Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Anonymous sources familiar with the investigation into the Tucson rampage say that shooter Jared Loughner visited a number of websites to research the probability that a political assassin would be given the death penalty, as well as sites that explained the process and painfulness of death by lethal injection. Obviously, whatever he found on the web did not deter him from his crime.
Just as it's difficult, if not impossible, to understand what went on in Jared Loughner's mind, it's difficult to know if the prospect of the death penalty is a significant deterrence to others. There have been many contradictory studies of the deterrent effect of the death penalty over the decades. While there's no definitive answer, perhaps the most significant data is this: in 2009, states with a death penalty statute experienced 4.9 murders per 100,000 people, while states without the death penalty experienced only 2.8 murders per 100,000.
Deterrence is not the only rationale for the death penalty, of course. The other rationale is retributive justice: some crimes are so horrific that they cry out for revenge.
On the other side, death penalty opponents claim that the possibility of the execution of an innocent person outweighs any possible benefit to society; that the death penalty is cruel and archaic; and that it is applied in a racially-discriminatory manner.
I'm ambivalent on this issue. As a libertarian, I'm loathe to give the state any power beyond that absolutely necessary to execute its constitutional mandates. From that viewpoint, lacking firm proof that the death penalty deters crime would argue against execution.
I'm also sensitive to the horror of an innocent person being executed. I don't trust government to get much of anything right. When bureaucratic or judicial ineptitude results in an unjust result with regard to property, that's one thing. When it leads to the extinction of life, that's quite another.
However, the argument for retribution does appeal: some crimes, such as the home-invasion murder of a Connecticut doctor's wife and daughters are so vile that they do cry out for revenge.
I also wonder if the death penalty is really significant anymore. In years past, execution was swift and certain. Now, killers languish on death row for decades while their cases are appealed, making a mockery of the process.
If we stipulate that the death penalty does not deter, should we reconsider whether retribution outweighs the possibility - however minute - that innocent men might die in order to satisfy our desire for institutionalized revenge?
- Comment (59)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
Sep '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
There is one more argument for the death penalty. The killer will never kill again. This gives certainty to society, especially to those directly affected and terrorized. Criminals escape, they kill guards and other inmates who have a right to live and serve out their terms as well. Sometimes revolutions happen and prisoners are released en masse.
This has happened recently in Iraq. And it has happened throughout history. Those who are terrorized such as the man whose family was tortured and killed in Connecticut can rest assured the culprit is dead and can better move on in his life. Children who are affected can get some kind of closure that the bad person will not somehow return to terrorize them ever again because he is dead.
May '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
A few notes from the State of Texas on capital crime
Cost per execution for drugs used : $83.55
Cost to incarcerate a prisoner for 40 years: $693,500
Cost to litigate the almost endless appeals: $1.2 million
Lesson: If we must kill, let's start with the lawyers (not named Epstein, Yoo and Freedman). They seem to be the only one profiting here.
Dec '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
In Loughner's case, the death penalty is completely moot -- he's non compos mentis, and the question isn't whether he'll be executed but whether he'll even be committed to a whole-life term.
As for the power of the State possibly being abused to execute innocents, we arm agents of the State and send them patrolling our streets, and the number of innocent people who've died as a side effect of that policy is far greater than zero. Moreover, even when those agents use deadly force against actual evil-doers, they do so without affording those evil-doers the right to trial and appeal.
I have no problem with the death penalty from the standpoint of protecting the rights of the wrongfully convicted. If ever I am wrongfully convicted of murder, I pray that I am sentenced to death: it's the only sure way to get a raft of activists to comb through every detail of my arrest, trial and conviction to find proof I'm innocent. If I'm sentenced to life without the possibility of parole -- execution by incarceration, in other words -- no one will care.
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Franco: There is one more argument for the death penalty. The killer will never kill again. This gives certainty to society, especially to those directly affected and terrorized. Criminals escape, they kill guards and other inmates who have a right to live and serve out their terms as well. Sometimes revolutions happen and prisoners are released en masse.
