The Myth of Deterrence
Since the popularity of the death penalty in great part issues from people's frustration over violent crimes, one of the most popular arguments in favor of the death penalty is its presumed value as a deterrent. The conventional wisdom is that we need capital punishment to discourage people from committing murder. Politicians often appeal to the deterrence factor as a justification of the death penalty. When Governor George Pataki signed legislation that reinstated the death penalty in New York in 1995, he stated: “This bill is going to save lives.” Former Governor William Weld, in his attempts to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts, said: “my gut is that … capital punishment is a deterrent.” Nevertheless, more scientific approaches seem to indicate that capital punishment is not a deterrent.
Studies by Experts
A survey authored by Richard C. Dieter, Esq. that was conducted in 1995 involving interviews with 386 randomly selected police chiefs and sheriffs resulted in only one percent of the respondents choosing the death penalty as a primary way to reduce violent crime. The death penalty ranked last among six options. The most effective way named by the police chiefs and sheriffs was "reducing drug abuse," followed by, "better economy and more jobs." Simplifying court rules, longer sentences, more police officers, and reducing the number of guns were also considered to be more important as ways of reducing violent crimes than expanding the use of the death penalty. Of those interviewed, 67 percent termed inaccurate the statement: "the death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides." Commenting on the poll, former New York Police Chief Patrick Murphy wrote: "Like the emperor's new clothes, the flimsy notion that the death penalty is an effective law enforcement tool is being exposed as mere political puffery."
A similar survey, by Michael Radelet and Ronald Akers, among the leadership of the country's largest associations of professional and academic criminologists, such as the American Society of Criminology (2,500 members) and the International Association of Police Professors (membership 2,400), likewise debunk the deterrent benefits of the death penalty. Of the experts interviewed, 80 percent stated that on the basis of literature and research in criminology, the death penalty does not have significant deterrent effects. It would seem that the best deterrence is crime prevention and dealing with the causes and situations such as poverty and drug addiction that foment crime and violence.
For any punishment to be an effective deterrence, it must be administered fairly and swiftly. Experience has shown how difficult it is to administer capital punishment "fairly and swiftly," (cf. the Supreme Court decision Georgia v. Furman and the moratorium on the death penalty as requested by the National Bar Association.)
When someone is accused of a crime, if he is poor or of a minority group, he is more likely to be condemned to death than someone who is wealthy and well educated. The delays and costs involved in appeals and other necessary procedural safeguards make it impossible to execute criminals swiftly. Short of a reign of terror, one is hard pressed to conceive how the death penalty could be administered in such a way that it would become an effective deterrent. It would be much more feasible to improve court proceedings and bring about swifter justice if the maximum punishment would be incarceration without parole. Allowing months and even years to pass between the time of the arrest and the imposition of a punishment certainly undermines the deterrence value of any sentencing. In addition to vitiating any value as a deterrent, the prolonged proceedings of capital punishment subject the families of victims to tortuous years of criminal hearings and appeals, often preventing healing and closure in their lives. Expeditious trials and life sentences without parole for heinous crimes would be more merciful not only to the criminals but also to the families of the victims.
Danger of Error
Among serious objections to the death penalty is its irrevocability. The Marquis de Lafayette, who helped the Americans in our struggle for freedom and democracy, once declared in the French Chamber of Deputies: "I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me."
We do know that an overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, faulty investigations, the defendant's previous record, inept defense counsel, and community pressure for conviction can all contribute to a miscarriage of justice. The mistake is irrevocable once the accused is executed. On the other hand, guilty parties are sometimes not convicted because jurors fear sending someone to the gallows. In those cases the death penalty is a deterrence not to criminal behavior but a deterrence to convicting a murderer.
The sad truth is that our juries and courts make mistakes. Sometimes we exonerate guilty parties, but at times we err by finding innocent people guilty. It has been demonstrated that all too often innocent people have been found guilty of crimes they did not commit. Indeed the execution of an innocent man, Timothy Evans, was among the reasons for the abolition of the death penalty in Great Britain. In 1975, the government of Florida pardoned two African-American men, Freddie Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee, who were twice tried and sentenced to death. They spent 12 years waiting on death row for crimes committed by someone else.
The New York Times reported recently (February 6, 1999) that Anthony Porter, who has spent 16 years on death row, was being released because of new evidence and a confession that cleared Mr. Porter of the crime. The new investigation was carried out as a class project by five journalism students from Northwestern University and their professor. The Times points out that this is not an isolated case: "But the truth is they have seen things like this before. If Mr. Porter (an African-American man with an IQ of 51) is exonerated, it will be the 10th time since Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977 that a death row inmate in Illinois has been freed because he turned out to be innocent." The question remains how many innocent people have been executed in Illinois and the other 37 states that still maintain the practice of capital punishment?
[Part two of a four part series]
