Capital Punishment - Morality on Death Row?

Think- if every murderer who killed someone died instantly, the homicide rate would be very low because no one likes to die. We cannot do this, but if the Justice system can make it more swift and severe, we could change the laws to make capital punishment faster and make appeals a shorter process. The death penalty is important because it could save the lives of thousands of potential victims who are at stake.

• Hugo Adam Bedau, 1982

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.

• Emory Faculty of Law

http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/2/344.abstract

We may nevertheless assume safely there are murders, such as those who act in passion, for whom the threat of death has little or no deterrent effect. But for many others, the death penalty undoubtedly, is a significant deterrent. There are carefully contemplated murders, such as murder for hire, where the possible penalty of death may well enter the cold calculus that precedes the decision to act.

• US Supreme Court Justice Steward in Gregg v. Georgia

Should we open up the death penalty as an optional measure of punishment for our provinces to adopt?

I had always been a opponent of the death penalty. I thought it hypocritical to condemn one's killing of another as murder but glorify the government's killing as justice. I also thought that it would be unethical for the government to play god. However, I am having second doubts about my position.

It seems that much of my research points to capital punishment as not only a plausible but also a highly effective method in discouraging the occurrence of serious crimes. Studies show that occurrences of murder are far less common per capita in countries with capital punishment than in countries which place a ban on it.

I won't state my position as I'd like to see some debate on this issue.

Please NO religious arguments.

Some issues to address when discussing this:

• Bodycount argument --> killing 1 to save 2 justify the killing

• What is the most sustainable method of punishment?

• Method of death (chair v. bullet v. Injection)

• Ethical consequences of capital punishment

• Why our society shuns the death penalty

• Canada (no CP) v. USA (yes CP)