This has happened recently in Iraq. And it has happened throughout history. Those who are terrorized such as the man whose family was tortured and killed in Connecticut can rest assured the culprit is dead and can better move on in his life. Children who are affected can get some kind of closure that the bad person will not somehow return to terrorize them ever again because he is dead. · Jan 27 at 12:36pm
Well, the prospect of escape or murder in prison is one argument. But that could be negated by sequestering murderers in an utra-high security environment, similar to Death Row, where murder of guards or other prisoners is virtually non-existent.
Dec '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
EJHill: A few notes from the State of Texas on capital crime
Cost per execution for drugs used : $83.55
Cost to incarcerate a prisoner for 40 years: $693,500
Cost to litigate the almost endless appeals: $1.2 million
Lesson: If we must kill, let's start with the lawyers (not named Epstein, Yoo and Freedman). They seem to be the only one profiting here. · Jan 27 at 12:37pm
Here's an interesting non-rhetorical question: do not persons sentenced to life without the possibility of parole deserve the same level of judicial review and appeal as persons sentenced to capital punishment? After all, LWOP is only execution by incarceration: as with capital punishment, the idea is that the convicted person will only leave prison in a box.
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
No, it's not moot. One can be determined to be insane while at the same time being adjudged to have been aware of the consequences of his actions. Loughner's research into the death penalty could very likely be determinative: he was crazy, but not crazy enough to be unaware.
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Stuart Creque
EJHill: A few notes from the State of Texas on capital crime
Cost per execution for drugs used : $83.55
Cost to incarcerate a prisoner for 40 years: $693,500
Cost to litigate the almost endless appeals: $1.2 million
Lesson: If we must kill, let's start with the lawyers (not named Epstein, Yoo and Freedman). They seem to be the only one profiting here. · Jan 27 at 12:37pm
Here's an interesting non-rhetorical question: do not persons sentenced to life without the possibility of parole deserve the same level of judicial review and appeal as persons sentenced to capital punishment?
Yes. But the death penalty attracts a cadre of bleeding heart lawyers who can't dine out on their noble defense of a prisoner sentenced to life without parole.
Dec '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Kenneth
Well, the prospect of escape or murder in prison is one argument. But that could be negated by sequestering murderers in an utra-high security environment, similar to Death Row, where murder of guards or other prisoners is virtually non-existent. · Jan 27 at 12:41pm
Don't discount the ingenuity of a prisoner bent on doing evil Just two weeks ago, two inmates at Pelican Bay state prison, a supermax facility, stabbed several guards in the face and chest, causing them serious injuries.
And an inmate there some time ago had his eye gouged out by a cellmate.
The State can barely afford to upgrade prisons like Pelican Bay to "Death Row" standards of inmate control, and ironically they'd likely be barred from doing so on the basis of violating the civil and human rights of inmates.
Dec '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Kenneth
No, it's not moot. One can be determined to be insane while at the same time being adjudged to have been aware of the consequences of his actions. Loughner's research into the death penalty could very likely be determinative: he was crazy, but not crazy enough to be unaware. · Jan 27 at 12:44pm
They might find that he understood right from wrong, but I'd bet against it. He seems to have been aware that society tends to punish assassins, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that he though assassination was morally wrong, or that he intended to escape after committing the assassination. I'm pretty confident that his attorneys and psychologists will make the case that his disease overruled his independent judgment
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Well, here's a hypothetical: suppose you were inclined to murder some person who had wronged you. Would you be more deterred by the prospect of languishing on Death Row for 20 years before the big sleep than you would have in years gone by, when the interval between sentencing and execution was, say, six months?
And would you be less deterred by the prospect of lethal injection than by the the specter of the noose?
In other words, has the death penalty lost its sting?
