I didn't say anything about 40 lashes in the square.

I ranted in favor of PUBLIC EXOCUTION.

But... I'm sure there are certain crimes to which a public lashing would suffice...such as talking on your cellphone while driving:sunny:

Contrary to what people are posting here a lethal dose of morphine isn't always just going to sleep and stopping breathing. There can be incredible reactions to it some of which are horrific.

Im still failing to see why the criminal should be given a painfree death when their victims weren't given that same courtesy.

Cattle bolt would still seem a quick, cheap and relatively painless way if people insist on that.

Death is a painful experience, so what is the big problem? Your body is designed to naturally fight against death and pain is its method to make you not want to do something to avoid death.

So I don't get the point of this conversation. To execute a man, it is going to be painful to the body. Plain and simple. This is not cruel. This is not unusual. This is how it is.

So what exactly are we talking about here?

-S

Unnecessary cruelty and causing of pain, totally unrelated to the object of execution. If an over-the-top method of execution is in use, when a less painful one is available, the message is sent that it's OK for the justice system to knowingly cause physical pain in retribution for crimes committed.
I don't know why people are saying that it's OK, because they didnt offer whoever they killed a painful way out. Why are ye accepting the morals of a murderer?


Death is a painful experience... - Yes, probably. But nobody knows for sure.

Well, as far as I know, the executed has the option to choose the method in most states. Washington for example has hanging or lethal injection as an option. Also, there is a time limit for when the accused are going to die. We don't have all night for Morphene to work. The person to be executed needs to die at the set time. Period. THese other methods of spending time to induce a comma, and then stop the heart is nonsense. I believe this is part of the law, and I look at it as a right to the victims and a right to the soon to be executed. They need to face death - period - not death after something else is done to their body. That is execution - to face death as a penalty. i.e. THey must know what is happening to them and face it.

WARNING: SCIENCE CONTENT AHEAD!


The first drug (5 grams of Sodium Thiopental, a barbituate) is a drug designed to bring about a very quick MEC (Medically Induced Coma), in which the "user" is completely unconsious; he cannot feel a thing, and is dead asleep. The subject will eventually die in this state with 5 grams of Sodium Thiopental.

The second drug (100 miligrams of Pancuronium or Turbocurarine) causes a chemically induced paralasys of all muscles (which includes the "breathing muscle" diaphragm) except the heart, causing death via asphyxiation.

The third and final drug (100 miliequivalents [mEq's] of Potassium Chloride) is supposed to induce cardiac arrest, but is quite unreliable. It's the last drug injected into the subject to complete the process.


There is two major problems with this combonation of drugs: getting the right amount of Sodium thiopental and getting the Potassium Chloride to simply work.

To obtain the leathal amount of Sodium thiopental (S.T. for now) to work correctly, you need to inject 3-5 milligrams for every kilogram the person weighs (so if the man is 200 pounds/91 kilos, he would get a dose of about 300 milligrams). The people who admisistered the drug were using a single amount for everyone, regardless of weight. This meant that some patients who weighed a lot would wake up in the middle of the second and third drugs' phases, experiencing "pain," but they could not express it because the S.T. still had control over basic movement.

Also because the Potassium Chloride would not always work, the subject would experience the pain of asphyxiation only.




Do I care? Absolutally not. 99% of those people deserved it.

Okay, you guys want to discuss the old stuff I tried to prevent. Maybe I was naive to think that both things could be kept separate. So I give it up.

-------------------------------------------------

Simply completely wrong.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/00/06/...html#footnote1
http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/1200/122k11.htm

Just use Google, guys. There is plenty of statistics and examionations indicating that in general the error rate is incredibly high. Depending on what sources you rely, between 7 and 21% of all cases found the accused not only to be deserving a far lesser penalty - but to be completely innocent.

I save me from quoting what AI has to say on it in arguments and statistics, for many here would reject it - if not for the data, than because it is AI. Shooting the messenger. Use Google, if you are interested.

I find this bloodthirsty craving of some for the killing of others irritating. I find the calls for doing it in a most cruel way, or at least to accept it being a more painful procedure than needed, disgusting, and inhumane. You can't give back a life you have taken. so don'T be so easy to take a life. If the standards of a criminal who commited intended murder become yours - what separates you from him, then? Nothing. The majority of killings happening in crimes - happen not by intention, and are not preplanned murder, but jhappen by the heat of the moment, and when things getting out of control. The law is not about that archaic biblic stuff "eye for an eye". "Bloodrevenge" is not the understanding of justice in modern legal codes, and modern societies. These societies are secular societies and must no allow ancient barbarian religions taking over command of the state, or the legal system.

Thank God that we have moved beyond such murderous times.

Sorry but anyone who deliberately sets out to kill a law abiding member of the public has no right to continue living and has no right to expect to be pain free either.
They knew the score when they committed the crime.

