. What logic.

It's not "for no reason." Quit saying stupid things to piss me off.

'I didn't say we can stop a criminal no matter what the crime because he's done other things'
Yes you did: Quote: 'if someone is falsely convicted of a capital crime, there's a pretty good chance that they've done many other things that they were lucky enough not to get caught for'

No, I didn't. That does not say we can stop a criminal no matter what the crime because he's done other things. I said there's a good chance that a capital offender has done other things to get him noticed as a potential suspect in the first place. It's a completely different statement. Stop being fucking retarded on purpose just to piss me off.

['While my conclusion was not supported by evidence, that which led me to my conclusion was supported by evidence, and thus not as baseless as you are determined to make it out to be.'
Nope. You said:
'Also, police don't just pull random people out of a hat when hunting down perps - which would lead me to think, though there's no evidence to back this up, that if someone is falsely convicted of a capital crime, there's a pretty good chance that they've done many other things that they were lucky enough not to get caught for.'

No shit! Quit acting as if you can't read. "Police don't just pull random people out of a hat" is fact. What I said there was no evidence to support was that most falsely convicted capital offenders have done other things to get noticed. Don't fucking lie.

You have made silly mistakes, all the wriggling in the world won't change it.

Not in this fucking thread, all the rewording, lying, and general made-up bullshit isn't going to change it. You haven't made a single fucking legitimate point, and I've come to believe that you never will.


And you really must calm down and be less offensive.
'he finally replied to something I wrote!

and it was intentional, unless you're a moron.

If you have evidence to prove otherwise - not from some bullshit source by some nutcase,

If not, shut the fuck up

stop saying completely irrelevant things

you're being fucking childish

so you can stick that implication up your ass.'

Way to quote all of that out of context. If you didn't keep doing shit like that, and keep completely ignoring all arguments or changing what I've said into something that you can actually respond to, I wouldn't be so pissed off. Your intentional ignorance is flamebaiting me bigtime, and I am almost positive that it is intentional.

It's not "for no reason." Quit saying stupid things to piss me off.



No, I didn't. That does not say we can stop a criminal no matter what the crime because he's done other things. I said there's a good chance that a capital offender has done other things to get him noticed as a potential suspect in the first place. It's a completely different statement. Stop being fucking retarded on purpose just to piss me off.



No shit! Quit acting as if you can't read. "Police don't just pull random people out of a hat" is fact. What I said there was no evidence to support was that most falsely convicted capital offenders have done other things to get noticed. Don't fucking lie.



Not in this fucking thread, all the rewording, lying, and general made-up bullshit isn't going to change it. You haven't made a single fucking legitimate point, and I've come to believe that you never will.




Way to quote all of that out of context. If you didn't keep doing shit like that, and keep completely ignoring all arguments or changing what I've said into something that you can actually respond to, I wouldn't be so pissed off. Your intentional ignorance is flamebaiting me bigtime, and I am almost positive that it is intentional.


Don't worry, I can't be arsed to argue with you after this post, it's a waste of time, but in the absolute final attempt to show you you're not debating:
'Quit saying stupid things
Stop being fucking retarded
Don't fucking lie.
You haven't made a single fucking legitimate point,
Your intentional ignorance is flamebaiting'
These are not points with which I can debate.

Don't worry, I can't be arsed to argue with you after this post, it's a waste of time, but in the absolute final attempt to show you you're not debating:
'Quit saying stupid things
Stop being fucking retarded
Don't fucking lie.
You haven't made a single fucking legitimate point,
Your intentional ignorance is flamebaiting'
These are not points with which I can debate.

Those aren't my points, those are requests to stop cutting up what I fucking say like you just did again and saying it means things that it doesn't in a very successful attempt to piss me off. Just because I'm getting pissed at the dishonesty of your quotes and the way you keep trying to claim that I've said things I haven't said doesn't mean I'm not also debating.

Sure. Also to protect society. I agree that life in prison would achieve the same effect, but since criminals are paroled early despite life terms, the only sure way to keep murderers off the streets these days is death row. Sad, isn't it?

So how do we in Britian do it with a 14 times lower murder rate than the US?

Every hardened habitual pathological criminal would tell you...[snip]

Which is quite a bit too small a percentage of capital offenders to base your entire Hell-island theory on.

That's not my point. My point is that in some places the presence of the death penalty does not affect murder rate positively. Besides, here's another way to look at the statistics at the link I posted: 66% of states without capital punishment experienced an increase in murder rates between 2002 and 2003, whereas just 50% of states with capital punishment experienced an increase in murder rates over the same period.
You would base an argument on a one year cycle? You are not seeing the whole picture?

NATIONWIDE MURDER RATES
BY 2003 RANK, HIGHEST TO LOWEST (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=169)

When you look at this graph, you will readily notice that in the top 29 States with the highest murder rates, ONLY 2 of those States don't have the death penalty and they rank 14th (Michigan), and 16th (Alaska).

If you look at the bottom 11 States, with the lowest murder rates, ONLY 4 have the death penalty.

Look at the yellow, and the evidence is pretty compelling.

I was implying that you were less violence prone, not more. And they are very similar.
Our gun laws are nowhere similar.

Again, you managed to miss my point entirely. If the countries are much more violence prone, or the citizens' beliefs are more conflicting, or there is more racial tension between the inhabitants, the murder rate is going to be higher, regardless of capital punishment laws.
You are basing your point on speculation totally. IF you can prove that your statement is in fact true, with examples, then your argument would be more valid.

Anyway, in case my sarcasm did not make apparent enough my beef with statistics on capital punishment, my main problem is that it tries to blame an increasing or decreasing murder rate on one factor, while in reality there are many things that can affect the murder rate in an area aside from the death penalty.
The premise is that States without the death penalty tend to have a lower murder rate, despite the other demographics and I believe that the charts clearly show that.

Exactly. So the death penalty being on the books in an area may not be (and probably isn't) directly linked to the number of murders.
States that don't use the death penalty have on average lower rates of murder. Coincidence? I don't think so, especially given the opening premises in this thread.

Ummmm, no shit? Which is why I was stating that this annoys me, followed by why.
Why should it annoy you? If it was proven to you without a shadow of a doubt that countries/States without the death penalty have lower rates of murder, wouldn't you be inclined to no longer support the death penalty?

Immediately, death seems worse than prison with three meals a day and an hour or so of free time.
And a cell mate named Bubba?

The brutalization factor is bullshit. Basically, the brutalization factor would suggest that people on average would kill each other more frequently if the government were killing murderers at the time. Why those two should have any effect on one another cannot be explained logically, and the only way to even find a comparison between the two is to bring up statistics that could also have resulted from twenty other factors.
Yet you cannot give hard and fast evidence to refute it? Dismissing it outright as BS based on your opinion doesn't make it BS?

Punishment that fits the crime.

In the British Virgin Islands, if you kill someone, someone will kill you.

If you shoot someone to death, someone will shoot you to death.

If you strangle someone to death, someone will strangle you to death.

If you stab someone to death, someone will stab you to death.

They seem to have one of the lowest per capital death crime rates around.

You would base an argument on a one year cycle? You are not seeing the whole picture?

I was simply pointing out a stupid statistic that had no bearing on reality to support my next point - that there are tons of things which affect murder rate, and to assume that the death penalty is the reason for the variations in murder rate when so many other variables are present is stupid.

When you look at this graph, you will readily notice that in the top 29 States with the highest murder rates, ONLY 2 of those States don't have the death penalty and they rank 14th (Michigan), and 16th (Alaska).
If you look at the bottom 11 States, with the lowest murder rates, ONLY 4 have the death penalty.

You're still repeating yourself and ignoring my point that there are other influential factors on murder rate that are completely independant of the death penalty.

You are basing your point on speculation totally. IF you can prove that your statement is in fact true, with examples, then your argument would be more valid.

If he had provided me with what those top and bottom five countries were, I might be able to do that.

The premise is that States without the death penalty tend to have a lower murder rate, despite the other demographics and I believe that the charts clearly show that.

Okay, look at it this way. Which states would you say are more likely to have no death penalty? Would you say they are much more likely to be liberal or conservative? Liberal? Okay. So would it not be just as fair to say, by your ignore-all-other-factors logic, that conservatives like to kill people more than liberals do?

Why should it annoy you? If it was proven to you without a shadow of a doubt that countries/States without the death penalty have lower rates of murder, wouldn't you be inclined to no longer support the death penalty?

Only if the death penalty were the reason for that difference in rate. The fact that the two coexist is not nearly enough if you take into account all other factors.

States that don't use the death penalty have on average lower rates of murder. Coincidence? I don't think so, especially given the opening premises in this thread.

I do. How's this: of the 38 states with the death penalty, 35 experienced a drop in murder rates over the last 8 years. Of the 12 states without the death penalty, 10 experienced a drop in murder rates. In other words, 92.1% of death penalty states experienced a drop, whereas only 83.3% of states without the death penalty experienced a drop. To quote you: "Coincidence? I don't think so." Or how about this: the average decrease in murder rate over said 8 years for death penalty states was 2.17. The average decrease for states without, 1.28. Obviously, the death penalty is the reason that states with the death penalty are experiencing a decrease in murder rate nearly twice that of states without. Right? I mean, seriously. "Coincidence? I don't think so."

So, now, you can either ignore criminology, psychology, and all the statistics that don't agree with your nigh-baseless assertions, or you can say something new. Your pick.

Who kills the killer who kills the killer? Justice, or that which is just, is not that which is retributive.

Someone allowed to deal out justice. People are allowed to kill in many situations. Dealing out justice should not be removed from that list.

Fortunately, that sort of thinking is going the way of the dodo. Your own Supreme Court recently banned executions of children. Adults will not be far off, and perhaps then you'll join the overwhelming majority of developed nations in realising the folly of banning murder and yet allowing it.

I doubt it seriously. Many people in America that are pro death penalty don't want to use it on children.

Way to prove that you did not think it through.

What are you talking about? I was not wasting my time on the argument until it had a point to it.

You were the one who started the debate on the death penalty. I mentioned it in passing as an exemption, and did not deal with it all in my original post, but you were the one that questioned me on it. So do please think this through like you should have from the beginning and do not go off on tangents you try to deny everyone else. The hypocrisy becomes a bit too garish otherwise, I'm afraid.

I highlighted that as something that I found interesting. I didn't intend to debate it. I posted one short sentence on the subject. I did not write a full-on rebuttle for it.

THE DEATH PENALTY HAS NO BENEFICIAL EFFECT ON MURDER RATES:


Try proving that in the face of common sense .

If you kill someone you will be sentenced to death . Saying that this has no effect on the decisions of a person about to commit... or thinking of... commting a murder , is just STUPID . Unless of course you have a way to poll all those who have thought to commit murder... but did or did not... change their mind .

Statistics can be used to support almost ANY argument reguardless to weather its true false or imaginary . Your statement proves it .

I like my murderers in a grave not in jail .

Well, It prevents re-offending with a 100% success rate (unless something REALLY F*cks up)

Also, If it was done in public I am sure that there would be a detterent effect there (Obviously only decapitation or hangings are feasable in public)



I would like to see a return of the death penalty here in Britain. along with public floggings, but the latter might just be me.

Looks like the death penalty is not only cruel, but also does not deter murder.
Since it is cruel and useless, the death penalty should no longer be used.
How is the death penalty 'cruel'? If we were talking about death by insertion of piranahs into bodily openings, you might have a point.

Lethal injection is hardly 'cruel'.

And, as has been pointed out already, whether or not death penalties affect crime rates (I personally think they do), they DO remove harmful elements PERMENANTLY from the cycle of re-offending.

Thus - not 'useless', either.

It prevents the perpetrator of a first offence from committing a second offence.
Then, I guess you are against punishing murders that result in the death of a murderer.

How is the death penalty 'cruel'? If we were talking about death by insertion of piranahs into bodily openings, you might have a point.

Lethal injection is hardly 'cruel'.

And, as has been pointed out already, whether or not death penalties affect crime rates (I personally think they do), they DO remove harmful elements PERMENANTLY from the cycle of re-offending.

Thus - not 'useless', either. Life imprisonment with hard labour and minimum rations also removes harmful elements from society permanently.
The death penalty occasionally removes harmless or beneficial elements from society - it's called "getting it wrong". It happens. One innocent life is one too many, and is unjustifiable when there are other options.

Hanging, electric chair, gas, lethal injection, none deter murder. Fact.
And your point is??

At least when these rapists, murderers and the like are removed from society, they can't repeat their crimes, and they can no longer contribute their genetic material to the gene pool.

And don't discount the value of retribution. :)

Life imprisonment with hard labour and minimum rations also removes harmful elements from society permanently.
The death penalty occasionally removes harmless or beneficial elements from society - it's called "getting it wrong". It happens. One innocent life is one too many, and is unjustifiable when there are other options.

This was brought up like 250 posts ago and I asked if anyone could actually cite a proved case - not off some bullshit "the death penalty is the devil" site - of someone being wrongly executed by the death penalty, and nobody could. Perhaps you can show them up? Besides, if there were a specific limit to how many appeals someone could have regardless of whether they were going to get the death penalty or life, and when they were convicted for the last time they just got shot, it would cost a bit less. And all criminology and psychology suggests and some statistics suggest that the death penalty does deter crime to an extent, so if it were done away with completely the increase in murder would result in the death of more innocents than one or two dead by way of the death penalty.

And your point is??

At least when these rapists, murderers and the like are removed from society, they can't repeat their crimes, and they can no longer contribute their genetic material to the gene pool.

And don't discount the value of retribution. :)

The simple fact that Eutrusca and I agree on a subject, should be enough to set alarm bells ringing....

(:))

Life imprisonment with hard labour and minimum rations also removes harmful elements from society permanently.
The death penalty occasionally removes harmless or beneficial elements from society - it's called "getting it wrong". It happens. One innocent life is one too many, and is unjustifiable when there are other options.

So I guess next you'll start up about how many innocent people get throw into Gulags?

I don't think I've ever heard of a case where the death penalty hasn't stopped crime. Nobody who has ever been executed has come back to commit more crimes. :D

Remember, red is positive and black is negative ;)

Life imprisonment with hard labour and minimum rations also removes harmful elements from society permanently.
The death penalty occasionally removes harmless or beneficial elements from society - it's called "getting it wrong". It happens. One innocent life is one too many, and is unjustifiable when there are other options.

Same issue as I've stated before in similar threads, though... there is no such thing as an INESCAPABLE prison. You are holding someone temporarily, no matter how long they are in there... there is ALWAYS the possibility of escape.

And is it unjustifiable? Regretable, yes... but I think it can be argued either way.

The simple fact that Eutrusca and I agree on a subject, should be enough to set alarm bells ringing....

(:))
:eek:

hehehe

:eek:

hehehe

Well, it's not the most COMMON of sights...

Glad to see you saw the funny side of it. It wasn't intended to offend.

So I guess next you'll start up about how many innocent people get throw into Gulags?

I don't think I've ever heard of a case where the death penalty hasn't stopped crime. Nobody who has ever been executed has come back to commit more crimes. :D

Remember, red is positive and black is negative ;) It's the same as trying to stop weeds growing by pruning them. Sure, you get rid of the leaves, but they'll soon sprout up.

And if you think that the death penalty deters crime, have a look at the history of any place.
Same issue as I've stated before in similar threads, though... there is no such thing as an INESCAPABLE prison. You are holding someone temporarily, no matter how long they are in there... there is ALWAYS the possibility of escape.

And is it unjustifiable? Regretable, yes... but I think it can be argued either way. Yes, there is a small possibility of escape, just as there is a small possibility of executing the wrong man. How many stories about prison escapes do you read? I know that where I live I can't remember seeing any. However, recently there was a case where 5 people jailed for IRA bomb attacks - murder - were let out after a short time, because the case was looked into again.

If the reason for the death penalty is to prevent escape, why not use it on all criminals who pose a threat to society?

It's the same as trying to stop weeds growing by pruning them. Sure, you get rid of the leaves, but they'll soon sprout up.

And if you think that the death penalty deters crime, have a look at the history of any place.
Yes, there is a small possibility of escape, just as there is a small possibility of executing the wrong man. How many stories about prison escapes do you read? I know that where I live I can't remember seeing any. However, recently there was a case where 5 people jailed for IRA bomb attacks - murder - were let out after a short time, because the case was looked into again.

If the reason for the death penalty is to prevent escape, why not use it on all criminals who pose a threat to society?

I lived in the city of Leicester, in the UK. I was there for about a decade. A city of maybe a third of a million people. We had a couple of escapes in that time. Mostly NOT from the prison itself, but during transportation.

The death penalty is hardly justified for the man charged with possession of marijuana for personal use... nor for the mother who stole food to give to her hungry children.

But, for the serial rapist, or mass murderer.... we really do not need those elements in society.... ever. So - remove them. Permenantly.

And I'd be down with abolishing parole for certain offenders. I'm not a staunch defender of the death penalty - I just recognize its positive and negative attributes. I also don't understand why everybody's so anti-revenge.

Revenge is wrong! I saw something on the news where this guy came home and found out that someone had broken in and raped and killed his wife. He kept saying he hoped that they caught and killed the "monster" that did it. All he seemed interested in was in punishing the killer. He never mentioned the possibility of rehabilitating him, or considered what had gone on in that man's life to lead him to become a killer.

;)

Ok, I just thought I would try on the opposite side of the argument for a second. Still can't quite understand it I guess. It reads as pretty stupid to me...

My ONLY concern with the death penalty is my fear that we use it on cases where a defendant doesn't get a fair shake. I'd like to see more done to ensure we don't convict an innocent person (for any sentence, really) to death and more to make it possible to overturn a wrongful conviction.

Perhaps a higher standard of proof for a death penalty case. That might mean that prosecutors have to take a life sentence instead of the death penalty on some cases that they don't have enough evidence for this "overwhelming proof" (I just made that up, you know - as a counter to preponderance of evidence in civil cases, and beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases.) required for the death penalty. But that would be acceptable in the effort to try and ensure we don't wrongly execute someone.

But there are still plenty of cases where I'd happily volunteer to pull the switch.

This was brought up like 250 posts ago and I asked if anyone could actually cite a proved case - not off some bullshit "the death penalty is the devil" site - of someone being wrongly executed by the death penalty, and nobody could. Perhaps you can show them up?

Here's the list of retentionist countries (countries that have death penalty):
AFGHANISTAN, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BAHAMAS, BAHRAIN, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELIZE, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, CHAD, CHINA, COMOROS, CONGO (Democratic Republic), CUBA, DOMINICA, EGYPT, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, GABON, GHANA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA, GUYANA, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, IRAQ, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JORDAN, KAZAKSTAN, KOREA (North), KOREA (South), KUWAIT, KYRGYZSTAN, LAOS, LEBANON, LESOTHO, LIBERIA, LIBYA, MALAWI, MALAYSIA, MONGOLIA, NIGERIA, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, RWANDA, SAINT CHRISTOPHER & NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES, SAUDI ARABIA, SIERRA LEONE, SINGAPORE, SOMALIA, SUDAN, SWAZILAND, SYRIA, TAIWAN, TAJIKISTAN, TANZANIA, THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, UGANDA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, UZBEKISTAN, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE

I'm sure we can all come up with a few examples from the above mentioned countries, but you're probably more interested in the US examples, although there is no qualitative difference between, for example, Saudi Arabia and USA with respect that they both have death penalty.

A blatant example of wrongful executions from the American past are the Salem witch trials from the 17th century, when many people were sentenced and executed for witchcraft. I think that we can treat their innocence as a given. Much has changed since, but death penalty has remained.

Another example is Lena Baker, a black woman executed for the murder of her employer, who attacked her with a metal pipe. Georgia parole board is to issue a formal pardon 60 years after her execution.

Lack of proved cases of executions of innocents in the US is due to the fact that courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead and defense attorneys dedicate their resources to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. However, we can all accept that American legal system isn't perfect and people sometimes get convicted for the crimes they didn't commit. One example is known to all - the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who thanks to the corruption in the State of NJ judicial system spent many years in prison for murders he didn't commit. We can extend the imperfection of the American legal system to death penalty cases. Since 1973, 121 people in 25 U.S. states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. The most recent exoneration is of Derrick Jamison, No. 121, of Ohio, on February 28, 2005. ( http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=110 ). It is perfectly logical to infer that there were and still are cases where innocent people were sentenced to death and were actually executed, especially given that many of them were denied DNA testing that would prove their innocence or at least cause reasonable doubt, which would in automatic overturning of the death sentence. There is an undisputed fact that many (121) innocent people spent years on death row before being acquitted and it would be irrational to assume that no innocent people were executed during that period.

Besides, if there were a specific limit to how many appeals someone could have regardless of whether they were going to get the death penalty or life, and when they were convicted for the last time they just got shot, it would cost a bit less.

Life sentence of forced hard labor, with only major expenses being food for sustenance and prison cell acommodation would turn a convicted criminal to a source of profit for the state instead of an expense of the death penalty.

Also, one needs to take costs of a death penalty court case into account:
-A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).
(December 2003 Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit)

-The estimated costs for the death penalty in New York since 1995 (when it was reinstated): $160 million, or approximately $23 million for each person sentenced to death. To date, no executions have been carried out.
(The Times Union, Sept. 22, 2003)

-In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.
(2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research)


And all criminology and psychology suggests and some statistics suggest that the death penalty does deter crime to an extent, so if it were done away with completely the increase in murder would result in the death of more innocents than one or two dead by way of the death penalty.

I challenge you to quote scientific psychological and criminology publications that support your claim. I guess there are none.
Counterevidence is abundant.

First, there is a comparison between homicide rates in the US states which have the death penalty against the ones that don't: http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/factsheets/deterrence.html

Second, we can compare the homicide rate in the country that has a death penalty (USA) with the one that doesn't (Canada), while economic and political circumstances in the countries are similar (both are rich western democracies). Canada has a homicide rate of about 2 per 100000 people, while the USA has a homicide rate of about 5 per 100000 people.

Third, we can compare the homicide rate in Canada before and after the abolishment of death penalty (source: Amnesty International, 2000). Contrary to predictions by death penalty supporters, the homicide rate in Canada did not increase after abolition in 1976. In fact, the Canadian murder rate declined slightly the following year (from 2.8 per 100,000 to 2.7). Over the next 20 years the homicide rate fluctuated (between 2.2 and 2.8 per 100,000), but the general trend was clearly downwards. It reached a 30-year low in 1995 (1.98) -- the fourth consecutive year-to-year decrease and a full one-third lower than in the year before abolition. In 1998, the homicide rate dipped below 1.9 per 100,000, the lowest rate since the 1960s.
The overall conviction rate for first-degree murder doubled in the decade following abolition (from under 10% to approximately 20%), suggesting that Canadian juries are more willing to convict for murder now that they are not compelled to make life-and-death decisions.

Fourth, though I'm neither a criminal myself nor a psychologist, I think that the criminal commits the crime without thinking about the repercussions. Death sentence and life sentence make no difference to a criminal, as no criminal beleives he will get caught. That especially goes for the most brutal criminals, like child molesters, rapists and mass murderers, who have a total disregard for the society and human life, and live only to take pleasure in their evil acts (in fact, those are the only cases that even merit a death penalty debate, on the grounds of society protection and possibilities of escape. However, I propose medical and surgical treatment that would make these monsters incapable of performing the crimes, even in a highly unlikely case of escape.

Here's the list of retentionist countries (countries that have death penalty):
AFGHANISTAN, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BAHAMAS, BAHRAIN, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELIZE, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, CHAD, CHINA, COMOROS, CONGO (Democratic Republic), CUBA, DOMINICA, EGYPT, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, GABON, GHANA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA, GUYANA, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, IRAQ, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JORDAN, KAZAKSTAN, KOREA (North), KOREA (South), KUWAIT, KYRGYZSTAN, LAOS, LEBANON, LESOTHO, LIBERIA, LIBYA, MALAWI, MALAYSIA, MONGOLIA, NIGERIA, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, RWANDA, SAINT CHRISTOPHER & NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES, SAUDI ARABIA, SIERRA LEONE, SINGAPORE, SOMALIA, SUDAN, SWAZILAND, SYRIA, TAIWAN, TAJIKISTAN, TANZANIA, THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, UGANDA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, UZBEKISTAN, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE

I'm sure we can all come up with a few examples from the above mentioned countries, but you're probably more interested in the US examples, although there is no qualitative difference between, for example, Saudi Arabia and USA with respect that they both have death penalty.

A blatant example of wrongful executions from the American past are the Salem witch trials from the 17th century, when many people were sentenced and executed for witchcraft. I think that we can treat their innocence as a given. Much has changed since, but death penalty has remained.

Another example is Lena Baker, a black woman executed for the murder of her employer, who attacked her with a metal pipe. Georgia parole board is to issue a formal pardon 60 years after her execution.

Lack of proved cases of executions of innocents in the US is due to the fact that courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead and defense attorneys dedicate their resources to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. However, we can all accept that American legal system isn't perfect and people sometimes get convicted for the crimes they didn't commit. One example is known to all - the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who thanks to the corruption in the State of NJ judicial system spent many years in prison for murders he didn't commit. We can extend the imperfection of the American legal system to death penalty cases. Since 1973, 121 people in 25 U.S. states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. The most recent exoneration is of Derrick Jamison, No. 121, of Ohio, on February 28, 2005. ( http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=110 ). It is perfectly logical to infer that there were and still are cases where innocent people were sentenced to death and were actually executed, especially given that many of them were denied DNA testing that would prove their innocence or at least cause reasonable doubt, which would in automatic overturning of the death sentence. There is an undisputed fact that many (121) innocent people spent years on death row before being acquitted and it would be irrational to assume that no innocent people were executed during that period.



Life sentence of forced hard labor, with only major expenses being food for sustenance and prison cell acommodation would turn a convicted criminal to a source of profit for the state instead of an expense of the death penalty.

