Capital Punishment or Death Penalty is the punishment of crime by execution of the offender. The word capital in capital punishment is from Latin and it refers to the head, the locus of life. Capital punishment is still widely imposed in world societies. Capital punishment has been abolished in the countries of western Europe and in Canada. Capital punishment is a government-sanctioned practice whereby a person is killed by the state as a punishment for a crime. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes. Offenses such as murder, terrorism, and genocide are capital crimes that deserve capital punishment. 106 countries have completely abolished capital punishment de jure for all crimes. Why the capital punishment system makes so many mistakes, and how these capital punishment system mistakes might be prevented?
Getting to Death: Fairness and Efficiency in the Processing and Conclusion of Death Penalty Cases After Furman, Final Technical Report Jeffrey Fagan ; James S. Liebman ; Valerie West ; Andrew Gelman ; Alexander Kiss ; Garth Davies.
Abstract: The hypothesis was that the more a jurisdiction used the death penalty relative to homicide rates, sentences would be found legally invalid and overturned.
Error rates were computed within States from 1973, when capital punishment was reinstated in the United States following the Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia (408 U.S.238 (1972)), through 1995.
Every capital punishment imposed during the study period under a valid post-Furman capital statute was reviewed across three stages of appeal: direct appeal in State court, State post-conviction review in the State’s highest court, and Federal habeas corpus appeals.
Deterrence versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's Differing Impacts Among States. JOANNA SHEPHERD, Emory University School of Law. Abstract: The first study to establish that capital punishment's impact is different among U.S. states, deterring murders in some states, but increasing murders in many others. Studies by economists, including myself, have typically used data sets of all 50 states or all U.S. counties to show that executions, on average, deter murders. In contrast, studies by sociologists, criminologists, and law professors often examine only one or a few jurisdictions and usually find no evidence of deterrence.
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs -
CASS R. SUNSTEIN,
ADRIAN VERMEULE.
Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a
significant deterrent effect, preventing as many 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.
Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data - Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin and Joanna M. Shepherd. 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 by using county-level, postmoratorium 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 eighteen fewer murders, with a margin of error of plus or minus ten.
Support for and Opposition to Capital Punishment -
JERRY NEAPOLITAN.
As it has become recognized that the issue of deterrence of capital punishment can never
be fully resolved, attention has shifted to the retributive functions of capital
punishment. It is unlikely that capital punishment reinforces or enhances respect for
life, opposition to interpersonal violence, respect for the law, or sympathy for the
victims of crimes.