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Capital punishment 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.
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
This document discusses why the death penalty system makes so many mistakes, and how these
mistakes might be prevented.
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 death sentence 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. For each State and sentence year, reversal rates were
computed at each stage, and a composite error rate across the three stages within years
and again over time within States. Multivariate statistical methods were employed to
identify factors that predict where and when death verdicts are more likely to be reversed
based on serious error. It was concluded that heavy and indiscriminate use of the death
penalty created a significantly higher risk that reversible mistakes will occur. The more
often officials use the death penalty, the wider the range of crimes to which it is
applied, and the more it is imposed for offenses that are not highly aggravated, the
greater the risk that capital convictions and sentences will be seriously flawed. It was
also concluded that the conditions pressuring States to overuse the death penalty and thus
increase the risk of unreliability and error include race, politics, and poorly performing
law enforcement systems. Error was also linked to overburdened and underfunded State
courts. Policy options include limiting capital punishment to a small number of offenses,
stopping the use of the death penalty, and limiting the death penalty to “the worst
of the worst” cases. The reforms that might help to limit the death penalty to these
cases include barring the death penalty for defendants with inherently extenuating
conditions; making life imprisonment without parole an alternative; and insulating
capital-sentencing and appellate judges from political pressure. - www.ncjrs.gov
Deterrence versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's Differing Impacts Among
States
JOANNA SHEPHERD, Emory University School of Law
Abstract: This paper is the first study to establish that capital punishment's impact is
different among U.S. states, deterring murders in some states, but actually increasing
murders in many others. Studies by economists, including myself, have typically used large
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. Using
a well-known data set and well-tested empirical methods, I find that the impact of
executions differs substantially among the states. Executions deter murders in six states
and have no effect on murders in eight states. In thirteen states, executions increase
murders - what I call the "brutalization effect." In general, the states that
have executed more than nine people in the last twenty years experience deterrence. In
states that have not reached this threshold, executions generally increase murders or have
no significant impact. On average across the U.S., executions deter crime because the
states with deterrence execute many more people than do the states without it. The results
of this paper help to explain the contrasting conclusions of earlier papers: whether
deterrence exists depends on which states are examined. My results have three important
policy implications. First, if deterrence is the objective, then capital punishment
generally succeeds in the few states with many executions. Second, the many states with
numbers of executions below the threshold may be executing people needlessly. Indeed,
instead of deterring crime, the executions may be inducing additional murders: a rough
total estimate is that, in the many states where executions induce murders rather than
deter them, executions cause an additional 250 murders per year. Third, to achieve
deterrence, states must generally execute many people. If a state is unwilling to
establish such a large execution program, it should consider abandoning capital
punishment. - papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=781504
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
CASS R. SUNSTEIN, University of Chicago Law School
ADRIAN VERMEULE, Harvard University - Harvard Law School
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. 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. -
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=691447
Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel
Data
Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin and Joanna M. Shepherd
Emory University, Clemson University and Emory University
Send correspondence to: Joanna M. Shepherd, John E. Walker Department of Economics, 222
Sirrine Hall, Box 341309, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1309; Fax: (864) 656-4192;
E-mail: jshephe@clemson.edu.
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. Tests show that results are not driven by tougher
sentencing laws and are robust to many alternative specifications. -
aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/344
Support for and Opposition to Capital Punishment
Some Associated Social-Psychological Factors
JERRY NEAPOLITAN, Tennessee Technological University
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. To investigate this issue, this research utilized a sample of college students
divided into those who (1) oppose capital punishment, (2) support capital punishment only
if it deters murder, and (3) would support it even if it did not deter murder. The results
indicate that opponents have greater respect for human life, greater opposition to
interpersonal violence, greater respect for the law, and more sympathy for the victims of
murder than either type of supporter, and that supporters who require deterrence have
greater respect for human life and opposition to interpersonal violence than do other
supporters. Thus 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. - cjb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/2/195 |
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