Also, one needs to take costs of a death penalty court case into account:
-A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).
(December 2003 Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit)

-The estimated costs for the death penalty in New York since 1995 (when it was reinstated): $160 million, or approximately $23 million for each person sentenced to death. To date, no executions have been carried out.
(The Times Union, Sept. 22, 2003)

-In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.
(2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research)




I challenge you to quote scientific psychological and criminology publications that support your claim. I guess there are none.
Counterevidence is abundant.

First, there is a comparison between homicide rates in the US states which have the death penalty against the ones that don't: http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/factsheets/deterrence.html

Second, we can compare the homicide rate in the country that has a death penalty (USA) with the one that doesn't (Canada), while economic and political circumstances in the countries are similar (both are rich western democracies). Canada has a homicide rate of about 2 per 100000 people, while the USA has a homicide rate of about 5 per 100000 people.

Third, we can compare the homicide rate in Canada before and after the abolishment of death penalty (source: Amnesty International, 2000). Contrary to predictions by death penalty supporters, the homicide rate in Canada did not increase after abolition in 1976. In fact, the Canadian murder rate declined slightly the following year (from 2.8 per 100,000 to 2.7). Over the next 20 years the homicide rate fluctuated (between 2.2 and 2.8 per 100,000), but the general trend was clearly downwards. It reached a 30-year low in 1995 (1.98) -- the fourth consecutive year-to-year decrease and a full one-third lower than in the year before abolition. In 1998, the homicide rate dipped below 1.9 per 100,000, the lowest rate since the 1960s.
The overall conviction rate for first-degree murder doubled in the decade following abolition (from under 10% to approximately 20%), suggesting that Canadian juries are more willing to convict for murder now that they are not compelled to make life-and-death decisions.

Fourth, though I'm neither a criminal myself nor a psychologist, I think that the criminal commits the crime without thinking about the repercussions. Death sentence and life sentence make no difference to a criminal, as no criminal beleives he will get caught. That especially goes for the most brutal criminals, like child molesters, rapists and mass murderers, who have a total disregard for the society and human life, and live only to take pleasure in their evil acts (in fact, those are the only cases that even merit a death penalty debate, on the grounds of society protection and possibilities of escape. However, I propose medical and surgical treatment that would make these monsters incapable of performing the crimes, even in a highly unlikely case of escape.

There is not even one good reason to do away with the death penalty ( in the US ) in that large , well thought out , and reasoned post . Not a one .
Why would we even want to do away with the death penalty ? If we could do away with murder as a crime I would be in favor . But as long as there are murderers then there should be a death penalty . Its simple and very understandable JUSTICE . Take a life in a criminal action and you forfiet your own life . Case closed .

I do not support the dealth penaulty. Killing doesn't give second chances that everyone deserves and expects. We need to show compassion for victims as well as the criminals as we are in neither one of their shoes and do not know the motives or situtation. He who has no sin shall cast the first stone!!! Give people a chance to reform... We'd all expect the same rights and priviledges if we were caught in that situation or wrongly accused. Mistakes can happen.

Fairy Kate

I'm sure we can all come up with a few examples from the above mentioned countries, but you're probably more interested in the US examples, although there is no qualitative difference between, for example, Saudi Arabia and USA with respect that they both have death penalty.

A blatant example of wrongful executions from the American past are the Salem witch trials from the 17th century, when many people were sentenced and executed for witchcraft. I think that we can treat their innocence as a given. Much has changed since, but death penalty has remained.

That is the fucking understatement of this thread. So much has fucking changed, so many revolutions in science have been made, that to use 300+ year-old examples is just pointless, irrelevant, and shows a lack of support for your claims. Hell, 50+ year-old examples are pointless, irrelevant, and show lack of support for your claims, seeing as the likelihood of such things happening with the current state of our forensic knowledge has decreased exponentially. Find one within the last twenty, and it might show that wrongful execution is a problem with the death penalty.


Another example is Lena Baker, a black woman executed for the murder of her employer, who attacked her with a metal pipe. Georgia parole board is to issue a formal pardon 60 years after her execution.

Way too old. See above.

Lack of proved cases of executions of innocents in the US is due to the fact that courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead and defense attorneys dedicate their resources to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. However, we can all accept that American legal system isn't perfect and people sometimes get convicted for the crimes they didn't commit. One example is known to all - the case of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who thanks to the corruption in the State of NJ judicial system spent many years in prison for murders he didn't commit. We can extend the imperfection of the American legal system to death penalty cases. Since 1973, 121 people in 25 U.S. states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. The most recent exoneration is of Derrick Jamison, No. 121, of Ohio, on February 28, 2005. ( http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=110 ). It is perfectly logical to infer that there were and still are cases where innocent people were sentenced to death and were actually executed, especially given that many of them were denied DNA testing that would prove their innocence or at least cause reasonable doubt, which would in automatic overturning of the death sentence. There is an undisputed fact that many (121) innocent people spent years on death row before being acquitted and it would be irrational to assume that no innocent people were executed during that period.

Why? Do you not think that opponents of the death penalty would try specifically to find cases where the defendants were unjustly executed? I mean, honestly. That would be anti-capital-punishment gold. I would also like to see when the majority of these were convicted. Were the majority of them convicted 20-30 years ago, when forensics weren't what they are now; or 5-10 years ago, which might be strange and warrant investigation?

Life sentence of forced hard labor, with only major expenses being food for sustenance and prison cell acommodation would turn a convicted criminal to a source of profit for the state instead of an expense of the death penalty.

But would not serve the same deterrent effect. If you plan on arguing this point with me, first read the last 250 posts, half of which were made with regards to this.

Also, one needs to take costs of a death penalty court case into account:
-A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).
(December 2003 Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit) [snip other cost examples]

That's a problem with the justice system spending too much on the execution and allowing for far too many appeals. Modern technology considered, if you have at least two changes of venue and get convicted at least four times, you're guilty. If they get you off later, I would still be scared of you, because the odds of 4 juries and 3 locations going against you despite evidence are ridiculously low.

I challenge you ...[snip]...life-and-death decisions.

Refer to the last 100 posts. This has been argued. None of my responses have been answered, as the person arguing with me refused to listen to common sense, so, if you like, you can be the first.

Fourth, though I'm neither a criminal myself nor a psychologist, I think that the criminal commits the crime without thinking about the repercussions. Death sentence and life sentence make no difference to a criminal, as no criminal beleives he will get caught.

In most cases I agree. In premeditated cases, I would assume someone who is struggling with the idea of death would be less likely to go through with a killing than someone who is struggling with the idea of life in prison. It just makes common sense. Common sense would not suggest that a criminal planning a murder thinks, "Hey, my state won't kill me for this, I'm not going to go through with this," whereas one might think, "Hey, I might die for this; fuck that." I would say that death would be more deterrent than life in prison; unless they were worked like mad, this was public common knowledge, and they were tortured daily. But this would be much less reasonable when considering the possibility of an innocent doing time.

That especially goes for the most brutal criminals, like child molesters, rapists and mass murderers, who have a total disregard for the society and human life, and live only to take pleasure in their evil acts (in fact, those are the only cases that even merit a death penalty debate, on the grounds of society protection and possibilities of escape. However, I propose medical and surgical treatment that would make these monsters incapable of performing the crimes, even in a highly unlikely case of escape.

A agree here, though it is always safer to kill a violent rapist than to simply remove their junk. Rape is not always done using a penis. Look up Ted Bundy.

There is not even one good reason to do away with the death penalty ( in the US ) in that large , well thought out , and reasoned post . Not a one .
Why would we even want to do away with the death penalty ?

Actually, since the right to live is a basic human right, and all the other human and civil rights are derived from it, and through the death penalty the state violates that right (and that's the only irreversible and final violation) burden is on the death penalty supporters to prove their case why the death penalty is necessary. I have previously submitted that the deterrent argument is flawed, I have also submitted that the cost argument supports the life sentence over the death penalty and I have defended the previously mentioned argument that some innocent people were executed by the state and in conjuction with the argument that it's better to let 1000 guilty people go free than to execute an innocent man for a crime he didn't commit (which is in a way the essence of the American justice system, contained in the principle of the reasonable doubt). Also, to all the people of Christian and Jewish religion, "You shall not kill" is a good enough argument against the death penalty.

If we could do away with murder as a crime I would be in favor . But as long as there are murderers then there should be a death penalty . Its simple and very understandable JUSTICE . Take a life in a criminal action and you forfiet your own life .
Here you are equating justice and revenge. I disagree with that notion of justice. "An eye for an eye" principle cannot and isn't effectively applied to the penal system. I have some questions: if, according to that principle, the just penalty for homicide is death, what is the just penalty for multiple homicide? Is the justice not satisfied in the case of a serial killer?
Also, not every murder is the same. Wife premeditatedly killing her husband after years of abuse is not the same as a bank robber killing a security guard in the course of the robbery. Father killing a child molester to protect his child from a potential abuse is definitely not the same as a child molester raping and murdering a child (out of these cases only the child killer is the one who cannot be rehabilitated and should be permanently removed from the society).
Justice isn't about revenge, it's about punishment and rehabilitation, converting a hardened criminal to a person who regrets his actions and acts as aproductive member of society makes the world a better place than killing that hardened criminal. I recognize that certain irreparable elements (sexually motivated murderers, mass murderers, child molesters) can't be rehabilitated and should be permanently removed from the society, but I consider life imprisonment a better solution. Not man, but God will make the ultimate judgement for all of us in the end.

Actually, since the right to live is a basic human right, and all the other human and civil rights are derived from it, and through the death penalty the state violates that right (and that's the only irreversible and final violation) burden is on the death penalty supporters to prove their case why the death penalty is necessary.

It's fairly simple - you deny someone else's right to life and your right to life shall be denied.

I have previously submitted that the deterrent argument is flawed, I have also submitted that the cost argument supports the life sentence over the death penalty and I have defended the previously mentioned argument that some innocent people were executed by the state and in conjuction with the argument that it's better to let 1000 guilty people go free than to execute an innocent man for a crime he didn't commit (which is in a way the essence of the American justice system, contained in the principle of the reasonable doubt).

Again, read the last 100 posts. You've missed that entire debate. I presented buttloads of psychological reasons why the death penalty should be deterrent, criminological reasons why death penalty statistics are vastly flawed, and even rearranged the statistics of anti capital punishment sources to show statistical trends that favor capital punishment as a deterrent. Read that, reply to it, then claim you've closed the issue.

Also, to all the people of Christian and Jewish religion, "You shall not kill" is a good enough argument against the death penalty.

I'm an agnostic, not that you were talking to me.

Here you are equating justice and revenge. I disagree with that notion of justice. "An eye for an eye" principle cannot and isn't effectively applied to the penal system. I have some questions: if, according to that principle, the just penalty for homicide is death, what is the just penalty for multiple homicide? Is the justice not satisfied in the case of a serial killer?

In theory, they serve multiple consecutive sentences, but since the first one prevents the possibility of the next, it fizzles and the criminal gets off light. It's the same way for any murderer that gets two life sentences and dies during the first. Technically, justice was not served, but justice did the best it could.

Also, not every murder is the same. Wife premeditatedly killing her husband after years of abuse is not the same as a bank robber killing a security guard in the course of the robbery. Father killing a child molester to protect his child from a potential abuse is definitely not the same as a child molester raping and murdering a child (out of these cases only the child killer is the one who cannot be rehabilitated and should be permanently removed from the society).

I completely agree with this. I only support the death penalty in cases of premeditated murder, violent rape, or child molestation. But it should still be an option.

Justice isn't about revenge, it's about punishment and rehabilitation, converting a hardened criminal to a person who regrets his actions and acts as aproductive member of society makes the world a better place than killing that hardened criminal.

I disagree. It's about punishment. Rehabilitation comes later.

I recognize that certain irreparable elements (sexually motivated murderers, mass murderers, child molesters) can't be rehabilitated and should be permanently removed from the society, but I consider life imprisonment a better solution. Not man, but God will make the ultimate judgement for all of us in the end.

Some people aren't so willing to assume that God will punish these people accordingly, and believe that we should do what is in our power to punish these people however we can in this world for what they've done in this world.

The person killed someone...so take their life also...plus it would cost to much to hold every murderer for life in prison.

Not every person believes in God . The logic and justice of having a criminal forfiet their life for a murder under special circumstances is easy for all men to understand . Justice as defined ; the quality of being just or fair
the administration of law; the act of determining rights and assigning rewards or punishments; "justice deferred is justice denied"
judge: a public official authorized to decide questions bought before a court of justice
I believe that having a criminal forfeit his life for commiting murder is both fair and reasonable .
The fact is that not all murders are considered for the death penalty . It is usually reserved for the the most seriouse premeditated crimes with special conditions such as rape and torture included .
I also say that to have one innocent victim die because the death penalty did not exist as a detterent is wrong . I see no proof before me that anyone has been killed under the current death penalty laws that was innocent .
Gods justice can be carried out by God in his domain . Mans justice will be carried out in the courts .

While I read and here answered some of your early posts (you might want to read that part first, as it's, from a logical standpoint, central to the discussion), I haven't read all of them, and since I'd like to continue this discussion (especially in the light of some people in my country trying to induce the death penalty), but I probably won't have as much time as I do today (thanks to the work on the project I'm doing and bad weather I've been online for countless hours in the last day, but this probably won't be the case in the future) please refer me (through the links) to the relevant points I haven't yet argued.

That is the fucking understatement of this thread. So much has fucking changed, so many revolutions in science have been made, that to use 300+ year-old examples is just pointless, irrelevant, and shows a lack of support for your claims. Hell, 50+ year-old examples are pointless, irrelevant, and show lack of support for your claims, seeing as the likelihood of such things happening with the current state of our forensic knowledge has decreased exponentially.
So, are you saying that death penalty wasn't justified in the 17th century, wasn't justified in 1940s, but it's justified now in the 21st century? When was the actual moment when death penalty,according to your view, became justified? Btw, exponential decrease in likelihood implies that the likelihood is above zero.

Find one within the last twenty, and it might show that wrongful execution is a problem with the death penalty.
Why? Do you not think that opponents of the death penalty would try specifically to find cases where the defendants were unjustly executed? I mean, honestly. That would be anti-capital-punishment gold. I would also like to see when the majority of these were convicted. Were the majority of them convicted 20-30 years ago, when forensics weren't what they are now; or 5-10 years ago, which might be strange and warrant investigation?
Here are the examples of the people being sentenced to death in the last 10 years, who were later acquitted (given that the average age between the death sentence and exoneration is about 9.2 years which illustrates the involved legal process well, your timeline of 5-10 years might be unrealistic, but still there are examples):
Alfred Rivera sentenced 1997 acquitted 1999, Shareef Cousin sentenced 1996 acquitted 1999, Gary Drinkard sentenced 1995 acquitted 2001, Ryan Matthews sentenced 1999 acquitted 2004, Lemuel Prion sentenced 1999 acquitted 2003, etc. The total of 12 innocent people were convicted and sentenced to death from 1995-1999 and the number will surely grow. Thankfully, they were acquitted, but if the justice system was flawless they wouldn't be sentenced in the first place, and the fact is that the justice system isn't flawless so there is a distinct probability that there were and are some wrongful executions going on in the modern age.


Why? Do you not think that opponents of the death penalty would try specifically to find cases where the defendants were unjustly executed?
As I have already said: lack of proved cases of executions of innocents in the US is due to the fact that courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead and defense attorneys dedicate their resources to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. DNA analysis is extremely expensive and time consuming, and there has to be a material to extract DNA from. Many cases weren't based on such (organic) physical evidence, so there is no point in DNA analysis. Also, the course of the time has rendered many evidence useless. But, I'm not a forensics expert and won't argue further on that point.


But would not serve the same deterrent effect. If you plan on arguing this point with me, first read the last 250 posts, half of which were made with regards to this...

Now you haven't read my post carefully, since it included a rebuttal of the deterrent effect and the only point you responded to was the fourth (the subjective one). Here is, once again, my rebuttal of the deterrent theory:
First, there is a comparison between homicide rates in the US states which have the death penalty against the ones that don't: http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/f...deterrence.html
Statistics speak louder than words in this case.

Second, we can compare the homicide rate in the country that has a death penalty (USA) with the one that doesn't (Canada), while economic and political circumstances in the countries are similar (both are rich western democracies). Canada has a homicide rate of about 2 per 100000 people, while the USA has a homicide rate of about 5 per 100000 people.

Third, we can compare the homicide rate in Canada before and after the abolishment of death penalty (source: Amnesty International, 2000). Contrary to predictions by death penalty supporters, the homicide rate in Canada did not increase after abolition in 1976. In fact, the Canadian murder rate declined slightly the following year (from 2.8 per 100,000 to 2.7). Over the next 20 years the homicide rate fluctuated (between 2.2 and 2.8 per 100,000), but the general trend was clearly downwards. It reached a 30-year low in 1995 (1.98) -- the fourth consecutive year-to-year decrease and a full one-third lower than in the year before abolition. In 1998, the homicide rate dipped below 1.9 per 100,000, the lowest rate since the 1960s.
The overall conviction rate for first-degree murder doubled in the decade following abolition (from under 10% to approximately 20%), suggesting that Canadian juries are more willing to convict for murder now that they are not compelled to make life-and-death decisions.

In most cases I agree. In premeditated cases, I would assume someone who is struggling with the idea of death would be less likely to go through with a killing than someone who is struggling with the idea of life in prison. It just makes common sense. Common sense would not suggest that a criminal planning a murder thinks, "Hey, my state won't kill me for this, I'm not going to go through with this," whereas one might think, "Hey, I might die for this; fuck that." I would say that death would be more deterrent than life in prison; unless they were worked like mad, this was public common knowledge, and they were tortured daily. But this would be much less reasonable when considering the possibility of an innocent doing time.
I guess we're stalemating on this point, since I think that a criminal (a cruel, hardened one, a death penalty case) doesn't think about the possibility of getting caught, let alone executed, while you think otherwise, and none of us has a degree in criminal psychology (or am I wrong in assuming that?), so we should defer to the relevant literature.


Refer to the last 100 posts. This has been argued. None of my responses have been answered, as the person arguing with me refused to listen to common sense, so, if you like, you can be the first.


I've read some of them, and the following one strikes me as the most relevant, as it partially argues with my points.

Let's Play: Why Aldranin Hates Death Penalty Statistics


Quote:
Originally Posted by Globes R Us
* Recent studies in Oklahoma and California failed to find that capital punishment had a deterrent effect on violent crime and, in fact, found a significant increase in stranger killings and homicide rates after the death penalty had been reinstated. (William Bailey, “Deterrence, Brutalization, and the Death Penalty,” Criminology, 1998; Ernie Thompson, “Effects of an Execution on Homicides in California.” Homicide Studies, 1999)



Yes, and the murder rate in North Dakota, a state without the death penalty, more than doubled from 1995 to 2003. Your point?

Actually, in order to show that death penalty is in fact a successful deterrent you would have to provide the statistics that show the following:
1) Murder rates in the states/countries with the death penalty is lower than the one in the abolitionist states.
2) Induction of death penalty lowers the homicide rate AND abolition of death penalty increases the homicide rate

On the other hand, in order to show that the death penalty is in fact NOT a successful deterrent I have to provide the statistics that show the following:
1) Murder rates in the states/countries with the death penalty is NOT lower than the one in the abolitionist states.
2) Induction of death penalty doesn't lower the homicide rate OR abolition of death penalty doesn't increase the homicide rate.

The studies referred to failed to find the correlation between the capital punishment and the homicide rate, and in the spirit of 2), my (and his) claim is supported. Your example of North Dakota counters the "significant increase in killings..." part, which is irrelevant. In fact, your example of North Dakota is invalid with respect to the proper statistical data analysis, evidenced by the fact that you may also cnclude that the homicide rate more than doubled in a year's period. Also, it's irrelevant with respect to the constant referent conditions i.e. there was no change in the death penalty policy in North Dakota during that period. The proper thing to do would be to take the mean value for the given time period (representing no change in death penalty policy) and in spirit of 1) compare it with the mean homicide rate in other states, i.e. comparing abolitionist with retentionist states, or in the spirit of 2) compare the homicide rates in years prior to abolition to the rates in post-abolition years. Comparison in the spirit of 1) shows that only four retentionist states have comparable homicide rates, while other retentionist states have much higher homicide rates.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Globes R Us
* The murder rate in Canada has dropped by 40% since the death penalty was abolished in that country in 1976. (Amnesty International)


Yeah, but they have the same gun laws and don't shoot each other nearly as often. But no, it's a death penalty issue. It doesn't have anything to do with how violence-prone the average Canadian really is.

When did the Canadian gun control laws come into effect? I'm aware of the 1995 gun control act. However, the homicide rate in Canada has never increased since 1976, and that proves my point in the spirit of 2, unless the major change in gun laws was made the same or the next year. Violence-proneness of a Canadian compared to say, an American, is a very subjective thing, but I only see its possible use on countering 1) and not 2) (since 1) compares, say Canadians and Americans, and 2) compares Canadians and Canadians,over a relative short time period), and I dismiss it as subjective and not being a subject of a relevant scientific study.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Globes R Us
* A Texas study determined in 1999 that there was no relation between the number of executions and murder rates in general. (Victoria Brewer, Robert Wrinkle, John Sorenson and James Marquart)



Then it must be true.
Substantial money and effort by experts are invested in those studies, so their relevance needs to be recognized.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Globes R Us
* A New York Times survey demonstrated that homicide rate in states with capital punishment have been 48% to 101% higher than those without the death penalty. (Raymond Bonner and Ford Fessenden, “Absence of Executions,” New York Times, September 22, 2000)



This, of course, has nothing to do with location, gang prevalence, police strength, or any number of other factors that may affect murder rate which may be traits commonly shared by states without capital punishment.

It doesn't matter, since the burden is on you to find the negative correlation between the homicide rates and the death penalty in order to prove that death penalty is a deterrent.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Globes R Us
* The five countries with the highest homicide rates that do not impose the death penalty average 21.6 murders per 100,000 people. The five countries with the highest homicide rate that do impose the death penalty average 41.6 murders for every 100,000 people. (United Nations Development Program)



This, it would seem, has absolutely nothing to do with who the top five countries are for each category. Obviously the only determining factor in murder rate is application the capital punishment.
This doesn't change the fact that the statistic goes against your premise that death penalty is a succesful deterrent.


Anyway, in case my sarcasm did not make apparent enough my beef with statistics on capital punishment, my main problem is that it tries to blame an increasing or decreasing murder rate on one factor, while in reality there are many things that can affect the death penalty in an area. The type of people that live there, the percentage of youths in gangs, the strength of the police force, racial tension, et cetera, et cetera; can all have an influence on murder rate. And what gets me even more is that some go so far as to claim that abolishing the death penalty would decrease the murder rate.
That is true - other factors need to be at some referential values for the comparisons to work, but you're missing an important point here (I know I repeat things, but it's 3.30 AM here and I'm beginning to feel drowsy), and that is: to prove that death penalty is a successful deterrent, you need to show that it affects i.e. reduces the homicide rate, while I, to prove that death penalty is not a successful deterrent, only need to show that abolishing death penalty doesn't increase the murder rate, and in fact all stats support that. One or two may be wrong, but all of them? I think not.

Think about that for a second. First of all, this would suggest that the majority of murderers are aware of the death penalty laws in their state - a hefty assumption to make, in my not so humble opinion. Moreover, assuming that the majority of homicidal criminals are aware of the laws in their state, to say that these people would kill less in the absence of the death penalty implies that more people with tendencies which could develop into a criminal state would decide to kill if they knew that the state would kill them back. This simply doesn't make any sense.

In arguing this, basically irrelevant point (whether abolishing the death penalty would decrease the murder rate), you have yourself supported my argument. By claiming that a majority of murderers are not aware of the death penalty laws in their state you imply that death penalty has no deterring value for them (how can something you aren't aware of deter you from anything?).

The best thing to do in this discussion, is to consider all the anti-death penalty arguments I've given as pieces of the puzzle. By themselves they may not mean much, some are more blurry than others, and can easily be doubted and questioned, while others are firmer. But, when all the arguments are taken into account together, they represent the complete puzzle - the overwhelming evidence against the death penalty.

While I read and here answered some of your early posts (you might want to read that part first, as it's, from a logical standpoint, central to the discussion), I haven't read all of them, and since I'd like to continue this discussion (especially in the light of some people in my country trying to induce the death penalty), but I probably won't have as much time as I do today (thanks to the work on the project I'm doing and bad weather I've been online for countless hours in the last day, but this probably won't be the case in the future) please refer me (through the links) to the relevant points I haven't yet argued.

Oh... my... God... so... fucking... long... you really hate me that much. I never turn down this kind of post, so here goes.

So, are you saying that death penalty wasn't justified in the 17th century, wasn't justified in 1940s, but it's justified now in the 21st century? When was the actual moment when death penalty,according to your view, became justified? Btw, exponential decrease in likelihood implies that the likelihood is above zero.

No, actually I believe it was justified then, as well, and in fact moreso, because escape and reoffense was so much more likely then. However, my point was that you cannot use the odds of mistakes 50+ years ago to prove a point about the odds of mistakes today, when our ability to be correct in modern times has vastly improved. And yes, likelihood is still above zero, but so are the odds of almost everything. There is always the infinitesimal chance of something highly unlikely happening. However, an exponential decrease in likelihood also means that the limit as time goes on for random function f(x) as x approaches infinite is zero, meaning that the likelihood will eventually be so close to zero that the actual odds will be indistinguishable from a 0% chance.