The answer to that is not given by your subjectivity, but the law. And the law varies from state to state. Your opinion is not law.

Most killings are not deliberate in the meaning of intentional/preplanned. that is the statistcial fact in every Western nation. Google!

Concenring no right for pain-free: you argue against regulations of the US constitution, then. Look earlier in this thread. I won't tell it a third time.

Your argument does not set you apart from those you condemn. For me, your moral stand is not any better than theirs, for you make yourself equal to them, and accept their standards to rule your deeds.

One who thinks he could decide while being in a state of emotion, is wrong. He gets decided.

This sounds like its written by a lawyer, or a panel of lawyers - or a bunch of bleeding hearts out to abolish the death penalty. I don't buy it without evidence.

-S

Hence in the UK we have manslaughter and murder. In the USA they have first and second degree murder. In the case of premeditated murder (ie first degree) it was calculated, planned and therefore they made the choice.

Im not arguing for executing people guilty of manslaughter.

Im not american so have absolutely no interest in their constitution. Im putting forward my view and that is simple, by murdering someone in cold blood the people have given up ANY rights they have on this planet as far as im concerned.

Equal people dont kill each other. These people stepped way outside all measures of decency and expected behaviour so in my view have forfeited any rights they may have had. Nobody forced them to do it but they did it anyway, they deserve to be treated like scum and disposed of.
This "no better than them" is rubbish. They murdered innocent people. Execution them is their punishment for that - im not about to go and kill innocent people like they did.


One who thinks he could decide while being in a state of emotion, is wrong. He gets decided.[/quote]

SUBMAN, that study was carried out by Columbia University NY, not lawyers.

That explains it then since most educational institutions are extremely liberal and anti death penalty - especially NY U's. So that should invalidate their study based on bias alone.

To remind people why we have the death penalty, this is why:

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/image...syearly7wq.jpg

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/image...grouped3fj.jpg

Do you realize the irony in saying that a study shouldn't be valid because of an "anti death penalty" bias and then linking to graphics from a pro-death penalty site in the same post?

Yep. And it was done on purpose that way - I call it an act of balancing. This anti death penalty articles that state 7 out of 10 people didn't do it are all full of crap because they fail to accurately show how they come up with the numbers, and fail to prove anything one way or another. It's pretty pathetic.

-S


PS. Here are some places to visit that are widely varied for the real answers on the word 'deterrence':

ARTICLES ON DEATH PENALTY DETERRENCE
Below are citations and abstracts of articles on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. 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. We welcome suggestions for additions to this list. Please e-mail Kent Scheidegger via our contact page.

• PUBLISHED RESEARCH
Paul R. Zimmerman
Estimates of the Deterrent Effect of Alternative Execution Methods in the United States: 1978-2000
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 65, no. 4, p. 909 (Oct. 2006)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=355783
Abstract: Several recent econometric studies suggest that states' application of capital punishment deters the rate of murder [Brumm and Cloninger (1996), Cloninger and Marchesini (2001), Mocan and Gittings (2001), and Zimmerman (2002)]. Since the U.S. Supreme Court's moratorium on state executions was lifted in 1976, states with death penalty laws have executed individuals using one or more of five different methods of execution (electrocution, lethal injection, gas chamber asphyxiation, hanging, and/or firing squad). The perceived "brutality" of certain execution methods (such as electrocution and gas chamber asphyxiation) has also recently lead to lethal injection being imposed as the sole method of execution in several death penalty states.

Using a panel of state-level data over the years 1978-2000, this paper examines whether the method by which death penalty states conduct their executions affects the per-capita incidence of murder in a differential manner. Several measures of the subjective probability of being executed are developed taking into account the timing of individual executions as in Mocan and Gittings (2001). The empirical estimates suggest that the deterrent effect of capital punishment is driven primarily by executions conducted by electrocution. None of the other four methods of execution are found to have a statistically significant impact on the per-capita incidence of murder. These results are robust with respect to the manner in which the subjective probabilities of being executed are defined, whether or not a state has a death penalty law on the books, the removal of state and year fixed effects, controls for state-specific time trends, simultaneous control of all execution methods, and controls for other forms of public deterrence. In addition, it is shown that the negative and statistically significant impact of electrocutions is not driven by the occurrence of a "botched" electrocution execution during the relevant time 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
Applied Economics, vol. 38, no. 17, pp. 1975-1989 (Sept. 20, 2006)
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.co...2h522p45083jl7
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.