Here are the examples of the people being sentenced to death in the last 10 years, who were later acquitted (given that the average age between the death sentence and exoneration is about 9.2 years which illustrates the involved legal process well, your timeline of 5-10 years might be unrealistic, but still there are examples):
Alfred Rivera sentenced 1997 acquitted 1999, Shareef Cousin sentenced 1996 acquitted 1999, Gary Drinkard sentenced 1995 acquitted 2001, Ryan Matthews sentenced 1999 acquitted 2004, Lemuel Prion sentenced 1999 acquitted 2003, etc. The total of 12 innocent people were convicted and sentenced to death from 1995-1999 and the number will surely grow. Thankfully, they were acquitted, but if the justice system was flawless they wouldn't be sentenced in the first place, and the fact is that the justice system isn't flawless so there is a distinct probability that there were and are some wrongful executions going on in the modern age.

That's not the conclusion I would draw from this data at all. I believe it would show that the amount of false convictions are quickly decreasing, and that technology is advanced enough to prove the truly innocent, innocent before they reach the end of the line.

As I have already said: lack of proved cases of executions of innocents in the US is due to the fact that courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead and defense attorneys dedicate their resources to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. DNA analysis is extremely expensive and time consuming, and there has to be a material to extract DNA from. Many cases weren't based on such (organic) physical evidence, so there is no point in DNA analysis. Also, the course of the time has rendered many evidence useless. But, I'm not a forensics expert and won't argue further on that point.

And as I have already said, if someone had been falsely executed, an anti capital punishment person surely would have known, as this would be political gold for the movement against the death penalty. Nobody would let something like that go under the radar. Besides, if courts do not entertain such claims, why would you have been able to learn of the 60-year-old wrongful execution? Do courts like killing innocents more now than they did 60 years ago, and thus cover it up?

Also, let's just say a person researching a case actually thought the court was doing his argument an injustice. Only a fool would not yield that such a person wouldn't immediately go public with his information and force the courts to review it by claiming it to be an ignored fact.

Now you haven't read my post carefully, since it included a rebuttal of the deterrent effect and the only point you responded to was the fourth (the subjective one). Here is, once again, my rebuttal of the deterrent theory: [snip First... Second... Third...]

Yes, I did, I did not respond to it because I already have. I will look up some points I have made on the subject. Alright, see posts 173 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9597163&postcount=173), 215 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9603305&postcount=215), 223 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9603931&postcount=223), 244 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9613294&postcount=244), and definitely 264 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9621896&postcount=264). All of these deal with the legitimacy of death penalty statistics, the role of criminology in murder rate, the psychological aspect of the death penalty as a deterrent, and the rearrangement of statistics to view the success or failure of the death penalty as a deterrent from a different angle.

I guess we're stalemating on this point, since I think that a criminal (a cruel, hardened one, a death penalty case) doesn't think about the possibility of getting caught, let alone executed, while you think otherwise, and none of us has a degree in criminal psychology (or am I wrong in assuming that?), so we should defer to the relevant literature.

I've taken a couple classes, but yes, you're right on that. I do not think that most death penalty cases consider the repercussions, but I most definitely think that a small portion of premeditated cases would; while I have no statistics to back this up, and really don't care to find them, it seems to follow that premeditating killers premeditate.

Actually, in order to show that death penalty is in fact a successful deterrent you would have to provide the statistics that show the following:
1) Murder rates in the states/countries with the death penalty is lower than the one in the abolitionist states.
2) Induction of death penalty lowers the homicide rate AND abolition of death penalty increases the homicide rate

While I have not done that, I have shown that the rate of decrease in states with capital punishment is substantially higher than the rate of decrease in states without. I believe that's in 264, linked above.

On the other hand, in order to show that the death penalty is in fact NOT a successful deterrent I have to provide the statistics that show the following:
1) Murder rates in the states/countries with the death penalty is NOT lower than the one in the abolitionist states.
2) Induction of death penalty doesn't lower the homicide rate OR abolition of death penalty doesn't increase the homicide rate.

1) Actually, this does not necessarily prove anything, as I have explained throughout a good deal of my posts that many things aside from the death penalty affect murder rate, so the simplistic comparison of murder rate to murder rate can be largely inaccurate.
2) States with the death penalty have experienced a drop in murder rate over the years - one higher than what states without experienced - so point two is yet to be demonstrated.

The studies referred to failed to find the correlation between the capital punishment and the homicide rate, and in the spirit of 2), my (and his) claim is ... rates, while other retentionist states have much higher homicide rates.

I can't remember where I've mentioned this before, and don't care to look it up, but the North Dakota thing was not meant to be taken seriously, it was just meant to show the possibility of statistics yielding bullshit results.

When did the Canadian gun control laws come into effect? I'm aware of the 1995 gun control act. However, the homicide rate in Canada has never increased since 1976, and that proves my point in the spirit of 2, unless the major change in gun laws was made the same or the next year. Violence-proneness of a Canadian compared to say, an American, is a very subjective thing, but I only see its possible use on countering 1) and not 2) (since 1) compares, say Canadians and Americans, and 2) compares Canadians and Canadians,over a relative short time period), and I dismiss it as subjective and not being a subject of a relevant scientific study.

1 does not need to be disproved, and 2 was never proved. In fact, I believe my statistics just about show that 2 is actually not the case. Also, with respect to the whole Canadian thing, I really don't want to go over it a third time, and am tired of looking threads up, so I would refer you again to my links, as one of them has a much better analogy involving conservative vs. liberal murder rate.

Substantial money and effort by experts are invested in those studies, so their relevance needs to be recognized.

Hah, no. People that do these kind of studies have a desire to find in their favor, subconsciously or consciously, so their relevance does not need to be recognized. I would love to see their data, and see if they overlooked things in a manner similar to the chart of murder rate by state.

It doesn't matter, since the burden is on you to find the negative correlation between the homicide rates and the death penalty in order to prove that death penalty is a deterrent.

Statistics cannot prove this. They cannot prove not this, either. There is simply no way to account for all X-factors using statistics. That is why I am mostly basing my arguments on basic psych and some criminology. I hate to use the old saying, as often statistics are very useful and accurate and can settle a debate, but the old saying does apply here: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."

This doesn't change the fact that the statistic goes against your premise that death penalty is a succesful deterrent.

However, not all statistics do. Even the statistics fed to you by those that are against the death penalty can be recalculated to show a trend that favors use of the death penalty.

... to prove that death penalty is a successful deterrent, you need to show that it affects i.e. reduces the homicide rate, while I, to prove that death penalty is not a successful deterrent, only need to show that abolishing death penalty doesn't increase the murder rate, and in fact all stats support that. One or two may be wrong, but all of them? I think not.

Wrong. Most states experience a statistical decrease in murder rate no matter the presence of the death penalty. It would simply help that I show that there is a decrease in the rate of decrease, which I believe I have shown, as a higher % of states with the death penalty see a decrease, and a greater decrease at that.

In arguing this, basically irrelevant point (whether abolishing the death penalty would decrease the murder rate), you have yourself supported my argument. By claiming that a majority of murderers are not aware of the death penalty laws in their state you imply that death penalty has no deterring value for them (how can something you aren't aware of deter you from anything?).

Ahhh, but this is not exactly true. Most states have the death penalty, so your average, uneducated, poor, neglected murderer would not know that his state was one of the few that did not have it. This is what I was implying.

But, when all the arguments are taken into account together, they represent the complete puzzle - the overwhelming evidence against the death penalty.

Not quite. I see much more evidence suggesting the opposite. The only evidence against the death penalty are some loosely supported statistics that do not consider enough X-factors, and the positive or negative affects of which are dependant on how you view the statistics - that's not very telling at all.

People should be writing college term papers with the length of these posts! :rolleyes:

Yes, I did, I did not respond to it because I already have. I will look up some points I have made on the subject. Alright, see posts 173 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9597163&postcount=173), 215 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9603305&postcount=215), 223 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9603931&postcount=223), 244 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9613294&postcount=244), and definitely 264 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9621896&postcount=264). All of these deal with the legitimacy of death penalty statistics, the role of criminology in murder rate, the psychological aspect of the death penalty as a deterrent, and the rearrangement of statistics to view the success or failure of the death penalty as a deterrent from a different angle.
All of the posts that you have referenced here do not support your theory that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder, never mind the fact that where there is a death penalty, innocent people have faced possible death on death row.

50 Percent Favor Death Penalty (http://crime.about.com/od/death/a/executions2004.htm)

Public support for the death penalty continued to erode in 2004. When respondents were given a choice between the death penalty and life-without-parole as the appropriate sentence for first-degree murder, 50 percent of those polled favored the death penalty and 46 percent favored life without a parole. In 1997, the difference between these two choices was 32 percentage points. Concerns about innocence continue to be a principal reason for the decline in the use of the death penalty. Five people were exonerated from death row in 2004, bringing the total number of exonerees since capital punishment was reinstated to 117. This crisis has led to a series of calls for either significant reform of the death penalty or a complete cessation of executions.

Prominent political leaders, Supreme Court Justices, and law enforcement officials in Texas and elsewhere have come to the conclusion that the present system can no longer be tolerated, according to the DPIC.

All of the posts that you have referenced here do not support your theory that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder, never mind the fact that where there is a death penalty, innocent people have faced possible death on death row.

264 does, if you believe statistics and disbelieve criminology. All the rest do, if you believe psychology.

50 Percent Favor Death Penalty (http://crime.about.com/od/death/a/executions2004.htm)

Public support for the death penalty continued to erode in 2004. When respondents were given a choice between the death penalty and life-without-parole as the appropriate sentence for first-degree murder, 50 percent of those polled favored the death penalty and 46 percent favored life without a parole. In 1997, the difference between these two choices was 32 percentage points. Concerns about innocence continue to be a principal reason for the decline in the use of the death penalty. Five people were exonerated from death row in 2004, bringing the total number of exonerees since capital punishment was reinstated to 117. This crisis has led to a series of calls for either significant reform of the death penalty or a complete cessation of executions.

Prominent political leaders, Supreme Court Justices, and law enforcement officials in Texas and elsewhere have come to the conclusion that the present system can no longer be tolerated, according to the DPIC.

Am I supposed to care what the opinions of others are and how they're changing? Besides, it was already pointed out that only a small portion of those were convicted wrongly in the last 10 years. Science is becoming vastly more accurate. The high potential for mistake of yesterday does not prove a high potential for mistake today.

People should be writing college term papers with the length of these posts!

No kidding.

Well, if nothing else, this thread at least managed to show me just why someone would support death penalty.

Ok. Let's put asside irrational emotions and other junk that doesn't belong in jurisdiction and let's look at the few facts.

Sure it's easy to say "He's a murderer, kill him". But the problem already starts with the question "Is he a murderer?" Quite a few people were sentenced even though they are innocent. When he's gotten a lifetime sentence, you can at least release him when you find out he's innocent afterwards, but when you fried him, all you can do is say something along the lines "Now look at that... what a pity".

You killed an innocent person. Are you a murderer now? Oh, it sure LOOKED like he was guilty, or he wouldn't have been found guilty, but you were WRONG. What now? Death penalty for the judge that found him guilty? Or the jury members?

"Bollocks" you are probably going to say. Why? Same thing, innocent person, they killed him (or had him killed, which faces, at least in our jurisdiction, the same penalty as executing the crime yourself).

What if YOU are that person? You didn't do anything wrong, but some witness says "yeah, that could be him. No, I'm quite sure, that's him". Happens all the time. Witnesses have the urge to "help" the court, some of them will identify whoever is presented to them. Maybe you had a fight with the dead person in a bar just the same day and the real murderer took the opportunity. Gun is found in your trash can and there you go, have fun on the chair.

As long as the human factor plays a mayjor role in our justice, you can never be 100% sure.

Additionally, would you take into account just WHY someone killed someone? Who's the worse threat to society, someone who went on a random killing spree or someone who shot his wife and her lover after finding them in bed? What if I decide to end the suffering of my grandma who is terminally ill and in horrible pain, and she begs me to kill her 'cause she can't move anymore and commit suicide? What if a father kills someone to have an organ donor for his son who needs a new heart RIGHT NOW? Any cases of those "justifyable"? And if so, why are they less severe than others? Is there an "excusable" kind of murder?

There are too many variables, too many things to justify simply saying "He's killed someone, so kill him". Sorry, life ain't black and white.

Hanging, electric chair, gas, lethal injection, none deter murder. Fact.


THE DEATH PENALTY HAS NO BENEFICIAL EFFECT ON MURDER RATES:
“I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.”
- U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno (January 21, 2000)

* Recent studies in Oklahoma and California failed to find that capital punishment had a deterrent effect on violent crime and, in fact, found a significant increase in stranger killings and homicide rates after the death penalty had been reinstated. (William Bailey, “Deterrence, Brutalization, and the Death Penalty,” Criminology, 1998; Ernie Thompson, “Effects of an Execution on Homicides in California.” Homicide Studies, 1999)
* The murder rate in Canada has dropped by 40% since the death penalty was abolished in that country in 1976. (Amnesty International)
* A Texas study determined in 1999 that there was no relation between the number of executions and murder rates in general. (Victoria Brewer, Robert Wrinkle, John Sorenson and James Marquart)
* A New York Times survey demonstrated that homicide rate in states with capital punishment have been 48% to 101% higher than those without the death penalty. (Raymond Bonner and Ford Fessenden, “Absence of Executions,” New York Times, September 22, 2000)
* The five countries with the highest homicide rates that do not impose the death penalty average 21.6 murders per 100,000 people. The five countries with the highest homicide rate that do impose the death penalty average 41.6 murders for every 100,000 people. (United Nations Development Program)

Okay but that doesn't explain that why it's so bad that society wants murderers to die.

Additionally, would you take into account just WHY someone killed someone? Who's the worse threat to society, someone who went on a random killing spree or someone who shot his wife and her lover after finding them in bed? What if I decide to end the suffering of my grandma who is terminally ill and in horrible pain, and she begs me to kill her 'cause she can't move anymore and commit suicide? What if a father kills someone to have an organ donor for his son who needs a new heart RIGHT NOW? Any cases of those "justifyable"? And if so, why are they less severe than others? Is there an "excusable" kind of murder?


Thats why you have a trial to determine what the circumstances are and to determine what your part was in them ...and of course to see if you are GUILTY or innocent .
before trial your charges are determined and the decision is made for or against a death penalty trial .
Get a clue not all murders are the same and the LAW recognises it . Hence you have , manslaughter - second degree murder etc. etc.

Your argument is stupid and not at all pertinent .

Originally Posted by Cabra West
In all fairness, I don't. I do see the need to ensure that that person never harms anybody else, but I don't see what I or my family would ever gain from seeking revenge.

I've been on the fence for the issue of the death penalty for a awhile, but I think I've come out on the side of no. That being said the law system in the US today is SICK. My uncle was murdered, and let me tell you, revenge is the natural response to this! I don't think the woman that killed him should die, but I think it is unexceptable that a MURDERER is getting out after only 10 YEARS! And she is being GRANTED CUSTODY of the CHILDREN!

ABOLISH PAROLE!

Yes, I did, I did not respond to it because I already have. I will look up some points I have made on the subject. Alright, see posts 173 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9597163&postcount=173), 215 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9603305&postcount=215), 223 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9603931&postcount=223), 244 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9613294&postcount=244), and definitely 264 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9621896&postcount=264). All of these deal with the legitimacy of death penalty statistics, the role of criminology in murder rate, the psychological aspect of the death penalty as a deterrent, and the rearrangement of statistics to view the success or failure of the death penalty as a deterrent from a different angle.
The first and the last one hold the most relevance to the discussion, while the middle ones either clarify the points of the first post or argue some irrelevant points (like brutalization factor). I have responded to the first one in my last post, and in this post I'll primarily respond to your latter argument.

In one of the middle posts you wrote a claim that supports my argument:
Exactly. So the death penalty being on the books in an area may not be (and probably isn't) directly linked to the number of murders.
This claim contradicts the claim that the death penalty is a successful deterrent.

Okay, look at it this way. Which states would you say are more likely to have no death penalty? Would you say they are much more likely to be liberal or conservative? Liberal? Okay. So would it not be just as fair to say, by your ignore-all-other-factors logic, that conservatives like to kill people more than liberals do?

I see the point you're trying to make, but there is a fundamental flaw in this analogy. The set of abolitionist US states and the set of retentionist states are two well defined DISJUNCTIVE sets which sum to the complete set of US states. However, "liberal" and "conservative" states are poorly defined, as the terms liberal and conservative are badly defined. For example, I am against the death penalty and against abortion. Am I a liberal or a conservative, or neither (if I'm neither, the sets are obviously not disjunctive). Being that any state consists of many individual of different political opinions,it is even more difficult to classify a state as "liberal" or "conservative". It might be easier to talk about democrat/republican distinctions, but what about the swing states then?

I do. How's this: of the 38 states with the death penalty, 35 experienced a drop in murder rates over the last 8 years. Of the 12 states without the death penalty, 10 experienced a drop in murder rates. In other words, 92.1% of death penalty states experienced a drop, whereas only 83.3% of states without the death penalty experienced a drop. To quote you: "Coincidence? I don't think so." Or how about this: the average decrease in murder rate over said 8 years for death penalty states was 2.17. The average decrease for states without, 1.28. Obviously, the death penalty is the reason that states with the death penalty are experiencing a decrease in murder rate nearly twice that of states without. Right? I mean, seriously. "Coincidence? I don't think so."

As for the first comparison (Percentage of states with decline in homicide rates with respect to death penalty), it's a misinterpretation of data. 83.3% - 92.1% (years 1995-2003) doesn't represent a significant difference, given the absolutes (10/12 - 35/38). Even better, if we eliminate 2003, and examine only the years 1995-2002, we get 11/12 ratio for the abolitionist states.

The second comparison (the average decrease in murder rate over said 8 years for death penalty states was 2.17. The average decrease for states without, 1.28.) is more to the point, but the conclusion ("Obviously, the death penalty is the reason that states with the death penalty are experiencing a decrease in murder rate nearly twice that of states without") is wrong. A good look at the data shows the decrease in the states with higher rates of homicide to be much faster than in the states with lower rates of homicide, regardless of death penalty. The reason for this may be contributed to education, policies implemented in the last period to battle the violent crime rate and other factors. Unless one of the things implemented was a change in the death penalty policy i.e. induction of the death penalty into legal system of one of those states in that period, the statistic is irrelevant to your claim. Which brings me to the most important point of the discussion.
It seems to me that throughout this discussion you have (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) tried to demonstrate that the statistics take too few variables into account to be reliable, but that doesn't support your claim that the death penalty is a successful deterrent. Indeed, the burden of proof is on you, and you need to find the statistics that support that claim and the only way it can be done is by comparing the homicide rates in the states/countries prior to a major change in a death penalty policy to the homicide rates after that change. Comparing the data between 1995-2003 simply won't do, as all the states that had death penalty in 2003 also had it in 1995, and vice-versa.


No, actually I believe it was justified then, as well, and in fact moreso, because escape and reoffense was so much more likely then. However, my point was that you cannot use the odds of mistakes 50+ years ago to prove a point about the odds of mistakes today, when our ability to be correct in modern times has vastly improved. And yes, likelihood is still above zero, but so are the odds of almost everything. There is always the infinitesimal chance of something highly unlikely happening. However, an exponential decrease in likelihood also means that the limit as time goes on for random function f(x) as x approaches infinite is zero, meaning that the likelihood will eventually be so close to zero that the actual odds will be indistinguishable from a 0% chance.
So, you willingly accept the possibility of innocent people (like 19 "witches" in Salem) geting executed, and dismiss it as a sacrifice for the greater good (sorry about the simplification, but I think I made a point here).
Your claim of the exponential decrease needs to be shown by data (you should group the data into decades and graphically extrapolate a function), but the decrease is evident. Also, since Earth won't last forever x has a finite limit, and the coefficient of the exponent plays a significant part here, but this is a digression.


2) States with the death penalty have experienced a drop in murder rate over the years - one higher than what states without experienced - so point two is yet to be demonstrated.
This was argued (helped by your anti-statistic argument), but I'll repeat that the only valid comparison that would demonstrate the deterring value of death penalty is pre-death penalty time/post death penalty time comparison. Also, since 2) states that Induction of death penalty doesn't lower the homicide rate OR abolition of death penalty doesn't increase the homicide rate, so (as B implies (A OR B)) it is sufficient to demonstrate that the abolition of the death penalty doesn't increase the homicide rate,and the Canadian case does that successfully.


I can't remember where I've mentioned this before, and don't care to look it up, but the North Dakota thing was not meant to be taken seriously, it was just meant to show the possibility of statistics yielding bullshit results.
I know, but it was contrary to the way statistical analysis is done, so I needed to nitpick.


1 does not need to be disproved, and 2 was never proved. In fact, I believe my statistics just about show that 2 is actually not the case. Also, with respect to the whole Canadian thing, I really don't want to go over it a third time, and am tired of looking threads up, so I would refer you again to my links, as one of them has a much better analogy involving conservative vs. liberal murder rate.
Your statistics are irrelevant with rspect to 2, because all those states either had or didn't have the death penalty for the whole time period in question, and for other previously stated reasons. Liberal vs. Conservative is a comparison in the spirit of 1) (comparing different people grouped by locations) and not a comparison in the spirit of 2) (comparing the same people in the same location), as the Canadian data is. Unless the homicide rates from, say 1972 to 1976 (death penalty years) are lower than the rates from 1976 and 1980, the data are shown to support 2).


Statistics cannot prove this. They cannot prove not this, either. There is simply no way to account for all X-factors using statistics. That is why I am mostly basing my arguments on basic psych and some criminology. I hate to use the old saying, as often statistics are very useful and accurate and can settle a debate, but the old saying does apply here: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
They can't conclusively prove anything, but unlike you, I believe they are the only objective factor that can support this claim.


However, not all statistics do. Even the statistics fed to you by those that are against the death penalty can be recalculated to show a trend that favors use of the death penalty.
One needs to follow the principle of statistical analysis when interpreting statistical data.

Most states experience a statistical decrease in murder rate no matter the presence of the death penalty.
My point exactly.

It would simply help that I show that there is a decrease in the rate of decrease, which I believe I have shown, as a higher % of states with the death penalty see a decrease, and a greater decrease at that.
That would be valid only comparing the states with similar murder rates and would support a weak argument in your favor. If you managed to show that trend in the period following the induction/abolition of death penalty that would be a strong argument in your case.

Instead of the conclusion.
The following points have been argued:
1. The possibility of executing an innocent human being is a strong argument in favor of the abolition. You think that this possibility is neglegible, while I think that it's finite and hence too large not to abolish the death penalty. While there is no conclusive proof for my claims, as you have shown, I mantain that we're not talking about the exact science here, and that the fact that the judicial system is imperfect (and that there were, are and will be innocent people sentenced to death) implies that there were, are and will be innocent people who were executed.
2. You have argued that death penalty is a successful deterrent. This is the part where the burden of proof is on you, you need to show at least some positive evidence in order for the theory to be considered (and possibly disproven). While our psychological arguments differ, and can only be settled by further research and consulting the experts (whose opinions would most probably also differ), the statistics shows no support for your claim, and in fact the Canadian example (which I feel you haven't successfully refuted) strongly suggests the opposite, so the absence of the positive statistical evidence and the presence of the negative statistical evidence undermines your claim.

I feel the discussion on this points is complete or very near to completion, so the danger of running around in circles is high, so I'll refrain from further discussion (unless some new interesting argument is given).

I do not support the dealth penaulty. Killing doesn't give second chances that everyone deserves and expects. We need to show compassion for victims as well as the criminals as we are in neither one of their shoes and do not know the motives or situtation. He who has no sin shall cast the first stone!!! Give people a chance to reform... We'd all expect the same rights and priviledges if we were caught in that situation or wrongly accused. Mistakes can happen.

Fairy Kate

Mistakes can happen? So... the man who brutally rapes, butchers and eats a dozen children did it by accident?

Or are you saying that if we understood WHY that person did that, we would be able to forgive it?

I have been in positions where I COULD have killed people... I suspect most adults have. I have been in positions where I even might have wanted a person dead. Again - I'm sure many adults have been in similar situations.

(Coming face-to-face with the rapist who attacked your girlfriend, for example).

Thus far, I have killed nobody, and suspect I never will. How then , am I to 'excuse' the person who brutalises children, or predates the weak? If I can 'not kill', why SHOULD I excuse that failing in others?

Should they be allowed a second chance? The huge number of violent offenders that re-offend says no.

Thats why you have a trial to determine what the circumstances are and to determine what your part was in them ...and of course to see if you are GUILTY or innocent .
before trial your charges are determined and the decision is made for or against a death penalty trial .
Get a clue not all murders are the same and the LAW recognises it . Hence you have , manslaughter - second degree murder etc. etc.

Your argument is stupid and not at all pertinent .

Care to tell me why, or am I supposed to take it as gospel 'cause it's from you?

First of all, during any trial you will have people trying to sway the judge's opinion in their favor. So what it comes down to is which side the judge believes more. Sure, there are trials where the evidence is crushing. But how many murder cases are there where you have someone shoot someone during half time break of the superbowl right in front of the stage act? Usually it happens, for obvious reasons, when there are as few people around as possible.

The verdict is spoken by a human being, and thus prone to human error. Simple as that. Just saying "he has to be guilty/innocent because court determined it" is not enough.

And this statement has what to do with my answer to this Additionally, would you take into account just WHY someone killed someone? Who's the worse threat to society, someone who went on a random killing spree or someone who shot his wife and her lover after finding them in bed? What if I decide to end the suffering of my grandma who is terminally ill and in horrible pain, and she begs me to kill her 'cause she can't move anymore and commit suicide? What if a father kills someone to have an organ donor for his son who needs a new heart RIGHT NOW? Any cases of those "justifyable"? And if so, why are they less severe than others? Is there an "excusable" kind of murder?
argument ? Tell me please I am dying to know .

It prevents the perpetrator of a first offence from committing a second offence.


so does a life sentence.
who are we to say if another human being is fit to live? that is not out place. taking someones life is never the answer.

And this statement has what to do with my answer to this (...) argument ? Tell me please I am dying to know .

You said that "Thats why you have a trial to determine what the circumstances are and to determine what your part was in them ...and of course to see if you are GUILTY or innocent", to which I explained why a trial, no matter how fair, just and impartial, is not necessarily a 100% surefire way to determine whether someone was really guilty or innocent. The only person who knows for sure is the murderer, and under normal circumstances his incentive to aid is rather limited.


Still waiting for a reason why my argument is "stupid and not at all pertinent".

The death penalty is used only as a method of getting rid of the people whom couldn't be rehabilitated (sorry if spelling sucks) also as a way to scare other people from doing the same thing. The death penalty must be having some effect because you can't tell me that death rates have stayed the same over the past two hundred years. :D

So a person who enters a house and rapes and murders everyone in it , then writes on the walls in their blood..leaves semen that is typed by DNA and is seen both entering the house and leaving it by many witnesses and is caught by the police with all the murder weapons and then confesses to the crime on video tape before changing his mind when a lawyer claims to be able to get him off . This person when found guilty by the sane members of the jury and then sentenced to death ....he didnt get a fair shake .

At any rate that wasnt my point . A person who kills someone in the heat of an argument will not even face the death penalty . There are countless other examples of murders that are commited that will never have the death penalty as a possibility . Thats why your argument is stupid and not pertinent . IF all murders were subject to the death penalty then maybe it would make sense .

In one of the middle posts you wrote a claim that supports my argument:
This claim contradicts the claim that the death penalty is a successful deterrent.
I see the point you're trying to make, but there is a fundamental flaw in this analogy. The set of abolitionist US states and the set of retentionist states are two well defined DISJUNCTIVE sets which sum to the complete set of US states. However, "liberal" and "conservative" states are poorly defined, as the terms liberal and conservative are badly defined. For example, I am against the death penalty and against abortion. Am I a liberal or a conservative, or neither (if I'm neither, the sets are obviously not disjunctive). Being that any state consists of many individual of different political opinions,it is even more difficult to classify a state as "liberal" or "conservative". It might be easier to talk about democrat/republican distinctions, but what about the swing states then?

The flaw in the compared analogy was intentional. It was to show the fallacy inherent in these statistics resultant from innumerable x-factors. The same is a problem with the statistics that compare murder rates in states with and without capital punishment. The lines separating the states are not as well-defined as you would have people believe, as there are many things that come into play regarding murder rate other than the death penalty, many things that affect murder rate much more strongly than the death penalty.

As for the first comparison (Percentage of states with decline in homicide rates with respect to death penalty), it's a misinterpretation of data. 83.3% - 92.1% (years 1995-2003) doesn't represent a significant difference, given the absolutes (10/12 - 35/38). Even better, if we eliminate 2003, and examine only the years 1995-2002, we get 11/12 ratio for the abolitionist states.

Why the hell would you eliminate the most recent year? That's just misleading, bullshit data representation.

The second comparison (the average decrease in murder rate over said 8 years for death penalty states was 2.17. The average decrease for states without, 1.28.) is more to the point, but the conclusion ("Obviously, the death penalty is the reason that states with the death penalty are experiencing a decrease in murder rate nearly twice that of states without") is wrong.

The conclusion was sarcasm, meant to mock the ignorant assertion that the variations in murder rate statistics compared to death penalty presence prove that lack of death penalty reduces murder rate.

A good look at the data shows the decrease in the states with higher rates of homicide to be much faster than in the states with lower rates of homicide, regardless of death penalty. The reason for this may be contributed to education, policies implemented in the last period to battle the violent crime rate and other factors.

Exactly, which is the point I was trying to make, a point you seem to have missed. The presence of other factors that affect murder rate is exactly what I was attempting to demonstrate, and if this is assumed true, one can only ignore the vast majority of statistics regarding the death penalty, as they are not concrete enough, nor do they take into account enough x-factors, to make legitimate conclusions.

It seems to me that throughout this discussion you have (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) tried to demonstrate that the statistics take too few variables into account to be reliable, but that doesn't support your claim that the death penalty is a successful deterrent. Indeed, the burden of proof is on you, and you need to find the statistics that support that claim and the only way it can be done is by comparing the homicide rates in the states/countries prior to a major change in a death penalty policy to the homicide rates after that change. Comparing the data between 1995-2003 simply won't do, as all the states that had death penalty in 2003 also had it in 1995, and vice-versa.

No, and I didn't want to or try to support my argument for the death penalty as a deterrent by demonstrating that statistics take too few variables into account to be reliable. I did that by looking at what makes psychological sense.

So, you willingly accept the possibility of innocent people (like 19 "witches" in Salem) geting executed, and dismiss it as a sacrifice for the greater good (sorry about the simplification, but I think I made a point here).

No, the simplification is fine. That is a point I have and would make. People are made safer when the death penalty is in effect even with infinitesimal innocent sacrifice through wrongful conviction than they are by life imprisonment, with or without parole, as there is the possibility of escape, the possibility of early release followed by reoffense, and the possibility of reduced deterrent effect without it.

Your claim of the exponential decrease needs to be shown by data (you should group the data into decades and graphically extrapolate a function), but the decrease is evident. Also, since Earth won't last forever x has a finite limit, and the coefficient of the exponent plays a significant part here, but this is a digression.

Yes, but I assumed that the decrease was evident enough that a custom graph was unnecessary, as most would admit this to be the case via common sense without having to actually see stats on it.

This was argued (helped by your anti-statistic argument), but I'll repeat that the only valid comparison that would demonstrate the deterring value of death penalty is pre-death penalty time/post death penalty time comparison.

Wrong, the only valid statistical comparison that would demonstrate this is pre-death penalty time/post death penalty time comparison. There are other ways to view this. Statistics are not always right, nor are they always the most reliable way of proving a point, or a reliable way at all, as was demonstrated by the point I made about the statistical assertion made that the high school I went to would have no more students to enroll in 20 years or so, which ended up being wrong in the biggest way: the contrary happened, and enrollment increased. I believe it's in one of the threads I cited.

Also, since 2) states that Induction of death penalty doesn't lower the homicide rate OR abolition of death penalty doesn't increase the homicide rate, so (as B implies (A OR B)) it is sufficient to demonstrate that the abolition of the death penalty doesn't increase the homicide rate,and the Canadian case does that successfully.

First of all, the Canadian statistic does not work so well, because the murders happening before the abolition of the death penalty there were not exactly occurring in a modern setting. Giving these statistics the benefit of the doubt, however, I would prompt you to cite an actual chart showing murder rates that extends 25 years in either direction of the year in the 70's (76?) where the death penalty was abolished, as opposed to the already-derived statistics presented by anti death penalty sites, so that one can prove that the information with regards to Canada's case isn't misrepresented or able to be rearranged in a manner similar to that of the U.S. states.

Your statistics are irrelevant with rspect to 2, because all those states either had or didn't have the death penalty for the whole time period in question, and for other previously stated reasons. Liberal vs. Conservative is a comparison in the spirit of 1) (comparing different people grouped by locations) and not a comparison in the spirit of 2) (comparing the same people in the same location), as the Canadian data is. Unless the homicide rates from, say 1972 to 1976 (death penalty years) are lower than the rates from 1976 and 1980, the data are shown to support 2).

Again, read my above point and my request.

They can't conclusively prove anything, but unlike you, I believe they are the only objective factor that can support this claim.

I would have to disagree, and point out that the inherent inaccuracy of these statistics makes them the most unreliable way to look at this situation.

One needs to follow the principle of statistical analysis when interpreting statistical data.

That principle being that statistics should only be presented in a way that supports your case, and opposing views of the statistics should not be recognized in the hopes that no one who reads them will notice their inherent flaws?

My point exactly.

I understand that, but in light of this, the magnitude of the decrease is what must be considered.

That would be valid only comparing the states with similar murder rates and would support a weak argument in your favor. If you managed to show that trend in the period following the induction/abolition of death penalty that would be a strong argument in your case.

I disagree that it would be a strong argument, as I am very skeptical about any way of viewing these statistics, but that is why I want to view Canada's specific statistics.

Instead of the conclusion.
The following points have been argued:
1. The possibility of executing an innocent human being is a strong argument in favor of the abolition. You think that this possibility is neglegible, while I think that it's finite and hence too large not to abolish the death penalty. While there is no conclusive proof for my claims, as you have shown, I mantain that we're not talking about the exact science here, and that the fact that the judicial system is imperfect (and that there were, are and will be innocent people sentenced to death) implies that there were, are and will be innocent people who were executed.

While I disagree and would instead take this point to be a very helpful point in the arguments against abolition, as the fact that every known wrongful conviction has been caught in time.

2. You have argued that death penalty is a successful deterrent. This is the part where the burden of proof is on you, you need to show at least some positive evidence in order for the theory to be considered (and possibly disproven).

But, as I do not believe statistics can conclusively show either side of this case to be true, this is nearly impossible.

While our psychological arguments differ, and can only be settled by further research and consulting the experts (whose opinions would most probably also differ), the statistics shows no support for your claim, and in fact the Canadian example (which I feel you haven't successfully refuted) strongly suggests the opposite, so the absence of the positive statistical evidence and the presence of the negative statistical evidence undermines your claim.

The reduction in decrease of murder rate does support my claim, so saying that said claim has "no support" is somewhat misleading. As for the Canadian example, I would still have to see an actual chart on this, requiring said chart as proof, so that I can at least analyze it, though I believe the outcome either way to be irrelevant due to the faulty nature of the statistics.

Cut to the chase what statistic will show how many rational people did not kill someone because they themselves did not want to face the death penalty ? The death penalty is a deterrant to murder . Logic and common sense tell you that . Thats why you need to dig in the shitpile of " statistics" to try to prove otherwise . You need to be " sold " into believing something that defies logic and rational thought . :D

Cut to the chase what statistic will show how many rational people did not kill someone because they themselves did not want to face the death penalty ? The death penalty is a deterrant to murder . Logic and common sense tell you that . Thats why you need to dig in the shitpile of " statistics" to try to prove otherwise . You need to be " sold " into believing something that defies logic and rational thought . :D

Those who are contemplating murder are already beyond rational thought. The only thing the death penalty might do is make them work harder to cover up their crime. As it stands, a society that approves of state-sanctioned murder is already likely to accept other casual brutality as a matter of course. Hence the higher violence and murder statistics of places where the death penalty is instituted.

Cut to the chase what statistic will show how many rational people did not kill someone because they themselves did not want to face the death penalty ? The death penalty is a deterrant to murder . Logic and common sense tell you that . Thats why you need to dig in the shitpile of " statistics" to try to prove otherwise . You need to be " sold " into believing something that defies logic and rational thought . :D You're forgetting that most criminals don't believe they'll be caught.
Also, the death penalty doesn't deter murder - it used to be used for virtually every crime, and crime was rampant.

Here's the Canadian chart (the upper curve is the one we're talking about, the lower two are related to homicides commited with rifles and pistols).

http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Gimbarzevsky/can.gun.rate1.GIF

It's clear that the Canadian homicide rate steadily increased between 1961 and 1975, peaking in 1975, and has been steadily increasing since. Death penalty was abolished in 1976 and still the homicide rate declined, although the "deterrent" wasn't present any more.

One more thing, the "increased" homicide rate in North Dakota in 2003 meant that the total of 12 murders were commited during the year, compared to the total of 9 murders in 1995. The sample is clearly to small to represent valid statistical data.

Cut to the chase what statistic will show how many rational people did not kill someone because they themselves did not want to face the death penalty ? The death penalty is a deterrant to murder . Logic and common sense tell you that . Thats why you need to dig in the shitpile of " statistics" to try to prove otherwise . You need to be " sold " into believing something that defies logic and rational thought . :D

In certain cases, capital punishment can be quite the opposite: The reason for more bloodshed. Reason: When you've killed, and they know you did, there's no reason for you to give up when they've cornered you.

What do you have to lose? Yes, the house is surrounded by police, but when you give up you're dead anyway. You can't simply say "Ok, I might be in jail but I'm survive. If they come in here, they might shoot me. So if I give up, I'm at least gonna live". No, you're DEAD when you just give up and go out there. Maybe not now, but certainly after your trial.

So why give up? You're dead. Would you quietly go and let them kill you, or would you at least take as many of them with you as you can?

Besides, it's proven that very, very few criminals even take the possibility of being caught into account. Think of all the bank robberies taking place. The chance to get caught is over 95%, does this stop people from pointing a gun at a bank clerk? No.

If you're determined to kill someone, would the possibility of facing death yourself keep you from doing it? I mean, we're talking about being annoyed or angered by someone enough to want that person dead, do you really think that having to face death instead of being buried alive (i.e. a lifetime sentence) has any meaning to you?

Do you think it's less of a deterrence to be faced with spending the rest of your life in prison? Whether you're dead or buried alive, where's the big difference?

so does a life sentence.
who are we to say if another human being is fit to live? that is not out place. taking someones life is never the answer.

And yet, the Death Penalty is chiefly being discussed for those who took it upon THEMSELVES to remove the right to live from others.

Doesn't THAT decision invalidate some 'right' of the prepetrator?

Maybe taking a life sometimes IS the answer?

Here's the...[snip]...any more.

The chart looks almost wholly random since 1976. I can't exactly read what the chart is about because it's poorly labeled and set at an extremely low resolution, but it doesn't look very consistent either way. It's also got some line drawn on 1975. Not sure what that's indicating, but it's not the year that the death penalty was abolished, so I find it strange that it's marked if this chart is about the death penalty. Either way, this chart doesn't exactly show a consistent increase or decrease, although whatever rate is being described is lower overall now than in '76.

Come to think of it, I believe the chart says, "RGTot," or total rate of gun deaths, "RPist," or rate of pistol gun deaths, and "Rate-Rifle," or rate of rifle deaths. Those aren't murder rates, but gun murder rates. Please find me a regular murder rate chart.

Anyway, in the meantime, while you find the correct chart, I would leave you with this:

The (http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/dpusa.htm) Sources (http://www.geocities.com/tents444/homicide.htm).

U.S. EXECUTIONS BY YEAR

1977 - 01 1984 - 21 1991 - 14 1998 - 68
1978 - 00 1985 - 18 1992 - 31 1999 - 98
1979 - 02 1986 - 18 1993 - 38 2000 - 85
1980 - 00 1987 - 25 1994 - 31
1981 - 01 1988 - 11 1995 - 56
1982 - 02 1989 - 16 1996 - 45
1983 - 05 1990 - 23 1997 - 74

U.S. MURDER RATE BY YEAR

1977 - 9.1
1978 - 9.2
1979 - 10.0
1980 - 10.7
1981 - 10.3
1982 - 9.6
1983 - 8.6
1984 - 8.4
1985 - 8.4
1986 - 9.0
1987 - 8.7
1988 - 9.0
1989 - 9.3
1990 - 10.0
1991 - 10.5
1992 - 10.0
1993 - 10.1
1994 - 9.6
1995 - 8.7
1996 - 7.9
1997 - 7.4
1998 - 6.8
1999 - 6.2
2000 - 6.1

It seems that, under the new death penalty laws in the U.S., after we started executing people again, the murder rate also decreased overall, and substantially. It also seems that the murder rate is lower when more people are executed, as a general rule, which would, to me, indicate that the death penalty is in fact serving to deter murder in the U.S. - if you trust statistics, that is, which I'm not sure I do, even though these and others support my argument.

What do you have to lose? Yes, the house is surrounded by police, but when you give up you're dead anyway. You can't simply say "Ok, I might be in jail but I'm survive. If they come in here, they might shoot me. So if I give up, I'm at least gonna live". No, you're DEAD when you just give up and go out there. Maybe not now, but certainly after your trial.

Actually, if one thought about it, he or she would probably say, "Well, I've only killed one guy, and I didn't really mean to coming in here, so if I don't kill anyone else and come quietly, maybe they'll give me life instead of death."

So why give up? You're dead. Would you quietly go and let them kill you, or would you at least take as many of them with you as you can?

Actually, "Why give up?" would be something to say if you could not possibly get the death penalty. "Hey, I've already got life, why not just blast a few more people. They can't do me any worse."

If you're determined to kill someone, would the possibility of facing death yourself keep you from doing it?

Yeah.

For me there's only one argument: what if they didn't do it?

For me there's only one argument: what if they didn't do it?

Wow... what have I been doing with my time? I never thought of it that way... :rolleyes:

Read this thread and don't come back until you do. ;)

Wow... what have I been doing with my time? I never thought of it that way... :rolleyes:

Read this thread and don't come back until you do. ;)
Although it is very kind of you to inform me that people have tried to make a good argument against that, this can only boil down to whether we, as a society are willing to commit a few murders on innocent people in order to save us from the guilty ones. I say no. If you say yes, that's ok, I just don't think there's any argument that could change my view point on this, as there probably aren't any that can change yours.

You know what, it's not ok if you say yes. I think it's completely wrong to accept, as a society, that a few innocent people get killed just because we feel that the death penalty is acceptable and needed. There are alternatives which are correctable, eventhough they might lead to possible escapes. And since there seem to be more than one ways to reduce murder rates, I say we forget about this one and focus on the others. No, we don't need it and definitely shouldn't have it, even if it were just because of the innocent people.

Anyway, in the meantime, while you find the correct chart, I would leave you with this:

The (http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/dpusa.htm) Sources (http://www.geocities.com/tents444/homicide.htm).

U.S. EXECUTIONS BY YEAR

1977 - 01 1984 - 21 1991 - 14 1998 - 68
1978 - 00 1985 - 18 1992 - 31 1999 - 98
1979 - 02 1986 - 18 1993 - 38 2000 - 85
1980 - 00 1987 - 25 1994 - 31
1981 - 01 1988 - 11 1995 - 56
1982 - 02 1989 - 16 1996 - 45
1983 - 05 1990 - 23 1997 - 74

U.S. MURDER RATE BY YEAR

1977 - 9.1
1978 - 9.2
1979 - 10.0
1980 - 10.7
1981 - 10.3
1982 - 9.6
1983 - 8.6
1984 - 8.4
1985 - 8.4
1986 - 9.0
1987 - 8.7
1988 - 9.0
1989 - 9.3
1990 - 10.0
1991 - 10.5
1992 - 10.0
1993 - 10.1
1994 - 9.6
1995 - 8.7
1996 - 7.9
1997 - 7.4
1998 - 6.8
1999 - 6.2
2000 - 6.1

It seems that, under the new death penalty laws in the U.S., after we started executing people again, the murder rate also decreased overall, and substantially. It also seems that the murder rate is lower when more people are executed, as a general rule, which would, to me, indicate that the death penalty is in fact serving to deter murder in the U.S. - if you trust statistics, that is, which I'm not sure I do, even though these and others support my argument.
Actually, these numbers do NOT support your case. As you can see by the above chart, US murder rates started dropping in 1994. The Brady Bill was enacted in 1994. For you to get a truly representative data base to support your argument, you would need to do a State by State study. Then you would need to compare the murder rates in the death penalty States versus the non death penalty States.

The above chart only proves that tighter gun regulations starting in 1994 led to a lower murder rate.

Just a follow up to my pervious post:

Deterrence: States Without the Death Penalty Fared Better Over Past Decade (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168)

In the past ten years, the number of executions in the U.S. has increased while the murder rate has declined. Some commentators have maintained that the murder rate has dropped because of the increase in executions (see, e.g., W. Tucker, "Yes, the Death Penalty Deters," Wall St. Journal, June 21, 2002). However, during this decade the murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty. (see Chart I, below).

These figures exclude Kansas and New York, which adopted the death penalty in 1994 and 1995 respectively. If these states are included in their proper categories, the results are even more dramatic:

As executions rose, states without the death penalty fared much better than states with the death penalty in reducing their murder rates. The gap between the murder rate in death penalty states and the non-death penalty states grew larger (as shown in Chart II). In 1990, the murder rates in these two groups were 4% apart. By 2000, the murder rate in the death penalty states was 35% higher than the rate in states without the death penalty. In 2001, the gap between non-death penalty states and states with the death penalty again grew, reaching 37%. For 2002, the number stands at 36%.

Hanging, electric chair, gas, lethal injection, none deter murder. Fact.


THE DEATH PENALTY HAS NO BENEFICIAL EFFECT ON MURDER RATES:
“I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.”
- U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno (January 21, 2000)

* Recent studies in Oklahoma and California failed to find that capital punishment had a deterrent effect on violent crime and, in fact, found a significant increase in stranger killings and homicide rates after the death penalty had been reinstated. (William Bailey, “Deterrence, Brutalization, and the Death Penalty,” Criminology, 1998; Ernie Thompson, “Effects of an Execution on Homicides in California.” Homicide Studies, 1999)
* The murder rate in Canada has dropped by 40% since the death penalty was abolished in that country in 1976. (Amnesty International)
* A Texas study determined in 1999 that there was no relation between the number of executions and murder rates in general. (Victoria Brewer, Robert Wrinkle, John Sorenson and James Marquart)
* A New York Times survey demonstrated that homicide rate in states with capital punishment have been 48% to 101% higher than those without the death penalty. (Raymond Bonner and Ford Fessenden, “Absence of Executions,” New York Times, September 22, 2000)
* The five countries with the highest homicide rates that do not impose the death penalty average 21.6 murders per 100,000 people. The five countries with the highest homicide rate that do impose the death penalty average 41.6 murders for every 100,000 people. (United Nations Development Program)


Who cares? The assholes deserve to die-they KILLED people and in many cases dozens of people-why should we want to feed and keep them alive? Send them to hell where they belong. Have some pity and compassion for the victims and not the perpetrators.

Try this one:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/justic/2-4.pdf

Two things are clear:
1. Rising trend in the number of homicides in the years 1961-1975, while there was death penalty suggests that death penalty wasn't a successful deterent.
2. Falling trend in the number of homicides in the years 1976-present (a few fluctuations here and there, but no clear rising trend) after the abolition of the death penalty suggests that losing the deterring factor of the death penalty (at least) hasn't affected the number of homicides, which implies that the deterring factor is neglegible if any. I repeat that even a constant/mildly fluctuating trend would be enough to support my claim, but we see a falling trend here.

U.S. EXECUTIONS BY YEAR

1977 - 01 1984 - 21 1991 - 14 1998 - 68
1978 - 00 1985 - 18 1992 - 31 1999 - 98
1979 - 02 1986 - 18 1993 - 38 2000 - 85
1980 - 00 1987 - 25 1994 - 31
1981 - 01 1988 - 11 1995 - 56
1982 - 02 1989 - 16 1996 - 45
1983 - 05 1990 - 23 1997 - 74

U.S. MURDER RATE BY YEAR

1977 - 9.1
1978 - 9.2
1979 - 10.0
1980 - 10.7
1981 - 10.3
1982 - 9.6
1983 - 8.6
1984 - 8.4
1985 - 8.4
1986 - 9.0
1987 - 8.7
1988 - 9.0
1989 - 9.3
1990 - 10.0
1991 - 10.5
1992 - 10.0
1993 - 10.1
1994 - 9.6
1995 - 8.7
1996 - 7.9
1997 - 7.4
1998 - 6.8
1999 - 6.2
2000 - 6.1

It seems that, under the new death penalty laws in the U.S., after we started executing people again, the murder rate also decreased overall, and substantially. It also seems that the murder rate is lower when more people are executed, as a general rule, which would, to me, indicate that the death penalty is in fact serving to deter murder in the U.S. - if you trust statistics, that is, which I'm not sure I do, even though these and others support my argument.

Actually, what your data shows is more or less constant homicide rate from 1977 until 1995. 1995 is the year after which the decreasing trend is evident. In fact there is almost no difference between the 1977-1983, when very few executions (less than two a year) took place and 1983-1995, when number of executions was high (about 25 per year). So, the increase in the number of executions of about 1800% (I approximated in my head, so I might be of by a 100% or so, but the order of magnitude is important here) has resulted in absolutely no reduction in the homicide rate, while the increase in the number of executions of about 250% (comparing 1983-1995 and 1996-2000)has resulted in the reduction of the homicide rate of about 35%. Hence the chart is from the viewpoint of your opinion at best inconclusive, since a part of it has supported your theory, and another part of it hasn't. From my viewpoint however, even the partial indication (with a period of 13 years being long enough to be reliable) that the deterrence is a non-factor is significant, since (as I have repeatedly shown in the previous posts) the burden of proof is on you. It's also instructive to examine what major qualitative change exactly happened in the mid 90s, to find out the real reason for declining of the USA homicide rate.

The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down. - poet Hyman Barshay

When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and
states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates
higher than non-death penalty states. The average murder rate per
100,000 population in 1997 among death penalty states was 6.6, the
average murder rate among non-death penalty states was only 3.5. A look
at neighboring death penalty and non-death penalty states show similar
trends. Death penalty states usually have a higher murder rate than
their neighboring non-death penalty states. "

More to follow......

What follows this pronouncement is a bar chart that compares allegedly
'like' states' crimes rates to show that 'death penalty states often
have a higher murder rates than their neighboring non-death penalty
states'


We see Iowa (non-death) with a 1997 murder rate about one-fourth that
of Illinois (death);


Massachusetts (non-death) with a 1997 murder rate one-half of
Connecticuts (death) (never mind that Connecticut hasn't even executed
anybody yet since 1976);


Wisconsin (non-death) with a murder rate less than one-half that of
Illinois (death);


and W. Virginia (non-death) with a murder rate a little more than half
that of Virginia (death)


Aside from the obvious objections to this as having any bearing
whatever on the deterrence issue, I've found an obvious reason for the
choices of states to compare. Except for the mass/CT issue (where
neither state has executed anybody and the murder rates are very low in
both), the other three choices are obviously comparing _unlike_ states
- the 'non-death' states are rural states without significant large
cities and the inevitable crime-breeding ghettoes and drug turf wars
found therein, and the death states are all larger states with large
cities, large ghettoes and significant drug businesses.