Hashem Dezhbakhsh & Joanna M. Shepherd
The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Evidence from a "Judicial Experiment"
Economic Enquiry, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 512-535 (July 2006)
http://ei.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/con...ct/44/3/512?ct
Abstract: We use panel data for 50 states during the 1960–2000 period to examine the deterrent effect of capital punishment, using the moratorium as a "judicial experiment." We compare murder rates immediately before and after changes in states' death penalty laws, drawing on cross-state variations in the timing and duration of the moratorium. The regression analysis supplementing the before-and-after comparisons disentangles the effect of lifting the moratorium on murder from the effect of actual executions on murder. Results suggest that capital punishment has a deterrent effect, and that executions have a distinct effect which compounds the deterrent effect of merely (re)instating the death penalty. The finding is robust across 96 regression models.

Richard Berk
New Claims about Execution and General Deterrence: Deja Vu All over Again?
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, vol. 2, issue 2, pp. 303-330 (July 2005)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...1.2005.00052.x
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 article 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 five individuals. Such values represent about 1 percent of the available observations. Reanalyses of the existing data are presented showing that claims of deterrence are a statistical artifact of this anomalous 1 percent.

Dale O. Cloninger & Roberto Marchesini
Execution Moratoriums, Commutations and Deterrence: the case of Illinois
Applied Economics, vol. 38, no. 9, pp. 967-973 (May 20, 2006)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/conten...00009/art00001
Abstract: In an earlier work the impact of an execution moratorium in Texas on the monthly returns (first differences) of homicides was investigated. That moratorium was judicially imposed pending the appeal of a death sentence that could have had widespread consequences. A similar methodology is applied 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. It is found 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 produced an estimated 150 additional homicides during the post-event period.

Robert Weisberg
The Death Penalty Meets Social Science: Deterrence and Jury Behavior Under New Scrutiny
Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 1, pp. 151-170 (December 2005)
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.1.051804.082336
Abstract: Social science has long played a role in examining the efficacy and fairness of the death penalty. Empirical studies of the deterrent effect of capital punishment were cited by the Supreme Court in its landmark cases in the 1970s; most notable was the 1975 Isaac Ehrlich study, which used multivariate regression analysis and purported to show a significant marginal deterrent effect over life imprisonment, but which was soon roundly criticized for methodological flaws. Decades later, new econometric studies have emerged, using panel data techniques, that report striking findings of marginal deterrence, even up to 18 lives saved per execution. Yet the cycle of debate continues, as these new studies face criticism for omitting key potential variables and for the potential distorting effect of one anomalously high-executing state (Texas). Meanwhile, other empiricists, relying mainly on survey questionnaires, have taken a fresh look at the human dynamics of death penalty trials, especially the attitudes and personal background factors that influence capital jurors.

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.../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/paper...ffDeathRow.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/Dez...DeterFinal.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/oup..._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
A New Statistical Analysis of Capital Punishment Incorporating U.S. Postmoratorium Data
Social Science Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 2, pp. 297-311 (2002) http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/i...&oc=&s=&site=1
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)
http://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/...i5p569-76.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/ucp...p_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.
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.c...ract_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.


• ESSAYS
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
58 Stan. L. Rev. 703 (Jan. 2006)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/sunstein1.pdf
Abstract: Many people believe that the death penalty should be abolished even if, as recent evidence seems to suggest, it has a significant deterrent effect. But if such an effect can be established, capital punishment requires a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. The familiar problems with capital punishment— potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew—do not require abolition because the realm of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a sharp distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context because government is a special kind of moral agent. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs potentially involved in capital punishment may depend in part on cognitive processes that fail to treat “statistical lives” with the seriousness that they deserve. The objection to the act/omission distinction, as applied to government, has implications for many questions in civil and criminal law.

Carol S. Steiker
No, Capital Punishment is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty
58 Stan. L. Rev. 751 (Jan. 2006)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/steiker.pdf
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that, if recent empirical studies finding that capital punishment has a substantial deterrent effect are valid, consequentialists and deontologists alike should conclude that capital punishment is not merely morally permissible but actually morally required. While the empirical studies are highly suspect (as John Donohue and Justin Wolfers elaborate in a separate article in this Issue), this Article directly critiques Sunstein and Vermeule’s moral argument. Acknowledging that the government has special moral duties does not render inadequately deterred private murders the moral equivalent of government executions. Rather, executions constitute a distinctive moral wrong (purposeful as opposed to nonpurposeful killing) and a distinctive kind of injustice (unjustified punishment). Moreover, acceptance of “threshold” deontology in no way requires a commitment to capital punishment even if substantial deterrence is proven. Rather, arguments about catastrophic “thresholds” face special challenges in the context of criminal punishment. This Article also explains how Sunstein and Vermeule’s argument necessarily commits us to accepting other brutal or disproportionate punishments and concludes by suggesting that even consequentialists should not be convinced by the argument.

Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule
Deterring Murder: A Reply
58 Stan. L. Rev. 847 (Dec. 2005)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/sunstein2.pdf
No abstract.