Since black people clearly commit murder at a much higher rate than the
population as a whole (50%+ of all murders nationwide, while
constituting 12% of the population), let's look at those population
numbers:


Iowa 1.99% black
Missouri 11.27% black


Wisconsin 5.57% black
Illinois 15.28% black


West Virginia 3.20% black
Virginia 20.07% black


All else being equal, I'd expect Missouri to have almost 6 times the
murder rate that Iowa does, rather than only 4


I'd expect Illinois to have 3 times the murder rate of Wisconsin
instead of a bit over 2 times.


I'd expect Virginia to have 5 times the murder rate of West Virginia
instead of not quite 2.


So the states with the death penalty have lower crime rates than one
might expect. This is actually an argument _for_ deterrence,
especially in the case of Virginia, which is number two nationwide in
executions.




All it takes is a little time to find stats to basicaly prove anything .
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.activism.death-penalty/msg/809a6ba1b2554c76

The economic argument in favor of the death penalty is rather simple. Economists assume that individuals weigh the expected costs and benefits when deciding to undertake any activity. Thus, rational individuals considering criminal activities would weigh the expected benefits against the expected cost of the criminal endeavor. The expected cost of any given crime is affected by the probability of being detected, the probability of being convicted given detection, and the expected penalty that results from a conviction. Since the death penalty provides a higher cost than alternative punishments, it is expected to generate a larger deterrent effect, ceteris paribus.

http://www.swlearning.com/economics/policy_debates/death_penalty.html

Of persons under sentence of death in 2003:
-- 1,878 were white
-- 1,418 were black
-- 29 were American Indian
-- 35 were Asian
-- 14 were of unknown race.

More to follow......



All it takes is a little time to find stats to basicaly prove anything .
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.activism.death-penalty/msg/809a6ba1b2554c76

The economic argument in favor of the death penalty is rather simple. Economists assume that individuals weigh the expected costs and benefits when deciding to undertake any activity. Thus, rational individuals considering criminal activities would weigh the expected benefits against the expected cost of the criminal endeavor. The expected cost of any given crime is affected by the probability of being detected, the probability of being convicted given detection, and the expected penalty that results from a conviction. Since the death penalty provides a higher cost than alternative punishments, it is expected to generate a larger deterrent effect, ceteris paribus.

http://www.swlearning.com/economics/policy_debates/death_penalty.html
Other than after the first the cost is an fixed value. So you get better value for that cost by performing many of the said action.
Hence the phrase 'better be hung for a sheep than a lamb'.
As an economist murderer you might as well do 1,000 as do 1 and if the other 999 are chosen at random or are killed at the same time the detection by means on motive become far more difficult, therefore risk reduces.

Other than after the first the cost is an fixed value. So you get better value for that cost by performing many of the said action.
Hence the phrase 'better be hung for a sheep than a lamb'.
As an economist murderer you might as well do 1,000 as do 1 and if the other 999 are chosen at random or are killed at the same time the detection by means on motive become far more difficult, therefore risk reduces.

That only works if you are alive to enjoy it , " being dead " cancels out any benifit of your percieved reduced risk .

That only works if you are alive to enjoy it , " being dead " cancels out any benifit of your percieved reduced risk .
The reduced risk is the reduced chance of being caught and therefore killed.
It also makes plees of insanity more plausable.
And if you live in a society where guns are available the cost of capture (in terms of lives and money) can be greatly increased.
So you might gues that I don't think the death penalty works. It never did in Britian for the several hundred years it was in place. And the rate of murder now is low compared to most counties where a death penalty exists.

Don't get me wrong, I'd lock them up but I'd make them work for every meal and there would be few comforts. In fact I would look to profit making prisoners.

All it takes is a little time to find stats to basicaly prove anything .
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.activism.death-penalty/msg/809a6ba1b2554c76
This link actually proved nothing. It certainly contains a lot of numbers with no referencing. There was a link at the top, but it does not work.

Trying to tie it to the black population won't work for you either, because the numbers for various States is all over the place.

Actually, these numbers do NOT support your case. As you can see by the above chart, US murder rates started dropping in 1994. The Brady Bill was enacted in 1994. For you to get a truly representative data base to support your argument, you would need to do a State by State study. Then you would need to compare the murder rates in the death penalty States versus the non death penalty States.

The above chart only proves that tighter gun regulations starting in 1994 led to a lower murder rate.

A state by state study proves jack shit, because there are way too many x-factors for statistics to take into account. Canuck, trust me, you're joining in way too late here. Read all the posts I've been making and come back. There's also a decreasing run up until '85 when executions per year start decreasing again. The Brady Bill part is not the only run where murder rates dropped.

Just a follow up to my pervious post:

Deterrence: States Without the Death Penalty Fared Better Over Past Decade (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168)

In the past ten years, the number of executions in the U.S. has increased while the murder rate has declined. Some commentators have maintained that the murder rate has dropped because of the increase in executions (see, e.g., W. Tucker, "Yes, the Death Penalty Deters," Wall St. Journal, June 21, 2002). However, during this decade the murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty. (see Chart I, below).

These figures exclude Kansas and New York, which adopted the death penalty in 1994 and 1995 respectively. If these states are included in their proper categories, the results are even more dramatic:

As executions rose, states without the death penalty fared much better than states with the death penalty in reducing their murder rates. The gap between the murder rate in death penalty states and the non-death penalty states grew larger (as shown in Chart II). In 1990, the murder rates in these two groups were 4% apart. By 2000, the murder rate in the death penalty states was 35% higher than the rate in states without the death penalty. In 2001, the gap between non-death penalty states and states with the death penalty again grew, reaching 37%. For 2002, the number stands at 36%.


Also, in case you missed it, as you obviously did, murder rates are dropping faster overall in death penalty states than non death penalty states, though there are other things that can explain this, as Brancin, who actually has an idea of what he's talking about, pointed out. You haven't been here long enough to catch up to this debate. You're coming in way too late.

"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."


I guess I should just copy the whole article for you from adobe script .

Try this one:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/justic/2-4.pdf

Two things are clear:
1. Rising trend in the number of homicides in the years 1961-1975, while there was death penalty suggests that death penalty wasn't a successful deterent.
2. Falling trend in the number of homicides in the years 1976-present (a few fluctuations here and there, but no clear rising trend) after the abolition of the death penalty suggests that losing the deterring factor of the death penalty (at least) hasn't affected the number of homicides, which implies that the deterring factor is neglegible if any. I repeat that even a constant/mildly fluctuating trend would be enough to support my claim, but we see a falling trend here.

1. This is true, but, considering the time period, I would expect that at least one other thing would be increasing faster than normal alongside murder rate: population density. This could also explain the increase in murder rate followed by a peak and a decrease. Just another way of looking at it.
2. A decrease so slight is also evident in the U.S. statistics following increases in murder rate.



Actually, ... [snip] ... qualitative change exactly happened in the mid 90s, to find out the real reason for declining of the USA homicide rate.

I agree that it is inconclusive, but it is no less conclusive than the Canadian statistics due to the years which are covered by the Canadian statistics. I was planning on a longer response, but I'm really tired and my allergies are kicking my ass, so I'm going to quit here for tonight. Just really letting you know I hadn't forgotten you.

here this should keep you busy for a while .


ARTICLES ON DEATH PENALTY DETERRENCE
Below are citations and abstracts of articles on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Links to the full text are provided when available, but in some cases they refer to a pre-publication version. Some publishers charge a fee for the full text. Our goal is to collect the abstracts of all studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals in the last ten years, as well as working papers of studies submitted for such publication. This work is not yet complete, and we welcome suggestions for additions to this list. Please e-mail them to cjlf@cjlf.org.

• ESSAYS

Cass R. Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
Working Paper 05-06 (March 2005)
http://aei-brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/page.php?id=1131


Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many as eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context, because government is a special kind of moral agent. The familiar problems with capital punishment – potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew – do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in capital punishment may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat “statistical lives” with the seriousness that they deserve.




• PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Joanna M. Shepherd, Clemson University
Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment
Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 283-322 (June 2004)
http://people.clemson.edu/~jshephe/DPpaper_fin.pdf

Abstract: I examine two important questions in the capital punishment literature: what kinds of murders are deterred and what effect the length of the death-row wait has on deterrence? To answer these questions, I analyze data unused in the capital punishment literature: monthly murder and execution data. Monthly data measure deterrence better than the annual data used in earlier capital punishment papers for two reasons: it is impossible to see monthly murder fluctuations in annual data and only monthly data allow a model in which criminals update their perceived execution risk frequently. Results from least squares and negative binomial estimations indicate that capital punishment does deter: each execution results in, on average, three fewer murders. In addition, capital punishment deters murders previously believed to be undeterrable: crimes of passion and murders by intimates. Moreover, murders of both black and white victims decrease after executions. This suggests that, even if the application of capital punishment is racist, the benefits of capital punishment are not. However, longer waits on death row before execution lessen the deterrence. Specifically, one less murder is committed for every 2.75-years reduction in death row waits. Thus, recent legislation to shorten the wait on death row should strengthen capital punishment's deterrent effect.


Paul R. Zimmerman
State Executions, Deterrence and the Incidence of Murder
Journal of Applied Economics, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 163-193 (May 2004)
http://www.cema.edu.ar/publicaciones/download/volumen7/zimmerman.pdf

Abstract: This study employs a panel of U.S. state-level data over the years 1978-1997 to estimate the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Particular attention is paid to problems of endogeneity bias arising from the non-random assignment of death penalty laws across states and a simultaneous relationship between murders and the deterrence probabilities. The primary innovation of the analysis lies in the estimation of a simultaneous equations system whose identification is based upon the employment of instrumental variables motivated by the theory of public choice. The estimation results suggest that structural estimates of the deterrent effect of capital punishment are likely to be downward biased due to the influence of simultaneity. Correcting for simultaneity, the estimates imply that a state execution deters approximately fourteen murders per year on average. Finally, the results also suggest that the announcement effect of capital punishment, as opposed to the existence of a death penalty provision, is the mechanism actually driving the deterrent effect associated with state executions.

Zhiqiang Liu
Capital Punishment and the Deterrence Hypothesis: Some New Insights and Empirical Evidence
Eastern Economic Journal, vol. 30, iss. 2, p. 237 (Spring 2004)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=352681

Abstract: Economists have made repeated efforts through both theoretical modeling and empirical testing to understand the deterrent effect of capital punishment. By and large, they have found a negative and statistically significant effect of capital punishment on the act of murder (that is, the death penalty deters murder). Ehrlich [1975] provides the first systematic analysis of the relationship between capital punishment and murder along with the first empirical test of the deterrence hypothesis concerning not only capital punishment but also other deterrent measures. His results suggest that on the average eight murder victims might have been saved as a result of one execution for the sample period 1933-67 in the United States. Although Ehrlich's work was criticized by scholars such as Waldo [1981] and Forst [1983], many subsequent studies, using independent time-series and cross-section data from the United States [Ehrlich, 1977; Layson, 1985; Cloninger, 1992; Ehrlich and Liu, 1999; Dezhbakhsh, et al. 2000], Canada [Layson, 1983] and the UK [Wolpin, 1978], have offered corroborating evidence consistent with the deterrence hypothesis.

H. Naci Mocan & R. Kaj Gittings
Getting Off Death Row: Commuted Sentences and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment
Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 453-478 (October 2003)
http://econ.cudenver.edu/mocan/papers/GettingOffDeathRow.pdf

Abstract: This paper merges a state-level panel data set that includes crime and deterrence measures and state characteristics with information on all death sentences handed out in the United States between 1977 and 1997. Because the exact month and year of each execution and removal from death row can be identified, they are matched with state-level criminal activity in the relevant time frame. Controlling for a variety of state characteristics, the paper investigates the impact of the execution rate, commutation and removal rates, homicide arrest rate, sentencing rate, imprisonment rate, and prison death rate on the rate of homicide. The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder. Executions, commutations, and removals have no impact on robberies, burglaries, assaults, or motor-vehicle thefts.

Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, & Joanna M. Shepherd
Department of Economics, Emory University
Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data
American Law & Economics Review, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 344-376 (Fall 2003)
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DezRubShepDeterFinal.pdf

Abstract: Evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment is important for many states that are currently reconsidering their position on the issue. We examine the deterrent hypothesis using county-level, post-moratorium panel data and a system of simultaneous equations. The procedure we employ overcomes common aggregation problems, eliminates the bias arising from unobserved heterogeneity, and provides evidence relevant for current conditions. Our results suggest that capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect; each execution results, on average, in 18 fewer murders—with a margin of error of plus or minus 10. Tests show that results are not driven by tougher sentencing laws, and are also robust to many alternative specifications.

Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt & Ellen Shustorovich
Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence
American Law and Economics Review, vol. 5, issue 2, pages 318-343 (Fall 2003)
http://econpapers.hhs.se/article/oupamlawe/v_3A5_3Ay_3A2003_3Ai_3A2_3Ap_3A318-343.htm


Abstract: Previous research has attempted to identify a deterrent effect of capital punishment. We argue that the quality of life in prison is likely to have a greater impact on criminal behavior than the death penalty. Using state-level panel data covering the period 1950--90, we demonstrate that the death rate among prisoners (the best available proxy for prison conditions) is negatively correlated with crime rates, consistent with deterrence. This finding is shown to be quite robust. In contrast, there is little systematic evidence that the execution rate influences crime rates in this time period.

James A. Yunker, Western Illinois University
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/issue.asp?ref=0038-4941&vid=82&iid=2&oc=&s=&site=1
A New Statistical Analysis of Capital Punishment Incorporating U.S. Postmoratorium Data
Social Science Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 2, pp. 297-311 (2002)

Objective: This article reports on a basic regression analysis of the deterrence hypothesis incorporating U.S. data that has accumulated since the resumption of capital punishment in 1977. Methods. The cross-sectional approach employs data on state homicide rates and estimated execution rates between 1976 and 1997 across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The time series approach employs annual data on the U.S. national homicide rate and estimated national execution rate between 1930 and 1997. Results. Using state data, statistically weak support is found for the deterrence hypothesis. Using national time series data, considerably stronger statistical support is found for the deterence hypothesis. It is also shown that the same time series regression using data from 1930 to 1976 does not support the deterrence hypothesis, thus showing the probative value of the more recent data. Conclusions. Statistical data from the postmoratorium period are likely to be useful in evaluating the deterrence hypothesis, and therefore social scientists should be carefully examining this evidence.



Dale O. Cloninger & Roberto Marchesini
University of Houston --Clear Lake
Execution and Deterrence: A Quasicontrolled Group Experiment
Applied Economics, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 569-576 (2001)

:sniper:

If found guilty and sentanced to die, they should be put to death within a week. No more sitting around for a decade or two waiting to die. PUT THEM TO DEATH RIGHT AWAY!!

:sniper:

Hmmm She seems to aggree with you somewhat .

Joanna M. Shepherd, Clemson University
Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment
Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 283-322 (June 2004)
http://people.clemson.edu/~jshephe/DPpaper_fin.pdf

Abstract: I examine two important questions in the capital punishment literature: what kinds of murders are deterred and what effect the length of the death-row wait has on deterrence? To answer these questions, I analyze data unused in the capital punishment literature: monthly murder and execution data. Monthly data measure deterrence better than the annual data used in earlier capital punishment papers for two reasons: it is impossible to see monthly murder fluctuations in annual data and only monthly data allow a model in which criminals update their perceived execution risk frequently. Results from least squares and negative binomial estimations indicate that capital punishment does deter: each execution results in, on average, three fewer murders. In addition, capital punishment deters murders previously believed to be undeterrable: crimes of passion and murders by intimates. Moreover, murders of both black and white victims decrease after executions. This suggests that, even if the application of capital punishment is racist, the benefits of capital punishment are not. However, longer waits on death row before execution lessen the deterrence. Specifically, one less murder is committed for every 2.75-years reduction in death row waits. Thus, recent legislation to shorten the wait on death row should strengthen capital punishment's deterrent effect.

There will never be a time when we can ever be sure the people we lock up or kill are really the guilty party. We will never know how many people have been wrongly killed by the state (some of us say it's always wrong and the small sample of wrongful arrests below show why).
And never forget, every time the wrong person is jailed or killed, the guilty person goes free.
Common sense, decency, intelligent study of facts and good old morality keeps this poster firmly on the side of no capital punishment. And I speak as one whos brother-in-law was murdered several years ago.

'A 76-year-old prisoner walked out of jail, a free man for the first time in 41 years, after a judge dismissed the conviction against him. Robert Carroll Coney, convicted of a 1962 robbery, exhibited a surprising lack of bitterness as he left Angelina County Jail with his wife on Tuesday. "I'm going to try to pick up the pieces," Coney told the Lufkin Daily News in Wednesday's editions. "If I was angry, what could I do about it?"

Coney said his identity had been confused with a man he had carpooled with through Lufkin on the day of the crime: March 7, 1962. Court documents state Coney falsely confessed to the crime after Angelina County deputies broke his hand, the Daily News reported. State District Judge David Wilson, who dismissed Coney's charges, investigated the case and found that then-Angelina County Sheriff Leon Jones and his deputies used physical force to extract confessions, often crushing prisoners' fingers between jail cell bars. (emphasis supplied.)''
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007554.html
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'Arthur Lee Whitfield spent part of his first hours of freedom standing up on the bus that carried him home.

Whitfield was released from prison Monday after DNA tests exonerated him of raping two women in Ghent in August 1981.

He had served 22 years of a 63-year sentence.

“I’ve been waiting for so long,” Whitfield said Tuesday in his attorney’s office. “Last Friday was 23 years exactly since this all began. … I did a lot of praying. I didn’t lose hope.”

Whitfield always had maintained his innocence, but a jury sentenced him to 45 years in prison for one of the rapes, based in part on the victims’ identification of him. Whitfield pleaded guilty to the second rape charge in exchange for an 18-year sentence and the hope he would live to see his family again '
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=74763&ran=150820
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Talk about a Valentine.

When Mark Bravo set out with his wife, Rosanne, on Friday for a weekend in Las Vegas, he carried with him a love note she is not likely to forget.

This morning, the 45-year-old Diamond Bar resident will give his wife a Valentine's card in which is tucked a copy of a $7-million check he received Friday.

The money is compensation for the three years Bravo was imprisoned by the state of California for a rape he did not commit
In 1993, the Innocence Project took an interest in Bravo's case and initiated DNA testing on the alleged victim's panties, a sheet and a blanket, Moreno said. The victim had recanted her testimony several times after Bravo was convicted.

The DNA tests "proved, not only that the materials tested did not match [Bravo], but did not even match the alleged victim," Moreno said.
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/2398/wrongful_imprisonment_lawsuits.html
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It was a long time coming, but when Tony Blair issued the prime ministerial public apology to the Conlon and Maguire families for their wrongful imprisonment for IRA bomb attacks it exceeded their expectations.

"I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice. That is why I am making this apology today. They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated," Blair said.

The 11 people, Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, were wrongly sent to prison over bombings in pubs in southern towns of Guilfordand Woolwich in 1974, which killed seven.

Gerry Conlon, the best-known of the Guildford Four, whose father died in prison while serving his sentence in 1980, said thefamilies were delighted with the apology. "Tony Blair has healed rifts, he is helping to heal wounds. It's a day I never thought would come," he said.
http://newsfromrussia.com/accidents/2005/02/10/58196.html
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It has been seven months since Jeffrey Scott Hornoff walked out of prison a free man. With the clothes on his back, a small plastic bag of personal belongings and $500, he was ready to rebuild his life. Or was he?

The former Warwick Police officer, who was wrongfully convicted of the 1989 murder of Victoria Cushman, spent six and a half years of his life behind bars. His youngest son was born three months after he arrived, and every day that followed he wished and hoped and prayed for a miracle.

Fast forward to today. Since he was officially cleared of all charges in January after Todd Barry of Cranston stepped forward and confessed to the murder in November 2002, Hornoff has been reconnecting with his three sons, taking care of his mother, and spending time with his fiancée, Tina Dauphinais. He marvels at the things that have changed since he was in prison and continues to work on the hobby he picked up while incarcerated, drawing.
http://www.truthinjustice.org/normal-life.htm
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Ellis' new legislation received support in committee from the testimony of Josiah Sutton and Anthony Robinson, who served four and 10 years, respectively, for rapes they did not commit. Both men were exonerated by DNA testing.

Sutton was 17 when he was sentenced to 25 years based on faulty DNA evidence and his identification by the rape victim. DNA evidence used in his trial was called into question when investigative journalists from Houston requested a review of the Houston crime lab by William C. Thompson, a University of California criminology professor. Thompson's findings raised serious questions about the reliability of the lab's results.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2005/04/06/TopStories/Bill-Would.Aid.Victims.Of.Wrongful.Imprisonment-914104.shtml
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These figures include payment for interim and final awards. (The latter includes the claimants' legal fees).
Reliable statistics on the breakdown of payments are available only for the past two years. Since 1 March 2001, the Secretary of State for the Home Department has authorised the payment of compensation for wrongful conviction or charge to 76 applicants. In 24 of these cases the claims have been settled in full in the sum of £1.5 million (including legal fees). In a further 30 cases interim payments have been made to the claimants in the sum of £2 million. These, together with the remaining 22 cases, await the submission of their final claims.

Criminal Justice Review 1999-2000
http://www.legalappeal.co.uk/pages/justice/compensation_for_wrongful_imprisonment.php
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Wyniemko, 53, formerly of Clinton Township, was released from prison after DNA evidence cleared him in June 2003. He had spent nearly nine years behind bars. He now lives in Auburn Hills.

Wyniemko's lawsuit alleges that the conviction violated his civil rights because witnesses were coached, evidence was buried and conflicting leads were ignored. He is suing Clinton Township, police detectives Thomas Ostin, Bart Marlatt and their supervisor, Alexander Ernst, who is now chief.
http://www.macombdaily.com/stories/111904/loc_wrongful001.shtml
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The increasing number of high-profile cases of wrongful conviction, often brought to light by DNA exonerations, and the publicity associated with those errors have increased the salience of this issue on the public policy agendas of a number of U.S. states, as well as in Canada. Scholarly research on this subject has also increased over the past two decades. This article discusses the extent to which these erors may occur; the major factors contributing to false convictions; recent and current developments regarding legislation in the United States; innocence projects and innocence commissions in the United States, Britain, and Canada; and the significance of wrongful conviction as a factor in the current challenges to the death penalty in the United States. It is important that we develop a better understanding of wrongful conviction and its causes so that we can both better protect the rights of the innocent and better protect citizens from being victimized by offenders who remain free while the wrongly convicted are sent to prison.
.
There is minimal research on the psychological effects of wrongful conviction and imprisonment. This is a descriptive study of a sample of 18 men referred for systematic psychiatric assessment after their convictions were quashed on appeal and they were released from long-term imprisonment. Sixteen were U.K. cases; two were from other jurisdictions. The assessments revealed evidence of substantial psychiatric morbidity. Fourteen men met ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for "enduring personality change following catastrophic experience" (F62.0), 12 met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, and most reported additional mood and anxiety disorders. There were major problems of psychological and social adjustment, particularly within families. The difficulties were similar to those described in the clinical literature on war veterans. Possible explanations for these effects are discussed: specific traumatic features of miscarriage of justice and long-term imprisonment both appear to contribute to the post-release psychological problems.
http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=cjccj/cjccj462.html#a
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

n the past year, several high-profile wrongful imprisonment cases, including Anthony Robinson, A.B. Butler, Roy Criner, Kevin Byrd, Carlos Laverina, Christopher Ochoa and just last week, David Pope, have sparked calls for compensation reform. All were cleared after they had served at least a decade in prison for crimes they did not commit.

"Providing adequate compensation for Texans who have been wrongfully convicted is the least we can do to right an injustice," said Ellis. "Fair compensation will never replace the years lost, but it at least sends the signal that the State of Texas wants to right the wrong done to them."
http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/Members/Dist13/pr01/p020501a.htm

Here's some more in support of the detterant effect of capital punishment .

Dale O. Cloninger & Roberto Marchesini
University of Houston --Clear Lake
Execution and Deterrence: A Quasicontrolled Group Experiment
Applied Economics, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 569-576 (2001)
http://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v33y2001i5p569-76.html

Abstract: Using portfolio analysis in a type of controlled group experiment, this study develops an empirical model of homicide changes in Texas over a period of a "normal" number of executions. The empirically derived model then estimates the changes in the number of homicides in Texas (1) over a period of near zero executions and; (2) over an immediate subsequent period of double the "normal" number of executions. The actual changes in Texas homicides over the first period is less than estimated by the model and greater (or no different) than estimated by the model in the second period. Because changes in the number of homicides in Texas and throughout the United States were negative over both periods, these empirical results are consistent with the deterrence hypothesis. That is, there were a greater than predicted number of homicides in the first period and fewer than predicted number in the second period.

Jon Sorensen, Robert Wrinkle, Victoria Brewer, & James Marquart
Capital punishment and deterrence: Examining the effect of executions on murder in Texas Crime and Delinquency, vol. 45, no.4, pp. 481-493 (Oct. 1999)
http://www.justiceblind.com/death/sorensen.html


Abstract: This study tested the deterrence hypothesis in Texas, the most active execution jurisdication during the modern era.


Isaac Ehrlich and Zhiqiang Liu
Sensitivity Analysis of the Deterrence Hypothesis: Lets Keep the Econ in Econometrics
Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 455-487 (April 1999)
http://econpapers.hhs.se/article/ucpjlawec/v_3A42_3Ay_3A1999_3Ai_3A1_3Ap_3A455-87.htm

Abstract: Leamer and McManus applied Extreme Bound Analysis (EBA) in an empirical study of the deterrent effects of capital punishment and other penalties. Their analysis has questioned the validity of the deterrence hypothesis. The thrust of our paper is twofold: first, by applying EBA to well-known econometric models of demand, production, and human-capital investment, our analysis exposes and illustrates the inherent flaws of EBA as a method of deriving valid inferences about model specification. Second, since the analysis shows Leamer and McManus's inferences about deterrence to be based on a flawed methodology, we offer an alternative, theory-based sensitivity analysis of estimated deterrent effects using similar data. Our analysis supports the deterrence hypothesis. More generally, it emphasizes the indispensable role of theory in guiding sensitivity analyses of model specification.



Harold J. Brumm and Dale O. Cloninger
Perceived Risk of Punishment and the Commission of Homicides: A Covariance Structure Analysis
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 1-11 (Sept. 1996)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01672681
After clicking the link, choose "volumes 31-40," then "volume 31, issue 1", finally click on "abstract."
Abstract: If the behavior of potential murderers does in fact respond to the risk of punishment, it is the perceived risk rather than the ex post risk as measured by arrest rates, conviction rates, or execution rates. Previous empirical studies of homicide behavior have, by and large, ignored this distinction. The present paper accommodates this distinction by estimating a covariance structure model in which the perceived risk is treated as an endogenous latent variable, with two measures of sanctions as its indicators. Cross-section data are used for the estimation. One of the principal findings is that the homicide commission rate is significantly and negatively correlated with the perceived risk of punishment, which provides empirical support for the deterrence hypothesis (Ehrlich, 1975). The other principal findings are that the perceived risk of punishment is (a) significantly and negatively correlated with the homicide commission rate, and (b) significantly and positively correlated with police presence. The latter results provide empirical support for the resource saturation hypothesis (Fisher and Nagin, 1978).

• WORKING PAPERS

Charles N.W. Keckler
Life v. Death: Or Why the Death Penalty Should Marginally Deter
(August 24, 2005). George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 05-23, http://ssrn.com/abstract=789864

Abstract: Econometric measures of the effect of capital punishment have increasingly provided evidence that it deters homicides. However, most researchers on both sides of the death penalty debate continue to rely on rather simple assumptions about criminal behavior. I attempt to provide a more nuanced and predictive rational choice model of the incentives and disincentives to kill, with the aim of assessing to what extent the statistical findings of deterrence are in line with theoretical expectations. In particular, I examine whether it is plausible to suppose there is a marginal increase in deterrence created by increasing the penalty from life imprisonment without parole to capital punishment. The marginal deterrence effect is shown to be a direct negative function of prison conditions as they are anticipated by the potential offender - the more tolerable someone perceives imprisonment to be, the less deterrent effect prison will have, and the greater the amount of marginal deterrence the threat of capital punishment will add. I then examine the empirical basis for believing there to be a subset of killers who are relatively unafraid of the prison environment, and who therefore may be deterred effectively only by the death penalty. Criminals, empirically, appear to fear a capital sentence, and are willing to sacrifice important procedural rights during plea bargaining to avoid this risk. This has the additional effect of increasing the mean expected term of years attached to a murder conviction, and may generate a secondary deterrent effect of capital punishment. At least for some offenders, the death penalty should induce greater caution in their use of lethal violence, and the deterrent effect seen statistically is possibly derived from the change in the behavior of these individuals. This identification of a particular group on whom the death penalty has the greatest marginal effect naturally suggests reforms in sentencing (and plea bargaining) which focus expensive capital prosecutions on those most resistant to alternative criminal sanctions.

Dale O. Cloninger & Roberto Marchesini
Execution Moratoriums, Commutations and Deterrence: The Case of Illinois
(June 2005) http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/IllStudyRevised.pdf

Abstract: In an earlier work we examined the impact of an execution moratorium in Texas on the monthly returns (first differences) of homicides. That moratorium was judicially imposed pending the appeal of a death sentence that could have had wide spread consequences. We apply similar methodology to the state of Illinois. In January 2000, the Governor of Illinois declared a moratorium on executions pending a review of the judicial process that condemned certain murderers to the death penalty. In January 2003 just prior to leaving office, the Governor commuted the death sentences of all of those who then occupied death row. We find that these actions are coincident with the increased risk of homicide incurred by the residents of Illinois over the 48-month post event period for which data were available. The increased risk is associated with an estimated 150 additional homicides during the post-event period.



Paresh Narayan & Russell Smyth
Dead Man Walking: An Empirical Reassessment of the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment Using the Bounds Testing Approach to Cointegration
Department of Economics, Monash University, Discussion Papers ISSN 1441-5429, No. 10/03
http://ideas.repec.org/p/ecm/ausm04/332.html

Abstract: This paper empirically estimates a murder supply equation for the United States from 1965 to 2001 within a cointegration and error correction framework. Our findings suggest that any support for the deterrence hypothesis is sensitive to the inclusion of variables for the effect of guns and other crimes. In the long-run we find that real income and the conditional probability of receiving the death sentence are the main factors explaining variations in the homicide rate. In the short-run the aggravated assault rate and robbery rate are the most important determinants of the homicide rate.


Richard A. Berk
New Claims About Execution and General Deterrence: Deja Vu All Over Again?
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (forthcoming) (July 19, 2004)
http://preprints.stat.ucla.edu/396/JELS.pap.pdf

Abstract: A number of papers have recently appeared claiming to show that in the United States executions deter serious crime. There are many statistical problems with the data analyses reported. This paper addresses the problem of “influence,” which occurs when a very small and atypical fraction of the data dominate the statistical results. The number of executions by state and year is the key explanatory variable, and most states in most years execute no one. A very few states in particular years execute more than 5 individuals. Such values represent about 1% of the available observations. Re-analyses of the existing data are presented showing that claims of deterrence are a statistical artifact of this anomalous 1%.

Hashem Dezhbakhsh & Joanna M. Shepherd
The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Evidence from a 'Judicial Experiment'
Dept. of Economics, Emory University Working Paper No. 03-14 (July 2003)
http://people.clemson.edu/~jshephe/CaPuJLE_submit.pdf

Abstract: Does capital punishment deter capital crimes? We use panel data covering the fifty states during the period 1960-2000 period to examine the issue. Our study is novel in four ways. First, we estimate the moratorium's full effect by using both pre- and postmoratorium evidence. Second, we exploit the moratorium as a judicial experiment to measure criminals' responsiveness to the severity of punishment; we compare murder rates immediately before and after changes in states' death penalty laws. The inference draws on the variations in the timing and duration of the moratorium across states provide a cross section of murder rate changes occurring in various time periods. Third, we supplement the before-and-after comparisons with regression analysis that disentangles the impact of the moratorium itself on murder from the effect on murder of actual executions. By using two different approaches, we avoid many of the modeling criticisms of earlier studies. Fourth, in addition to estimating 84 distinct regression models--with variations in regressors estimation method, and functional form--our robustness checks examine the moratorium's impact on crimes that are not punishable by death. Our results indicate that capital punishment has a deterrent effect, and the moratorium and executions deter murders in distinct ways. This evidence is corroborated by both the before-and-after comparisons and regression analysis. We also confirm that the moratorium and executions do not cause similar c es in non-capital crimes. The results are highly robust.


John R. Lott, Jr. and William M. Landes
Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement
University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law and Economics Working Paper No. 73 (2002)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161637
Link to earlier version of the working paper: http://www.thevrwc.org/JohnLott.pdf

Abstract: Few events obtain the same instant worldwide news coverage as multiple victim public shootings. These crimes allow us to study the alternative methods used to kill a large number of people (e.g., shootings versus bombings), marginal deterrence and the severity of the crime, substitutability of penalties, private versus public methods of deterrence and incapacitation, and whether attacks produce "copycats." Yet, economists have not studied this phenomenon. Our results are surprising and dramatic. While arrest or conviction rates and the death penalty reduce "normal" murder rates, our results find that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws. We explain why public shootings are more sensitive than other violent crimes to concealed handguns, why the laws reduce both the number of shootings as well as their severity, and why other penalties like executions have differential deterrent effects depending upon the type of murder.

Let me know when you want more .

There will never be a time when we can ever be sure the people we lock up or kill are really the guilty party. We will never know how many people have been wrongly killed by the state (some of us say it's always wrong and the small sample of wrongful arrests below show why).
And never forget, every time the wrong person is jailed or killed, the guilty person goes free.
Common sense, decency, intelligent study of facts and good old morality keeps this poster firmly on the side of no capital punishment. And I speak as one whos brother-in-law was murdered several years ago.

'A 76-year-old prisoner walked out of jail, a free man for the first time in 41 years, after a judge dismissed the conviction against him. Robert Carroll Coney, convicted of a 1962 robbery, exhibited a surprising lack of bitterness as he left Angelina County Jail with his wife on Tuesday. "I'm going to try to pick up the pieces," Coney told the Lufkin Daily News in Wednesday's editions. "If I was angry, what could I do about it?"

Coney said his identity had been confused with a man he had carpooled with through Lufkin on the day of the crime: March 7, 1962. Court documents state Coney falsely confessed to the crime after Angelina County deputies broke his hand, the Daily News reported. State District Judge David Wilson, who dismissed Coney's charges, investigated the case and found that then-Angelina County Sheriff Leon Jones and his deputies used physical force to extract confessions, often crushing prisoners' fingers between jail cell bars. (emphasis supplied.)''
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007554.html
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'Arthur Lee Whitfield spent part of his first hours of freedom standing up on the bus that carried him home.

Whitfield was released from prison Monday after DNA tests exonerated him of raping two women in Ghent in August 1981.

He had served 22 years of a 63-year sentence.

“I’ve been waiting for so long,” Whitfield said Tuesday in his attorney’s office. “Last Friday was 23 years exactly since this all began. … I did a lot of praying. I didn’t lose hope.”

Whitfield always had maintained his innocence, but a jury sentenced him to 45 years in prison for one of the rapes, based in part on the victims’ identification of him. Whitfield pleaded guilty to the second rape charge in exchange for an 18-year sentence and the hope he would live to see his family again '
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=74763&ran=150820
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Talk about a Valentine.

When Mark Bravo set out with his wife, Rosanne, on Friday for a weekend in Las Vegas, he carried with him a love note she is not likely to forget.

This morning, the 45-year-old Diamond Bar resident will give his wife a Valentine's card in which is tucked a copy of a $7-million check he received Friday.

The money is compensation for the three years Bravo was imprisoned by the state of California for a rape he did not commit
In 1993, the Innocence Project took an interest in Bravo's case and initiated DNA testing on the alleged victim's panties, a sheet and a blanket, Moreno said. The victim had recanted her testimony several times after Bravo was convicted.

The DNA tests "proved, not only that the materials tested did not match [Bravo], but did not even match the alleged victim," Moreno said.
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/2398/wrongful_imprisonment_lawsuits.html
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It was a long time coming, but when Tony Blair issued the prime ministerial public apology to the Conlon and Maguire families for their wrongful imprisonment for IRA bomb attacks it exceeded their expectations.

"I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice. That is why I am making this apology today. They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated," Blair said.

The 11 people, Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, were wrongly sent to prison over bombings in pubs in southern towns of Guilfordand Woolwich in 1974, which killed seven.

Gerry Conlon, the best-known of the Guildford Four, whose father died in prison while serving his sentence in 1980, said thefamilies were delighted with the apology. "Tony Blair has healed rifts, he is helping to heal wounds. It's a day I never thought would come," he said.
http://newsfromrussia.com/accidents/2005/02/10/58196.html
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It has been seven months since Jeffrey Scott Hornoff walked out of prison a free man. With the clothes on his back, a small plastic bag of personal belongings and $500, he was ready to rebuild his life. Or was he?

The former Warwick Police officer, who was wrongfully convicted of the 1989 murder of Victoria Cushman, spent six and a half years of his life behind bars. His youngest son was born three months after he arrived, and every day that followed he wished and hoped and prayed for a miracle.

Fast forward to today. Since he was officially cleared of all charges in January after Todd Barry of Cranston stepped forward and confessed to the murder in November 2002, Hornoff has been reconnecting with his three sons, taking care of his mother, and spending time with his fiancée, Tina Dauphinais. He marvels at the things that have changed since he was in prison and continues to work on the hobby he picked up while incarcerated, drawing.
http://www.truthinjustice.org/normal-life.htm
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Ellis' new legislation received support in committee from the testimony of Josiah Sutton and Anthony Robinson, who served four and 10 years, respectively, for rapes they did not commit. Both men were exonerated by DNA testing.

Sutton was 17 when he was sentenced to 25 years based on faulty DNA evidence and his identification by the rape victim. DNA evidence used in his trial was called into question when investigative journalists from Houston requested a review of the Houston crime lab by William C. Thompson, a University of California criminology professor. Thompson's findings raised serious questions about the reliability of the lab's results.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2005/04/06/TopStories/Bill-Would.Aid.Victims.Of.Wrongful.Imprisonment-914104.shtml
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These figures include payment for interim and final awards. (The latter includes the claimants' legal fees).
Reliable statistics on the breakdown of payments are available only for the past two years. Since 1 March 2001, the Secretary of State for the Home Department has authorised the payment of compensation for wrongful conviction or charge to 76 applicants. In 24 of these cases the claims have been settled in full in the sum of £1.5 million (including legal fees). In a further 30 cases interim payments have been made to the claimants in the sum of £2 million. These, together with the remaining 22 cases, await the submission of their final claims.

Criminal Justice Review 1999-2000
http://www.legalappeal.co.uk/pages/justice/compensation_for_wrongful_imprisonment.php
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Wyniemko, 53, formerly of Clinton Township, was released from prison after DNA evidence cleared him in June 2003. He had spent nearly nine years behind bars. He now lives in Auburn Hills.

Wyniemko's lawsuit alleges that the conviction violated his civil rights because witnesses were coached, evidence was buried and conflicting leads were ignored. He is suing Clinton Township, police detectives Thomas Ostin, Bart Marlatt and their supervisor, Alexander Ernst, who is now chief.
http://www.macombdaily.com/stories/111904/loc_wrongful001.shtml
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The increasing number of high-profile cases of wrongful conviction, often brought to light by DNA exonerations, and the publicity associated with those errors have increased the salience of this issue on the public policy agendas of a number of U.S. states, as well as in Canada. Scholarly research on this subject has also increased over the past two decades. This article discusses the extent to which these erors may occur; the major factors contributing to false convictions; recent and current developments regarding legislation in the United States; innocence projects and innocence commissions in the United States, Britain, and Canada; and the significance of wrongful conviction as a factor in the current challenges to the death penalty in the United States. It is important that we develop a better understanding of wrongful conviction and its causes so that we can both better protect the rights of the innocent and better protect citizens from being victimized by offenders who remain free while the wrongly convicted are sent to prison.
.
There is minimal research on the psychological effects of wrongful conviction and imprisonment. This is a descriptive study of a sample of 18 men referred for systematic psychiatric assessment after their convictions were quashed on appeal and they were released from long-term imprisonment. Sixteen were U.K. cases; two were from other jurisdictions. The assessments revealed evidence of substantial psychiatric morbidity. Fourteen men met ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for "enduring personality change following catastrophic experience" (F62.0), 12 met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, and most reported additional mood and anxiety disorders. There were major problems of psychological and social adjustment, particularly within families. The difficulties were similar to those described in the clinical literature on war veterans. Possible explanations for these effects are discussed: specific traumatic features of miscarriage of justice and long-term imprisonment both appear to contribute to the post-release psychological problems.
http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=cjccj/cjccj462.html#a
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

n the past year, several high-profile wrongful imprisonment cases, including Anthony Robinson, A.B. Butler, Roy Criner, Kevin Byrd, Carlos Laverina, Christopher Ochoa and just last week, David Pope, have sparked calls for compensation reform. All were cleared after they had served at least a decade in prison for crimes they did not commit.

"Providing adequate compensation for Texans who have been wrongfully convicted is the least we can do to right an injustice," said Ellis. "Fair compensation will never replace the years lost, but it at least sends the signal that the State of Texas wants to right the wrong done to them."
http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/Members/Dist13/pr01/p020501a.htm

INNOCENCE ISSUES -- THE DEATH PENALTY
by Dudley Sharp

A thorough review finds that death penalty opponents have lied, extensively, regarding the numbers of innocents sentenced to death, that such risk is extraordinarily low and that the cessation of executions will put many more innocents at risk.

I. Innocents Released from Death Row: A Critical Review of the Claims

Death penalty opponents claim that "Since 1973, 102 (now 114) people in 25 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence," (1)

That is a blatantly false claim.

The foundation for these claims begins in 1993, when a study, released by US Rep. Don Edwards, purported to find that 48 innocents had been released from death row since 1973 (2). Rep. Edwards concluded that "Under the law, there is no distinction between definitively innocent and those found innocent after a trial."

Rep. Edwards was wrong.

The law recognizes the specific distinction between those legally innocent and those actually innocent, just as common sense dictates. Yes, there is a difference between the truly "I had no connection to the murder" cases and "I did it but I got off because of legal error" cases.

Rep. Edwards and other death penalty opponents combine these two conflicting groups to increase their "innocents" number. This is a continuation of a pattern of deception by death penalty opponents, that had been obvious for years.

In addition, Rep. Edwards selected an anti death penalty group, The Death Penalty Information Center (the DPIC), to conduct the study, thereby negating objective confidence in the results.

The source for the updated 102 innocent number is also the DPIC (3). Richard Dieter, head of the DPIC, has confirmed, again, what their "innocent" means:

". . . according to death penalty opponents, who say they make no distinction between legal and factual innocence because there is no difference between the two under the law and because there is no objective way to make such a determination. 'They're innocent in the eyes of the law,' Dieter says. 'That's the only objective standard we have.' " (4)

What nonsense.

As this public policy debate is only about the actually innocent, we know why the DPIC fails to make that obvious distinction -- they wish to, deceptively, expand their "innocents" claims.

Furthermore, for many years, the United States' courts have repeatedly enforced the obvious, common sense, important distinction between the actually innocent and the legally innocent (5). Mr. Dieter and all of those active in this debate are well aware of this. Death penalty opponents have chosen to be deceptive. (also see Sections IV. OK to Execute the Innocent? and VI. The Innocent Executed, below). This is hardly surprising.

As Dieter and other death penalty opponents make no distinction between the actually innocent and the legally innocent, why don't they claim that over 2500 innocents have been "exonerated" from death row? That is the number of legally and actually innocent released from death row since 1973 (6). The answer is obvious. They hoped that the media and others might just assume that the 102 (and the previous lesser numbers) were actually innocent and not ask any questions. And that is exactly what has happened -- a successful deception, aided by the poor fact checking standards of the media. The 2500 number, even for the media, is just too large a number for such blind acceptance.

As this deception has begun to unravel, Dieter "clarifies" that all 102 former death row inmates on the innocence list have been exonerated in one of three ways.

"A defendant whose conviction is overturned by a judge must be further exonerated in one of three ways: he must be acquitted at a new trial, or the prosecutor must drop the charges against him, or a governor must grant an absolute pardon." (7)

Dieter is consistent.

None of those exoneration categories establishes, or even suggests, actual innocence.

Acquittal, which is a "not guilty" verdict, means that the state was unable to meet the necessary burden of proof, in establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It has nothing to do with establishing actual innocence.

In a case that has been overturned on appeal, the prosecution may drop the charges because of many reasons, the least likely being actual innocence (insert citation). For example, appellate courts may rule that evidence or testimony was constitutionally inadmissible, thereby removing the specific evidence of actual guilt from any prospect of a new trial and, thereby, precluding another trial.

And an absolute pardon may have nothing to do with actual innocence.

Just recall all the uproar over the pardons granted by President Clinton on the eve of his leaving office. I recall only one of those many cases wherein the defendant claimed actual innocence, and I don't recall any appellate judge giving any support to such a claim. Or recall ex-President Richard Nixon, pardoned by President Gerald Ford? Does anyone doubt that President Nixon was actually guilty of obstructing justice? Of course not.

Once again, we have example after example, whereby Dieter tells us that the DPIC standards have nothing to do with actual innocence. And this is simply back peddling on his part. As more and more people observe the extent of the fraud within the innocence claims of death penalty opponents, Dieter and other opponents will continue to change their definitions to justify their deceptive numbers.

And the "innocence" standards get worse.

Death penalty opponents have " . . . included supposedly innocent defendants who were still culpable as accomplices to the actual triggerman." (8). The law often finds such criminal accomplices legally guilty for their involvement in murders, even if they, themselves, didn't "pull the trigger". For example: Does anyone think that Bin Laden was innocent in the 9/11 World Trade Center bombings?

The DPIC, and other opponents, allegedly so devoted to legal standards in one circumstance -- presumption of innocence -- abandon a legal standard -- the law of parties -- when doing so can further increase their false "innocents" claims.

What "standards" will death penalty opponents create next to deceptively raise their innocence claims?

As the innocence frauds of death penalty opponents continue to unravel, they are now changing their definitions, as if they never meant that all the cases were actually innocent. In other words, they are just piling lie upon lie.

The evidence is overwhelming that some death penalty opponents were stating that the 102, nationwide, were actually innocent people, who had no connection to the murders. They lied.

Now they are stating it was just some function of release, as related above, or that they were only speaking of the "presumption of innocence", the legal standard for defendants, during trial. They have always been lying about the collective innocence claims, now they deceptively change the definitions, as their previous claims are imploding.

The DPIC's newest standard?

"There may be guilty persons among the innocents, but that includes all of us." (9). Good grief. DPIC wishes to apply collective guilt of capital murder to all of us. Or maybe DPIC is about to declare all those sentenced to death and executed as innocent. Take your pick, they could go either way.

A final mea culpa?

Dieter states: "I don't think anybody can know about a person's absolute innocence." (Green). In other words, Dieter won't assert absolute innocence in 1, 102 or 350 cases. Not today, anyway.

Or, Dieter will declare all innocent: "If you are not proven guilty in a court of law, you're innocent." (Green) By this all inclusive (and ridiculous) standard, Dieter would call Hitler and Stalin innocent.

So no one deludes themselves, the innocence concern has always been about convicting the actually innocent -- the "I had no connection to the murder" cases -- and what risk that represents for executing an actually innocent person.

Even Dieter has always known (and never disputed, so far) that we don't execute legally innocent people.

Death penalty opponents wrongly state the burden of proof for "innocents" is not theirs to make -- that defendants are "innocent until proven guilty". This is pure sophistry. The "innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard, that only applies to fact finders in a criminal case. The "innocent" claims by death penalty opponents are part of a public policy debate which, allegedly, is concerned with the actually innocent sent to death row and how that may result in an actually innocent executed.

What is the real number of actual innocents released from death row?

A review of the DPIC 102 case descriptions finds that only about 32 claim actual innocence, with alleged proof to support the claim. 12 of those 32 are DNA cases. That is 32 cases out of about 7300 death sentences since 1973, or 0.4%. National Review's Senior Editor Ramesh Ponnuru, independently, came up with the same number for his "Bad List" article (10).

When reviewing various case descriptions by DPIC and then comparing them to the actual record, there is an obvious pattern of inaccuracy (11). This provides little doubt that many of the remaining 32 case descriptions by DPIC are also inaccurate. No responsible, objective party would depend upon the DPIC case descriptions.

Furthermore, Northwest U. Law Prof. Lawrence Marshall, a death penalty opponent, who organized the National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty in Chicago 1998, stated that, "In a good half of these 75 [now 102] cases, the exoneration is so complete that it erases any doubt whatsoever," (12). Prof. Marshall's uncorroborated claims find proof of factual innocence in 38 cases.

Why do death penalty opponents claim that they have proof for half their innocent claims, then claim twice that number as innocent?

This claim is consistent with the 13 innocents/exonerations from Illinois. There appears to be some doubt about an innocence claim in about half of those cases. (13)

California Assistant Attorney General Ward Campbell finds that at least 68 of the DPIC 102 cases do not belong on the innocence list. He has not conceded that all the remaining 34 do belong on the list. (14).

"On July 1, 2002, in the case of United States v. Quinones, 205 F.Supp.2d 256 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York declared that the Federal Death Penalty Act (was) unconstitutional."

"The federal court based its decision in part on the DPIC List. The federal court itself analyzed the List and applied undefined “conservative criteria” to conclude that 40 defendants on the List were released on grounds indicating “factual innocence.” However, 23 of the names on the Quinones’ List are names which (Ward Campbell's) study submits should be eliminated from the DPIC List."

"If the Quinones court's analysis of the DPIC List is combined with this critique's (Campbell's) analysis, only 17 defendants should be on the List, not the 102 defendants currently listed." (14A).

Furthermore, the Judge in that Quinones case, Rakoff, has since stated that the innocence number might be 30, not the 40 he stated during the case, indicating the combined numbers are, now, most certainly, lower than 17.

Of those 102 DPIC "innocent" cases, 24 have been identified by the DPIC as being from the state of Florida. The Florida Commission on Capital Cases conducted a thorough review of those 24 cases. The Commission found that 4 of those might have a credible claim of actual innocence. (15).

That reveals an 83% error by the DPIC in their Florida case descriptions. If the DPIC has a consistent error rate, nationwide, that would indicate that there is evidence for claiming 17 actual innocents within their 102 innocents claim -- or 0.2% of the 7400 sentenced to death since 1973.

It is hardly a coincidence that the same number of likely actual innocents -- 17 -- is also found when combining the Campbell and Quinones lists.

Based upon those three reviews, 17 is the most credible number for actual innocents released from death row since 1973. And 83% seems to be the common error rate for "innocents" claims by death penalty opponents.

SPECIFIC CASES

See "The Innocence Fraud of Death Penalty Opponents"

Another case on the DPIC list is James Creamer, who was never subject to execution (17). The jury gave him a death sentence, even though there was no death penalty option, because the Furman v Georgia case (1972) had voided all death penalty statutes then in existence Even so, Creamer was sentenced to death on 2/4/73 and then was resentenced to life on 9/28/73. He is still on the DPIC innocents released from death row list (No. 5, as of 6/3/02).

Death penalty opponents (and the media) gave much play to that "100th case" - Ray Krone. It is an instructive example.

He was not on death row, at the time he was found innocent via DNA testing. His death sentence was overturned in 1995. He was retried and given a life sentence in 1996 (18). Inmates released from prison sentences, because of innocence evidence, are not "released from death row with evidence of their innocence." which is the DPIC "standard" to be on the list. Death penalty opponents do what they can to fraudulently raise their numbers.

Certainly a "100" could be considered a milestone. What few realized (or cared to investigate) is that it was a milestone of deception by death penalty opponents.

At least 11 of the cases were not even on death row at the time of their "innocence" discovery. 6 of the DPIC listed cases were not on death row when released and were prosecuted prior to 1973, in the pre Furman v Georgia (1972) era and, therefore, have no place in a modern era discussion of "innocents" released from death row (19).

And, at least four of the post 1973 convictions, Henry Drake, Jay Smith, Kirk Bloodsworth and Ray Krone, were not on death row when they won their freedom. Krone, the now famous 100th case, had not been on death row for 7 years, when he was found innocent via DNA.

None of those 11 are death row exonerations. They are prison exonerations. Therefore, the 32 cases becomes the 21 "released from death row with evidence of their innocence." And, obviously, no one can depend on the DPIC case descriptions regarding how many more of the 102 (or the 21) cases were not on death row at the time they were "released from death row with evidence of their innocence." Nor should anyone blindly accept the uncorroborated claims of death penalty opponents that all of those 21 are actually innocent.

Professor Marshall stated that "the exoneration is so complete that it erases any doubt whatsoever." If true, where is the independent, objective study which removes all doubt in 21-32 cases? It doesn't exist. Can death penalty opponents present, at least, a review wherein 21-32 cases have a consensus of opinion, whereby the evidence, the prosecutors, defense counsel and the appellate courts agree on the actual innocence issue? If so, it is no where to be found.

How many of those sentenced to death since 1973 have subsequently been released from death row because of actual innocence? It is likely between 15 and 30. 17 being the most realistic number, as it reflects findings in the three most thorough reviews -- Rakoff/Quinones, Campbell and the Florida Commission.

The 102 number means nothing, except as a ruse to fool the press and the public.

In a joint press release, dated May 7, 2002, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty stated:

"More than 100 people have now been released from death row due to actual innocence." (20)

Are such comments part of an organized deception or do they reflect willful ignorance?

THE MEDIA

With remarkably few exceptions, neither the media nor public policy makers have required death penalty opponents to support their claims or to define their standards.

In fact, the rule is that the media repeats exactly what anti death penalty sources tell them, without question and passes it along to their audience. This may be one of the worst "no fact checking" examples in journalistic history.

As previously suggested (21), possibly, in the future, both the media and policy makers may inquire:

-- For how many of these claims is there proof of actual innocence?
---Were those "innocents" completely unconnected to the murder?
---Were they on death row at the time their innocence was proven?
---Can you provide confirmable, independent support of these claims?
---What are the opinions by the district attorneys and the appellate courts for these claims?

All reasonable and necessary questions to ascertain the veracity of the claims.

Isn't it better to be clear and specific? As opposed to unclear, unsure and nebulous?

Does the number matter? Only if accuracy and truth are important in public policy decisions and media reports.

(NOTE -- The DPIC list is now over 102. Their claims are so misleading we have stopped updating at 102.)

II. The Risk to Innocents if We Don't Execute

We have overwhelming proof that living murderers harm and murder again, in prison, after improper release and, as we so recently experienced, after escape. No one disputes that living murderers are infinitely more likely to harm and murder again than are executed murderers. And, there is no proof of an innocent executed within the US since 1900.

Some supporters of a moratorium and death penalty opponents claim that a concern for innocents is why they want to halt executions. Yet, history and reason confirm that an end to executions will result in more innocents harmed and murdered.

Furthermore, any assertion that the death penalty is not a deterrent is false. Those studies not finding for deterrence do not say it doesn't exist. Those studies finding for deterrence state that is does. A statutory challenge caused a temporary halt to executions in Texas, in 1996. The result? "The [Texas] execution hiatus, therefore, appears to have spared few, if any, condemned prisoners while the citizens of Texas experienced a net 90 [up to 150) additional innocent lives lost to homicide. Politicians contemplating moratoriums may wish to consider the possibility that a seemingly innocuous moratorium on executions could very well come at a heavy cost." (22)

This is not surprising, as history, reason, common sense and the social sciences all support that the potential for negative consequences deters or alters the behavior of many, if not most.

Recently, at least three innocent people were murdered by escaped murderers. That is three more than we have proof for innocents executed since 1900.

At least 8% of those on death row had committed one or more murders prior to the murder(s) which put them on death row (23), suggesting that with 7,300 sentenced to death, since 1973, that those sent to death row had murdered at least 600 additional innocents after we failed to properly restrain them after their previous murder(s). Justice Department studies suggest that it is likely that some 2 million innocents have been harmed, 100,000 murdered, since 1973, by criminals while "supervised" by US criminal justice systems (parole, probation, mandatory release, furloughs, pre trial releases, etc.) (24).

In any review of criminal justice practices and their failings, we are looking at errors in judgment and procedure. Yet, with such catastrophic harm to innocents, coming from other criminal justice shortcomings, some have chosen to pursue a moratorium on executions -- a criminal justice practice lacking proof of an innocent killed, at least since 1900. Is the priority to protect innocent lives or to get rid of the death penalty? A review of criminal justice realities makes that an obvious question.

It currently takes nearly 12 years to execute those sentenced to death (25). And some elected officials are debating a moratorium on executions. Yet, under all debated scenarios, halting executions will put more innocents at risk.

III. Due Process and The Risk to Innocents

Protecting innocent defendants/inmates

Is there any other criminal sanction, anywhere in the world, where one might find a 99.6% guilt accuracy rate, after 30 years of biased, unverified review by opponents of that sanction, wherein all those allegedly innocents had been secured from their punishments by post conviction review?

The US Supreme Court has stated that those subject to the death penalty in the US receive super due process. It is easy to see why. From 1973-2001, 7096 people were sent to death row. 2523 of those cases, or 35.4%, were overturned on appeal or had their sentence commuted. 749, or 10.6%, were executed (26), after an average of over 10 years on death row (27). The time between sentencing and execution has risen from an average of 8 years in 1989 to nearly 12 years in 2001 (28).

Consideration of error, be it the actually innocent convicted or procedural, is why we have appeals and the commutation/clemency process. The system anticipates error and provides remedy. While the actually innocent convicted is a horrible result, in the subject cases, none have been executed.

Few dispute that death penalty cases have the greatest level of due process protections. Therefore, if your objection to execution is the possibility of irreversible error, such due process concludes that it is much more likely that an innocent sentenced to a life term will die, as an innocent in prison, than it is that an innocent will be executed. Both irreversible error, but one much more likely than the other.

It appears that the US death penalty is that criminal justice sanction which is the least likely to find the innocent guilty and the most likely to correct those rare errors upon post conviction review.

Sacrificing the innocent

The due process protections of the US death penalty are so extraordinary, that we have released over 2500 people from death row since 1973. Although no known study of the harm committed by those so taken off death row has been performed, there is no doubt that many innocents have been murdered or otherwise harmed by those so released.

One group of released death row inmates has been subject to limited review. When the US Supreme Court found in Furman v Georgia, in 1972, that the death penalty, as it was then enforced, was unconstitutional, all death row inmates had their death sentences commuted. It appears that some 12 innocents have been murdered by those Furman releasees, through 1987, in addition to other horrendous crimes committed by that same group. (still finalizing confirmation). We are unaware of any updated review covering the next 15 years, through 2002.

This is not an argument against super due process, but a recognition of one reality of it.

Such due process provides unparalleled protection for the actually innocent, extraordinary generosity to guilty murderers -- relief that turns into suffering for those innocents harmed by those spared murderers.

IV. OK to Execute the Innocent?

Some death penalty opponents have wrongly interpreted that the US Supreme Court decision in Herrera v Collins (113 S. Ct. 853, 870{1993}) found that executing the innocent was quite all right.

"Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor's concurring opinion makes clear that Herrera does not stand for that proposition. Justice O'Connor stated, I cannot disagree with the fundamental legal principal that executing the innocent is inconsistent with the Constitution and the execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event. As Justice O'Connor stated, the Court assumed for the sake of argument that a truly persuasive demonstration of actual innocence would render any such execution unconstitutional and that federal habeas relief would be warranted if no state avenue were open to process the claim. Id., at 874. That is the holding in Herrera, and any claim to the contrary is simply not correct." (Kenneth S. Nunnelley's Congressional testimony, July 23, 1993)

V. Future innocence considerations

The DPIC alleges that 12 of their 102 "innocents" were proven actually innocent because their DNA screenings were negative. Based upon the DPIC's standards, we cannot be sure of all such innocent claims because, in some of the cases, "Non-matching DNA is consistent with the prosecution's theory of multiple perpetrators" (29) and, therefore, may not signify innocence.

In any future cases, where DNA is determinative of guilt or innocence, any such innocent cases will never go to trial. For many reasons, including DNA testing, the US death penalty, is much safer today than it has ever been.

As the best predictor of future performance is past performance, what will the future risk to innocents be?

Based upon the evidence we have today, using anti death penalty standards and their uncorroborated claims, with the next 7300 death sentences given, nationwide, we may sentence 3-18 actually innocent persons to death, or about 0.2%, (30) and the alleged innocent will all be taken off death row via post conviction review or, otherwise, not be executed. What this doesn't take into account is that many jurisdictions have, for quite some time, already raised the qualification level for defense counsel and prosecutors and some also require two defense attorneys to be appointed in capital cases.

Almost without exception, those few highly publicized death penalty cases, which have caused great public rancor, were prosecuted 15-25 years ago. More recent cases are much less likely to provoke controversy or false claims of innocence. Why? There is a higher quality of prosecution and defense in these cases and new death penalty law, which began after Furman v Georgia (1972), is more settled than it had been from 1973-1987.

Finally, a review of many of those earlier highly publicized cases revealed that many of the anti-death penalty claims were and are either false or deceptive. (31)

VI. The Innocent Executed

It is not at all uncommon for death penalty opponents to make false claims about innocents executed. As of 1/1/03, The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) claims that "Twenty three (23) innocent people have been mistakenly executed (in the US) this (the 20th) century." (32) This is a common false claim, even though the authors of that 1987 study, in response to a deconstruction of their work, stated, in 1988, that "We agree with our critics that we have not proved these (23) executed defendants to be innocent; we never claimed that we had." (33). The NCADP is well aware of this, yet it doesn't stop their deception.

Barry Scheck, cofounder of the Innocence Project and featured speaker at the National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty (11/13-15/98), stated that he had no proof of an innocent executed (in the US since 1976) (34).

Not even the nation's leading, biased source for anti death penalty information, the DPIC, says there is proof of an innocent executed. They list 5 "doubt" cases (35): Gary Graham, Joseph O'Dell, Roger Keith Coleman, Leo Jones and David Spence. A review shows how deceptive the DPIC case descriptions are (36) and how lacking any proof of innocence is.

The Texas case of Lionel Herrera, like others, nationally, has been labeled, by many death penalty opponents, as an innocent executed. I believe that Herrera, once upon a time, was also included in a previous incarnation of the DPIC list. A comment from Supreme Court Justice O'Connor. "[T]he proper disposition of this case is neither difficult nor troubling . . . The record overwhelmingly demonstrates that petitioner [Herrera] deliberately shot and killed Officers Rucker and Carrisalez the night of September 29, 1981; petitioner's new evidence is bereft of credibility. Indeed, despite its stinging criticism of the Court's decision, not even the dissent expresses a belief that petitioner might possibly be actually innocent." Herrera v. Collins, 506 US 390, 421(1993) (O'Connor, J., concurring)

Of all the world's social and governmental institutions, that do put innocents at risk, I am aware of only one, the US death penalty, that has no proof of an innocent killed since 1900. Can you name another?

VII. Conclusion

No one disputes that an innocent sentenced to death is a horrible result. Appeals and commutation/clemency deliberations are an integral and inescapable part of a criminal justice system that both anticipate error and provide remedy. Both sides of the death penalty debate are equally concerned about the moral implication of executing an innocent. Those of us who support execution recognize that any innocents sentenced to death or executed injure our position.

A concern for the innocent will result in a rejection of a moratorium and more support for executions. Either by a moratorium, or by outright repeal, stopping executions will always put many more innocents at risk. Death penalty opponents knows this. Their alleged concern for innocents is but another distortion based campaign to end the death penalty.

When reason and all the facts prevail, support for executions will rise.

copyright 1998-2004 Dudley Sharp






There is tons more stuff arguing about " innocence " . Not one person has been proven to have been executed wrongly in the recent history of the death penalty in the US . Maybe not ever ..I didnt look back further than the 1930's .
Its getting easier with modern forensics to determine guilt and the standard of evidence is getting higher so it will be harder than ever to kill the wrong person .

Since Gary Gilmore on January 17, 1977 said "let's do it" over 700 persons have been executed by various means around the country. Twenty-five of those case are identified below as having occurred despite reasonable doubts as to the guilt of the person executed In half of those cases the evidence suggests more than a reasonable doubt, but the likelihood, and in six cases, a strong likelihood, of an innocent person having been executed.
http://capitaldefenseweekly.com/25casesdraft.html
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Outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan will be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. We're thrilled. For the other side and some major grumps about it, see Archpundit and Bloviator.

Ryan was nominated for his "crusade against what is clearly a racist and class-based death penalty system here in Illinois" by Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois law school in Champaign. Since Illinois resumed capital punishment in 1977, 12 people have been executed and 13 other death sentences were overturned. In the 13 cases, evidence showed some of the defendants were innocent; in others, courts ruled that they received unfair trials. Ryan declared a moratorium in 2000 and appointed a commission to study the system, report on what went wrong and make recommendations to restore fairness to the system.
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001274.html
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Did Missouri execute an innocent man? Larry Griffin was executed in 1995 for a drive-by shooting. Yesterday, a report was issued by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund demonstrating the likelihood that he was factually innocent of the crime. The Circuit Attorney's office has agreed to reopen the investigation.
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011463.html
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On January 31, Illinois Governor George Ryan (R), a death penalty supporter, put a hold on executions in the state after 13 inmates on death row had their convictions overturned. Since the state reestablished the death penalty in 1977, Illinois has released more prisoners from death row after proof of their innocence than it has put to death?13 overturned convictions and 12 executions. In recent years, journalists rather than lawyers in the system have been largely responsible for pursuing the exculpatory evidence. A Northwestern University journalism professor and his graduate students conducted investigations resulting in the overturning of three murder convictions, one of them days before the scheduled execution.
http://speakout.com/activism/issue_briefs/1231b-1.html
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03/16/05 -- After 10 years real murderer caught, but local authorities still say case closed -- On January 18th of this year, the police in Xingyang County, Henan arrested a suspicious character. In the course of interrogation, this man divulged the corpus delicti from the murder and rape of four women in the Guangping area of Hebei Province. On January 19th, the man, named Wang Shujin, was extradited back to Guangping. When he was later escorted to the crime scene in the suburbs* of Shijiazhuang, police learned from the victim’s coworkers that the murder committed by Wang Shujin had already been "solved" by local authorities in the same year that it had happened; the "murder-rapist" Nie Shubin had been executed 10 years earlier.
http://www.pressinterpreter.org/node/97
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The recent discovered DNA evidence proves that Paul Gregory House did NOT rape Carolyn Muncey immediately before her 1985 murder in Union County, Tennessee. Speaking at a Tennessee Bar Association dinner in September 2002, Senior Judge Gilbert S. Merritt referred to House’s case when he “called the death penalty ''by far the most difficult, time-consuming, frustrating and critical joint problem (judges) have to grapple with on a daily basis.”

E. Hutchison has an execution date set for March 11, 2004. WE NEED YOUR HELP! Seven men were convicted in the 1988 murder of Hugh Huddleston in Campbell County, Tennessee. Olen E. Hutchison was sentenced to Death while the admitted killers are FREE or will be eligible for parole.
http://www.dprc.us/
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The recent pardon of Lena Baker, the Cuthbert maid who became the first woman to be electrocuted in Georgia’s electric chair approximately 60 years ago, has spurred the creation of a one-woman play, “Who Will Sing for Lena?”

The pardon was granted posthumously to Baker on Aug. 30, 2005, admitting that she was wrongfully executed, Cole Vodicka said.
http://www.americustimesrecorder.com/content/1/7200/2005+FreedomWalk+to+commemorate+life+of+wrongfully+executed+black+maid+Lena+Bakerhtm
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Cameron Willingham, of Navarro County in East Texas, was put to death on February 17, 2004 for his alleged role in a fire that led to the deaths of his three young children in 1991. To his death, he maintained his innocence, stating, "I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do."

As the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony last week from Willingham's lawyer and a fire expert familiar with the case, the possibility that an innocent man had been executed became a frighteningly disturbing reality. Willingham's last words were not unique; in fact many maintain their innocence until the bitter end.

They are especially resonant, however, because it is clear that he was sentenced to die based on fire forensics that have since been disproved. Many had concluded this long before the new committee had heard any testimony. Yet, in light of these revelations, Gov. Rick Perry refused to grant Willingham a stay of execution. Now, as the panel reexamines the case, its severely limited capabilities give little comfort to those who knew Willingham and seek the truth about the tragic fire.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2005/04/26/Opinion/Texas.Possible.Wrongful.Execution-937355.shtml
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The executed men identified as innocent are Brian K. Baldwin, Cornelius Singleton and Freddie Lee Wright of Alabama; Thomas M. Thompson of California; James Adams, Willie Darden and Jesse Tafero of Florida; Girvies Davis of Illinois; Griffin and Roy Roberts of Missouri; Odell Barnes, Robert N. Drew, Gary Graham, Richard W. Jones and Frank B. McFarland of Texas; and Roger K. Coleman of Virginia.
http://www.truthinjustice.org/prob-innocent.htm
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The conference brought together twenty-eight women and men who had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for murders they had not committed. Only through the efforts of volunteers, activists, family members, and independent research, were the prisoners freed
http://www.free-termpapers.com/tp/26/lfm80.shtml
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In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Since that time, 870 people have been executed. More startling than this, however, is that 112 people have been released from Death Row for reasonable doubt about their guilt.
http://www.dailycampus.com/media/paper340/news/2004/02/03/Commentary/The-Truth.Behind.Capital.Punishment-595845.shtml

Hmmm She seems to aggree with you somewhat .
I do believe that one would have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to wade through all of what is offered in PDF, besides, I don't think her numbers hold up to simple scrutiny? Take Texas for an example. In 2000, the murder rate was 5.9 per 100,000, and between 2000 and 2003, there have been 110 executions and yet the murder rate has increased to 6.4 per 100,000.

I believe pictures are worth 1,000 words and I think this picture shows the benefits for not having the death penalty:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/DeterMRates3.GIF

Also, in case you missed it, as you obviously did, murder rates are dropping faster overall in death penalty states than non death penalty states, though there are other things that can explain this, as Brancin, who actually has an idea of what he's talking about, pointed out. You haven't been here long enough to catch up to this debate. You're coming in way too late.
Came in too late? This is same old, same old. I have been debating this topic ever since I first started posting here in Feb, 2004. The facts keep getting bandied about but it is clear to me that the death penalty has no deterrent affect on the murder rate. Also, the other factors to consider:

1. It costs more to execute someone than to keep them in jail for life.

2. Too many innocents have been convicted of murder.

3. Morally, it is not right for the State to kill people to demonstrate that killing people is wrong.

Came in too late? This is same old, same old. I have been debating this topic ever since I first started posting here in Feb, 2004. The facts keep getting bandied about but it is clear to me that the death penalty has no deterrent affect on the murder rate. Also, the other factors to consider:

1. It costs more to execute someone than to keep them in jail for life.

2. Too many innocents have been convicted of murder.

3. Morally, it is not right for the State to kill people to demonstrate that killing people is wrong.

It may not be a general deterrent, but it is a pretty effective specific deterrent. Noone that's been executed has ever harmed another human being.

F.B.I profiler John Douglas said something very similar to this. Very true.

:headbang: Just a point here... I can't think of one murderer who was exocuted that ever killed again. Hence the death penalty deters repeat offenders, which if you do your homework, are a major problem. :headbang:

People who commit murder, depending on the nature and number of offences, have forfeited their right to be treated as a human because they ignored other people's human rights. Repeat offenders are definitely high on my list of capital punishment, whereas others should at least be given life sentences, where it really is a life sentence, and they should do somethin useful, such as run on a treadmill all day to generate electricity, etc.

'Not one person has been proven to have been executed wrongly in the recent history of the death penalty in the US . Maybe not ever ..I didnt look back further than the 1930's .
Its getting easier with modern forensics to determine guilt and the standard of evidence is getting higher so it will be harder than ever to kill the wrong person'
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'It may not be a general deterrent, but it is a pretty effective specific deterrent. Noone that's been executed has ever harmed another human being.'
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'I can't think of one murderer who was exocuted that ever killed again. Hence the death penalty deters repeat offenders, which if you do your homework, are a major problem'
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'People who commit murder, depending on the nature and number of offences, have forfeited their right to be treated as a human............where it really is a life sentence, and they should do somethin useful, such as run on a treadmill all day to generate electricity, etc.
---------------------------------------------

How can one possibly argue with people with minds like these?
The first is just plain, plain wrong and ignores all the evidence contrary to his opinion.
The second makes a stupid and unhelpful comment.
Third adds to the general ignorance and stupidity.
Fourth makes the tired old 'treat 'em as sub-human shit' though less offencively than the majority of blood-lusters on this thread.

People who commit murder, depending on the nature and number of offences, have forfeited their right to be treated as a human because they ignored other people's human rights. Repeat offenders are definitely high on my list of capital punishment, whereas others should at least be given life sentences, where it really is a life sentence, and they should do somethin useful, such as run on a treadmill all day to generate electricity, etc.

None can lost his human rights 'cause they cannot avoid being humans, it's not a moral judgement but a fact. They don't see others like people, that's why they can kill, but ALL are humans beings and take their rights away became us in something similar to them. If not, let's hang over all the military Staff, they are the bigger killers in the History.

And if we're talking about stop criminality, lets ban the weapons, that's really useful for that purpouse. :sniper: And I agree with life penalties but just in case we cannot recuperate them to society. I'm sorry, I think the best for the society it's not to punish but to reintegrate. Anyway, I recognise we don't really do it.

Finally, I prefer one thousand guilty criminals alive (better if in jail) than just one innocent death :confused:

'Not one person has been proven to have been executed wrongly in the recent history of the death penalty in the US . Maybe not ever ..I didnt look back further than the 1930's .
Its getting easier with modern forensics to determine guilt and the standard of evidence is getting higher so it will be harder than ever to kill the wrong person'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'It may not be a general deterrent, but it is a pretty effective specific deterrent. Noone that's been executed has ever harmed another human being.'
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'I can't think of one murderer who was exocuted that ever killed again. Hence the death penalty deters repeat offenders, which if you do your homework, are a major problem'
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'People who commit murder, depending on the nature and number of offences, have forfeited their right to be treated as a human............where it really is a life sentence, and they should do somethin useful, such as run on a treadmill all day to generate electricity, etc.
---------------------------------------------

How can one possibly argue with people with minds like these?
The first is just plain, plain wrong and ignores all the evidence contrary to his opinion.
The second makes a stupid and unhelpful comment.
Third adds to the general ignorance and stupidity.
Fourth makes the tired old 'treat 'em as sub-human shit' though less offencively than the majority of blood-lusters on this thread.
Yup, pretty hard to debate with those individuals. Chances are that they don't really want to debate because their minds are set to the closed position.

The death penalty is immoral and barbaric. IF the death penalty was truly a deterrent, then the murder rate in States with the death penalty would plummet, and this is clearly not the case.

'It may not be a general deterrent, but it is a pretty effective specific deterrent. Noone that's been executed has ever harmed another human being.'

Number one: I was paraphrasing someone with experience in the field of law enforcement. Number two: I was replying to another comment, which stated that it isn't a deterrent at all. So don't call me ignorant.

I also have not given one statement demonstrating whether or not I believe in the death penalty. So don't put words into my mouth.

I also have not given one statement demonstrating whether or not I believe in the death penalty. So don't put words into my mouth.
Well... To avoid further confusion... are you for or against the death penalty?

'Not one person has been proven to have been executed wrongly in the recent history of the death penalty in the US . Maybe not ever ..I didnt look back further than the 1930's .
Its getting easier with modern forensics to determine guilt and the standard of evidence is getting higher so it will be harder than ever to kill the wrong person'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'It may not be a general deterrent, but it is a pretty effective specific deterrent. Noone that's been executed has ever harmed another human being.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'I can't think of one murderer who was exocuted that ever killed again. Hence the death penalty deters repeat offenders, which if you do your homework, are a major problem'
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'People who commit murder, depending on the nature and number of offences, have forfeited their right to be treated as a human............where it really is a life sentence, and they should do somethin useful, such as run on a treadmill all day to generate electricity, etc.
---------------------------------------------

How can one possibly argue with people with minds like these?
The first is just plain, plain wrong and ignores all the evidence contrary to his opinion.
The second makes a stupid and unhelpful comment.
Third adds to the general ignorance and stupidity.
Fourth makes the tired old 'treat 'em as sub-human shit' though less offencively than the majority of blood-lusters on this thread.

I ignore it because it doesnt exist . You show me " evidence " that says there is doubt ! WTF kind of evidence is that ? Its someones OPINION ! Show me were it has been PROVEN . IN COURT by an impartial jury . Or lacking that show me the group of people who have investigated it and subjected their findings to peer review and have had it excepted . Your " evidence " doesnt exist so I can feel free to ignore it . Its like the creationist making up friggin ID design and saying its science . Its bullshit . Show proof .
Real honest proof ...not it seems to true shit .

I posted a full page of peer reviewed studys that back the detterent value of the death penalty and showed statistics and other evidence to back this claim . Talk about ignoring evidence ? I see the pot calling the kettle black here .

IF the death penalty was truly a deterrent, then the murder rate in States with the death penalty would plummet

And you base this assumption on what experiance or study ? This statement is bullshit . Again you ignore evidence to the contrary . People have decided not to commit the crime of murder because they do not want to die themselves . Its as simple as that . YOU on the other hand are stuck trying to prove something that go's against all logic and common sense . You are trying to prove that NO ONE IS DETTERRED FROM COMMITING MURDER BY THE THOUGHT OF BEING KILLED . Its that simple . You are selling snake oil .
FEW will buy it .

When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and
states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates
higher than non-death penalty states. The average murder rate per
100,000 population in 1997 among death penalty states was 6.6, the
average murder rate among non-death penalty states was only 3.5. A look
at neighboring death penalty and non-death penalty states show similar
trends. Death penalty states usually have a higher murder rate than
their neighboring non-death penalty states. "




here are just two reputable studys...I guess the link dosnt work ?
You can go back to pg 23 there are many more ..and you say I ignore evidence ????

Cass R. Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
Working Paper 05-06 (March 2005)
http://aei-brookings.org/admin/auth...age.php?id=1131


Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many as eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context, because government is a special kind of moral agent. The familiar problems with capital punishment – potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew – do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in capital punishment may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat “statistical lives” with the seriousness that they deserve.




• PUBLISHED RESEARCH

Joanna M. Shepherd, Clemson University
Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment
Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 283-322 (June 2004)
http://people.clemson.edu/~jshephe/DPpaper_fin.pdf

Abstract: I examine two important questions in the capital punishment literature: what kinds of murders are deterred and what effect the length of the death-row wait has on deterrence? To answer these questions, I analyze data unused in the capital punishment literature: monthly murder and execution data. Monthly data measure deterrence better than the annual data used in earlier capital punishment papers for two reasons: it is impossible to see monthly murder fluctuations in annual data and only monthly data allow a model in which criminals update their perceived execution risk frequently. Results from least squares and negative binomial estimations indicate that capital punishment does deter: each execution results in, on average, three fewer murders. In addition, capital punishment deters murders previously believed to be undeterrable: crimes of passion and murders by intimates. Moreover, murders of both black and white victims decrease after executions. This suggests that, even if the application of capital punishment is racist, the benefits of capital punishment are not. However, longer waits on death row before execution lessen the deterrence. Specifically, one less murder is committed for every 2.75-years reduction in death row waits. Thus, recent legislation to shorten the wait on death row should strengthen capital punishment's deterrent effect.

I believe in the death penalty for some crimes, under certain circumstances (Leonard Lake and Charles Ng are just a couple of names that come glaringly into mind). However, the majority of the crimes that are capital offences in the states are not crimes for which I believe the death penalty should be administered.

It is my belief that when excessive, unusually cruel methods are used to murder, only for pleasure (of any kind), and the crimes can be proved to undoubtedly be committed by the person in question (Lake and Ng for instance videotaped themselves committing sexual torture and murder), then the death penalty should be administered.

1. It costs more to execute someone than to keep them in jail for life.


Not true. The ridiculous policy of repeat appeals, legal costs attendant on retrail, and prolonged incarceration cost a great deal. A simple lethal injection is not that expensive.

Solution: Be sure about the crime before you sentence, and allow NO appeals.


2. Too many innocents have been convicted of murder.


And too many offenders have RE-OFFENDED.


3. Morally, it is not right for the State to kill people to demonstrate that killing people is wrong.

Why? By which morality?

'Not one person has been proven to have been executed wrongly in the recent history of the death penalty in the US . Maybe not ever ..I didnt look back further than the 1930's .
Its getting easier with modern forensics to determine guilt and the standard of evidence is getting higher so it will be harder than ever to kill the wrong person'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'It may not be a general deterrent, but it is a pretty effective specific deterrent. Noone that's been executed has ever harmed another human being.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'I can't think of one murderer who was exocuted that ever killed again. Hence the death penalty deters repeat offenders, which if you do your homework, are a major problem'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'People who commit murder, depending on the nature and number of offences, have forfeited their right to be treated as a human............where it really is a life sentence, and they should do somethin useful, such as run on a treadmill all day to generate electricity, etc.
---------------------------------------------

How can one possibly argue with people with minds like these?
The first is just plain, plain wrong and ignores all the evidence contrary to his opinion.
The second makes a stupid and unhelpful comment.
Third adds to the general ignorance and stupidity.
Fourth makes the tired old 'treat 'em as sub-human shit' though less offencively than the majority of blood-lusters on this thread.

Sorry, my friend, but your 'liking' or 'disliking' these points actually has no bearing at all, on whether they are valid.

From my point of view, the Death Penalty is VERY useful, in stopping re-offence. One might go so far as to say it is worthwhile JUST for that, alone.

And, while you might not like the fourth point, our society has certain 'rights', which it allows to it's citizens... Contingent upon the fact that OTHER rights are not infringed.

So - for example, if you infringe the rights of another not to be physically abused, you can have your right to liberty revoked, by society... i.e. incarceration.

I'd argue that, if you abuse the more 'important' rights we allow in society, you revoke the assurance society allows to YOU... why SHOULD the state/society tolerate someone who abuses the most base 'rights' of other people?

It makes sense that, if you abuse another's 'right to life', you may forfeit your OWN right to that same value.

Not true. The ridiculous policy of repeat appeals, legal costs attendant on retrail, and prolonged incarceration cost a great deal. A simple lethal injection is not that expensive.

Solution: Be sure about the crime before you sentence, and allow NO appeals.


What kind of stupid ass argument is that? Five minute trial, then you get shot in the head, we charge your family for the cost of the execution?


Appeals are in place for a reason. Jury trials are notorious for getting things dead wrong, especially over minutae of law, and often jury instructions/bench rulings are flat out wrong (you'd be surprised how much crap judges have said over the years in bad jury instructions).

What kind of stupid ass argument is that?


Just because you don't agree, or don't 'like' my argument, does NOT mean it is a 'stupid ass' argument. merely, that you don't agree.

Don't forget yourself, and assume that your own opinion is somehow 'better' than any other one.


Five minute trial, then you get shot in the head, we charge your family for the cost of the execution?


Strawman. I said nothing about 'five minute trial', or getting 'shot in the head'. I certainly did not say that we should charge the family for the cost of the execution... although it's an interesting concept, since you raise it.

I said, specifically, that the Death Penalty should only ever be used as the sentence where it was beyond doubt. So - you have 8000 witnesses to a murder, for example - or you catch the rapist still active in his crime.

I said nothing about 'durations' of trial... just how SURE you should be.

And, I believe I specified Lethal Injection, in my argument.


Appeals are in place for a reason.


Mainly, fear. That a mistake might have been made. Or - because they are convenient to one party present.

If you are sure, 'beyond shadow of a doubt', that the perpetrator is guilty... what purpose does an appeal serve?

It merely wastes time and money.


Jury trials are notorious for getting things dead wrong,


So - now you advocate removing the jury?


especially over minutae of law, and often jury instructions/bench rulings are flat out wrong (you'd be surprised how much crap judges have said over the years in bad jury instructions).

We are not talking 'minutae'... we are talking "Fred shot Bob in the face, at point blank range"...."here is exhibit A, footage of Fred shooting Bob"..."here is exhibit B, Fred ADMITTING he shot Bob"... "Here is exhibit C, Fred's sister, who stood next to him, and WATCHED him shoot Bob"...

We aren't talking the 'finer points of law'. We are talking about a sentence awarded for a crime, with no DOUBT about guilt. Which is, of course, what our courts should be doing ALL the time.

I couldnt read all of the data etc. it was just too much and I am sure it is very valuable and informative but if we have dna evidence and such it should no longer be much doubt if that person was there and did the deed and therefore should be put to death. I have no compassion for someone who shoots babies , molests children (child molestation should be a capital crime and hopefully soon in AL. we will have that), stabs, poisons, runs over, tortures,and anyother form of killing another for whatever reason except survival should lose his or her life. NO excuses are acceptable for murder. Why do you want them to life -they are worthless scum not worthy of breathing and wasting our air !! I am supportive or the appeals process but mainly for logical appeals not procedural (uh he mispelled my name, there isnt a 2 in my address etc.) Every convicted capital killer is automatically given a writ of cercerari(sp.) to the US. supreme court. This is taken very seriously by the courts and this is why it takes so long. If you kill someone to get your jollies I hope you get the death penalty because you deserve it.

Just because you don't agree, or don't 'like' my argument, does NOT mean it is a 'stupid ass' argument. merely, that you don't agree.

Don't forget yourself, and assume that your own opinion is somehow 'better' than any other one.

Caesar, remember thou art mortal :rolleyes:




Strawman. I said nothing about 'five minute trial', or getting 'shot in the head'. I certainly did not say that we should charge the family for the cost of the execution... although it's an interesting concept, since you raise it.

Absolutely not a strawman. You advocate removing the appeals process. By extension, trials can be made to be five minutes long, with an instant punishment, and it can't be appealed.

I said, specifically, that the Death Penalty should only ever be used as the sentence where it was beyond doubt. So - you have 8000 witnesses to a murder, for example - or you catch the rapist still active in his crime.

Which is the entire point of the appeals process: to be sure that crime was beyond doubt.

I said nothing about 'durations' of trial... just how SURE you should be.

And, I believe I specified Lethal Injection, in my argument.

Lethal injection, bullet in the head, same thing.

Mainly, fear. That a mistake might have been made. Or - because they are convenient to one party present.

If you are sure, 'beyond shadow of a doubt', that the perpetrator is guilty... what purpose does an appeal serve?

It merely wastes time and money.

Wrong. If that was true, no one would ever have a sentance overturned on appeal. And yet, it seems to happen all the time. Even people who have gone through the appeals process have been found to be innocent later because of DNA testing.



So - now you advocate removing the jury?

I advocate an appeals process to catch jury instruction errors. They happen quite a bit.


We are not talking 'minutae'... we are talking "Fred shot Bob in the face, at point blank range"...."here is exhibit A, footage of Fred shooting Bob"..."here is exhibit B, Fred ADMITTING he shot Bob"... "Here is exhibit C, Fred's sister, who stood next to him, and WATCHED him shoot Bob"...

We aren't talking the 'finer points of law'. We are talking about a sentence awarded for a crime, with no DOUBT about guilt. Which is, of course, what our courts should be doing ALL the time.
Good. You should have no problem then getting the appeals turned down. However, almost no cases are that plain and simple. When you're dealing with a person's life, no amount of money is too much to make sure. One innocent killed is worse then a few dozen sentances commuted to life.

If you dont have a death penalty what do you do with a prisoner serving a life sentence that kills a guard ? Or another inmate ?

If you dont have a death penalty what do you do with a prisoner serving a life sentence that kills a guard ? Or another inmate ?
Solitary.

Well, that and the financial argument, I'm afraid.

Although it is a sad sign for any society to choose one's wallet before human life.

Oh, yes. Please, don't quickly and painlessly kill the SERIAL KILLER/RAPIST!

But go ahead and kill that baby.

You people sicken me. I have concluded that the quickest way to make the world a better place would be to

EXECUTE!

all of you.

:eek: :sniper:

Oh, yes. Please, don't quickly and painlessly kill the SERIAL KILLER/RAPIST!

But go ahead and kill that baby.

You people sicken me. I have concluded that the quickest way to make the world a better place would be to

EXECUTE!

all of you.

:eek: :sniper:
Hint: That's a bannable offense.

Came in too late? This is same old, same old. I have been debating this topic ever since I first started posting here in Feb, 2004. The facts keep getting bandied about but it is clear to me that the death penalty has no deterrent affect on the murder rate.

I'm glad it's clear to you. That simply means the world to me.

1. It costs more to execute someone than to keep them in jail for life.

And that's a fault of the justice system, not of the death penalty.

2. Too many innocents have been convicted of murder.

And in recent history, all mistakes have been caught, and the number of wrongly convicted people has been decreasing most quickly by the decade.

3. Morally, it is not right for the State to kill people to demonstrate that killing people is wrong.

And that is wholly opinion. I believe that, morally, it is not right for the criminal to suffer a lesser fate than the victim.

Solitary.
Cruel and unusual punishment . Not constitutional . Solitary can only be used for so long. The prisoner still has contact with the guards. He must be given excercise . He can still kill some more . He can kill until he dies . He can HIRE other inmates to kill for him . As long as he lives he is a threat . You can give him 100 life sentences it wont stop him from conspiring to commit or commiting murder rape , assault and whatever other crime can be thought of and commited while in jail .

And that is wholly opinion. I believe that, morally, it is not right for the criminal to suffer a lesser fate than the victim.
So, in the end, it all comes down to this. It doesn't matter whether executions cost more, or that innocent people get convicted, or even if the death penalty is a deterrent? To you, the most important objective is societal revenge? The rest of your argument is just filler.

Society will be the judge and the jury and the State executioner will carry out the "judgment of the people"?

We will pass on to our children the thought that the only good killing is the killing of people who have killed other people?

This is why I state that it is an immoral practice.

IF the death penalty was truly a deterrent, then the murder rate in States with the death penalty would plummet

And you base this assumption on what experiance or study ? This statement is bullshit . Again you ignore evidence to the contrary . People have decided not to commit the crime of murder because they do not want to die themselves . Its as simple as that . YOU on the other hand are stuck trying to prove something that go's against all logic and common sense . You are trying to prove that NO ONE IS DETTERRED FROM COMMITING MURDER BY THE THOUGHT OF BEING KILLED . Its that simple . You are selling snake oil . FEW will buy it .

I am confused. You disagree with my statement?

I am confused. You disagree with my statement?

Yes I do . If the death penalty " only" reduces murders by three people , if only three innocent victims were saved . Is the death penalty worth it ? If it dropped the murder rate by 12 % or less ..was it worth it ? Why would the statistics for murder " plummet " ? Or would it be ok if only the type of murders that qualify for the death penalty..instead of "joe shot ziggy in a drug dispute" type of routine murder , "plummeted " .

I grant you one thing , you are confused .

Yes I do . If the death penalty " only" reduces murders by three people , if only three innocent victims were saved . Is the death penalty worth it ? If it dropped the murder rate by 12 % or less ..was it worth it ? Why would the statistics for murder " plummet " ? Or would it be ok if only the type of murders that qualify for the death penalty..instead of "joe shot ziggy in a drug dispute" type of routine murder , "plummeted " .

I grant you one thing , you are confused .
Oh, make no mistake, when it comes to confusion, it was with your reply and your posting of study after study that suggests that the death penalty acts as a deterrent, and then you balk when I suggest that murder rates would plummet IF the death penalty was truly a deterrent.

The "studies" that you posted, suggest a deterrence factor of anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10 to 18 (no consistency) less murders per execution, yet these numbers seem to fly in the face of reality (see Post # 338 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9670702&postcount=338)). Can you explain the growing gap of murder rates in States with and without the death penalty? Can you explain why Texas, a State that has regular executions, has an increased murder rate that bucks the national trend?

The death penalty should be abolished. Capital punishment is immoral and barbaric in nature, and sends the wrong message to our youth.

You know, it's kind of funny that the religious right, for the most part, support the death penalty, even after their messiah was executed by the state.

Hanging, electric chair, gas, lethal injection, none deter murder. Fact.


THE DEATH PENALTY HAS NO BENEFICIAL EFFECT ON MURDER RATES:
“I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.”
- U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno (January 21, 2000)

* Recent studies in Oklahoma and California failed to find that capital punishment had a deterrent effect on violent crime and, in fact, found a significant increase in stranger killings and homicide rates after the death penalty had been reinstated. (William Bailey, “Deterrence, Brutalization, and the Death Penalty,” Criminology, 1998; Ernie Thompson, “Effects of an Execution on Homicides in California.” Homicide Studies, 1999)
* The murder rate in Canada has dropped by 40% since the death penalty was abolished in that country in 1976. (Amnesty International)
* A Texas study determined in 1999 that there was no relation between the number of executions and murder rates in general. (Victoria Brewer, Robert Wrinkle, John Sorenson and James Marquart)
* A New York Times survey demonstrated that homicide rate in states with capital punishment have been 48% to 101% higher than those without the death penalty. (Raymond Bonner and Ford Fessenden, “Absence of Executions,” New York Times, September 22, 2000)
* The five countries with the highest homicide rates that do not impose the death penalty average 21.6 murders per 100,000 people. The five countries with the highest homicide rate that do impose the death penalty average 41.6 murders for every 100,000 people. (United Nations Development Program)

screw them, they've have their chance at life than they fucked it up by killing someone else, its called the death penalty, not the death penalty for prevention of any further murders. Also you cant compare countries to other countries would you compare the murder rates of Chicago with a city like Sydney? No, those studies are bs.

screw them, they've have their chance at life than they fucked it up by killing someone else, its called the death penalty, not the death penalty for prevention of any further murders. Also you cant compare countries to other countries would you compare the murder rates of Chicago with a city like Sydney? No, those studies are bs. Sorry, I missed it… what was the point of killing them, did you say? I mean, is there actually a point to killing them, when there are far safer alternatives that are just as cheap?

If the state executes an innocent person, it is at least guilty of manslaughter.

Oh, make no mistake, when it comes to confusion, it was with your reply and your posting of study after study that suggests that the death penalty acts as a deterrent, and then you balk when I suggest that murder rates would plummet IF the death penalty was truly a deterrent.

The "studies" that you posted, suggest a deterrence factor of anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10 to 18 (no consistency) less murders per execution, yet these numbers seem to fly in the face of reality (see Post # 338 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9670702&postcount=338)). Can you explain the growing gap of murder rates in States with and without the death penalty? Can you explain why Texas, a State that has regular executions, has an increased murder rate that bucks the national trend?

The death penalty should be abolished. Capital punishment is immoral and barbaric in nature, and sends the wrong message to our youth.

Here's the thing . I do not have to convince anyone . My state has the death penalty and the people that live here wont vote to abolish it , nor will they elect a candidate that wishes to abolish it (the death penalty ) . You on the other hand think it should be abolished . I think the burden of proof is yours . You need to convince people against common sense that the death penalty is not a detterent . I do not have to preach to the choir . Its already accepted thats its a deterent .


You did not answer the question . Is the death penalty worth having it it only deters three people a year from murder ? If not whats the cut off point to save innocent victims ? How many people must die to make it worth it ?

Try to answer intead of evading .

Here's the thing . I do not have to convince anyone . My state has the death penalty and the people that live here wont vote to abolish it , nor will they elect a candidate that wishes to abolish it (the death penalty ) . You on the other hand think it should be abolished . I think the burden of proof is yours . You need to convince people against common sense that the death penalty is not a detterent . I do not have to preach to the choir . Its already accepted thats its a deterent .


You did not answer the question . Is the death penalty worth having it it only deters three people a year from murder ? If not whats the cut off point to save innocent victims ? How many people must die to make it worth it ?

Try to answer intead of evading .
I did answer the question, and based on the data that I have seen (death penalty does not deter murder), it is an emphatical NO!!

So, in the end, it all comes down to this. It doesn't matter whether executions cost more, or that innocent people get convicted, or even if the death penalty is a deterrent? To you, the most important objective is societal revenge? The rest of your argument is just filler.

Stop putting words in my mouth. I was just pointing our how fucking worthless moral opinion is in this debate, as the "morally correct" point of view is wholly a matter of opinion, making the last point you made the worst of the points you made. I already explained why the other points you made were stupid, but you ignored me and repeated them. Morals has nothing to do with this for me, you're the one that brought it up. By your logic, to you, the most important objective is societal forgiveness, and the rest of your argument is just filler. That's a fucking retarded statement to make.

Its already accepted thats its a deterent .It was also already accepted that the sun revolved around the earth. Acceptance != correctness.


You did not answer the question . Is the death penalty worth having it it only deters three people a year from murder ? If not whats the cut off point to save innocent victims ? How many people must die to make it worth it ?
In order to be worth having, the death penalty must be applied with 100% accuracy. No less. Only when that condition is met can we consider it's deterrence factor.

So, if it was applied with 100% accuracy, then if it deterred one more murder than it encouraged, it would be worth it. As has been pointed out, the deterrence effect of the death penalty varies between zero and negative.

Stop putting words in my mouth.
I am not putting words in your mouth, I am calling them as I see them.

I was just pointing our how fucking worthless moral opinion is in this debate,
We are discussing the taking of human life here, you wanna believe that "moral opinion" is a factor.

BTW, profanity cheapens your argument.

as the "morally correct" point of view is wholly a matter of opinion, making the last point you made the worst of the points you made.
You believe in killing people that kill people and I don't. It all comes down to morality.

I already explained why the other points you made were stupid, but you ignored me and repeated them.
I don't see the points I made as being "stupid", and that is why I repeated them.

BTW, you should attack the content of the post and not the poster?

Morals has nothing to do with this for me, you're the one that brought it up.
Again, we are talking about the taking of human life. It has everything to do with morals.

By your logic, to you, the most important objective is societal forgiveness, and the rest of your argument is just filler.
I didn't say that, I stated that killing people is immoral. Those convicted of murder should get life sentences.

That's a fucking retarded statement to make.
Ad hominen attacks are not necessary and cheapens your argument.

We are discussing the taking of human life here, you wanna believe that "moral opinion" is a factor.

BTW, profanity cheapens your argument.

So does lying:

I am not putting words in your mouth, I am calling them as I see them.

You're not that stupid, don't lie to cover up your bullshit.

You believe in killing people that kill people and I don't. It all comes down to morality.

That's an infinitely small part of why I support the death penalty. For you, it may be a moral issue, but for me it most definitely is not.

I don't see the points I made as being "stupid", and that is why I repeated them.

BTW, you should attack the content of the post and not the poster?

I did: I said that the posts you made were stupid. I didn't call you stupid. I explained why they were stupid earlier, but you ignored my arguments because it's easier than replying.

Again, we are talking about the taking of human life. It has everything to do with morals.

Untrue. It's very easy to view this issue amorally.

I didn't say that, I stated that killing people is immoral. Those convicted of murder should get life sentences.

Nor did I say that the most important objective was revenge, but you seemed to have no problem pretending that I did. At least I made it clear in my statement that I was simply mocking the lack of logic in your assertion.

Ad hominen attacks are not necessary and cheapens your argument.

Kind of like putting words in your opponent's mouth and deciding what the most important part of a debate is for everyone else?

It was also already accepted that the sun revolved around the earth. Acceptance != correctness.



In order to be worth having, the death penalty must be applied with 100% accuracy. No less. Only when that condition is met can we consider it's deterrence factor.

So, if it was applied with 100% accuracy, then if it deterred one more murder than it encouraged, it would be worth it. As has been pointed out, the deterrence effect of the death penalty varies between zero and negative.
And as I have pointed out thats bullshit .
show me proof that it isnt applied with 100 % accuracy . Show me proof of the one person who has been innocent of the crime they were excecuted for .
Its getting tiring to even bother . I have proved my point on deterence you choose to ignore it. I will break out the pop corn and watch my excecutions . While you fellas try to convince people that the sky is not blue and up is really down and the death penalty is not a detterent.

Take Texas for an example. In 2000, the murder rate was 5.9 per 100,000, and between 2000 and 2003, there have been 110 executions and yet the murder rate has increased to 6.4 per 100,000.

I believe pictures are worth 1, etc............

So without the death penalty the rate would have gone up to 12% or more ...thats your proof ??? Your kidding me right ?
Good luck selling that snake oil .

murderers are not afraid of life in prison anymore. free food, tvs, magazines, books, excersise....they basically have freedom inside a brick wall...

freedom inside a brick wall is a contradiction.... is NOT freedom.
and if you want to really punish them, take away the tvs, magazines, and books...

And as I have pointed out thats bullshit .
show me proof that it isnt applied with 100 % accuracy . Show me proof of the one person who has been innocent of the crime they were excecuted for .
Its getting tiring to even bother . I have proved my point on deterence you choose to ignore it. I will break out the pop corn and watch my excecutions . While you fellas try to convince people that the sky is not blue and up is really down and the death penalty is not a detterent.


I'll tell you what's tiring. I have posted twice on this thread with the 'proof' that innocent people have been and are being executed.

[i]'I will break out the pop corn and watch my excecutions]/i]'
That just about sums your side of the argument up.

Hanging, electric chair, gas, lethal injection, none deter murder. Fact.


THE DEATH PENALTY HAS NO BENEFICIAL EFFECT ON MURDER RATES:
“I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.”
- U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno (January 21, 2000)



Ok. But what about the morality of it?

There are definitely some people who don't deserve to live, such as murderers and rapists. I suport the Death Penalty for those people.

There are definitely some people who don't deserve to live, such as murderers and rapists. I suport the Death Penalty for those people.

Murderers and rapists have no right to impose their will on their victims. The victims themselves may not be blameless, they could be thieves, rapists themselves, paedophiles, who knows? Just as the criminal has no right to kill nor rape others, whether they were nice people or bastards, the state has no right to perpetuate that wrong.

Ok. But what about the morality of it?

I've made my position clear several times. See immediately above.

Murderers and rapists have no right to impose their will on their victims. The victims themselves may not be blameless, they could be thieves, rapists themselves, paedophiles, who knows? Just as the criminal has no right to kill nor rape others, whether they were nice people or bastards, the state has no right to perpetuate that wrong.
The state has whatever rights the people give it.

if we kill the killers, we should rape the rapeist, and the post above is true.