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Stuart Creque
Kenneth
No, it's not moot. One can be determined to be insane while at the same time being adjudged to have been aware of the consequences of his actions. Loughner's research into the death penalty could very likely be determinative: he was crazy, but not crazy enough to be unaware. · Jan 27 at 12:44pm
They might find that he understood right from wrong, but I'd bet against it. He seems to have been aware that society tends to punish assassins, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that he though assassination was morally wrong, or that he intended to escape after committing the assassination. I'm pretty confident that his attorneys and psychologists will make the case that his disease overruled his independent judgment · Jan 27 at 12:59pm
Well, there is ample precedent for conviction of clinically-insane people based upon their demonstrated ability to understand the consequences of their actions.
Dec '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
One interesting thing we learn from serial killers is that they aren't deterred by the death penalty, but they sure as hell fear it. Ted Bundy tried to bargain for a stay of execution to the last minute by offering details of unsolved killings. The Green River Killer confessed to get the death penalty off the table. There really aren't many stone killers who face their own imminent demise with total equanimity: they don't fear the pain of dying but they fear death itself.
As for deterrence, those potential killers that the death penalty deters don't end up killing, and killers undeterred by the death penalty are the kind of people that ought to be executed to weed them out of society for good and all. Thus the death penalty works both ways.
Dec '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Kenneth
· Jan 27 at 12:44pm
Well, there is ample precedent for conviction of clinically-insane people based upon their demonstrated ability to understand the consequences of their actions. · Jan 27 at 1:05pm
Conviction, yes. Imprisonment, yes. But execution? Not any more. The Supreme Court has decided that execution is reserved to a narrow class of persons, a class that excludes sane 17-year-olds and mentally incompetent 22-year-olds.
And whereas I'd be fine with meting out the death penalty to people like Lawrence Singleton who rape children or commit mutilating mayhem on other people, the Supreme Court says that execution is only for murderers and traitors. (There's at least one woman in Florida who would have avoided being murdered if Singleton had been eligible for death for raping a 15-year-old and chopping off her hands and feet.)
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Stuart Creque
Kenneth
· Jan 27 at 12:44pm
Well, there is ample precedent for conviction of clinically-insane people based upon their demonstrated ability to understand the consequences of their actions. · Jan 27 at 1:05pm
And whereas I'd be fine with meting out the death penalty to people like Lawrence Singleton who rape children or commit mutilating mayhem on other people, the Supreme Court says that execution is only for murderers and traitors.
Stuart, that brings us back to the libertarian view: if the state has the power to execute citizens for murder, then the state, hypothetically, has the power to execute for lesser crimes. Where does it stop and who makes that determination?
Dec '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Kenneth
Stuart, that brings us back to the libertarian view: if the state has the power to execute citizens for murder, then the state, hypothetically, has the power to execute for lesser crimes. Where does it stop and who makes that determination? · Jan 27 at 1:25pm
Good thing that the Supreme Court says the Constitution only allows the death penalty for murder and treason, then.
But as I said above, we empower the State to send its agents -- cops -- to patrol the streets and use deadly force. They aren't infallible, and they sometimes kill innocent people. Is it morally wrong to empower the State in this way?
I don't know if this sounds harsh, but I really don't think the plight of the hypothetical innocent man being executed is worth much of my concern, given the very real innocent people who die for other reasons, either at the hands of agents of the State or through neglect or antipathy on the part of the State. If all the concern for the innocent being executed had been channeled into preventing Dr. Gosnell from running his clinic, the world would have been far better off.
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Stuart Creque
Kenneth
Stuart, that brings us back to the libertarian view: if the state has the power to execute citizens for murder, then the state, hypothetically, has the power to execute for lesser crimes. Where does it stop and who makes that determination? · Jan 27 at 1:25pm
I don't know if this sounds harsh, but I really don't think the plight of the hypothetical innocent man being executed is worth much of my concern, given the very real innocent people who die for other reasons, either at the hands of agents of the State or through neglect or antipathy on the part of the State. 27 at 1:38pm
Perhaps you lack empathy here. Just imagine if it were you. Being led in shackles down a long series of corridors to a death chamber, knowing all the while that you're an innocent man. Pretty haunting.
There have been many instances where police departments have essentially framed defendants....we'll never know how many of those were capital cases.
May '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Our forefathers didn't find hanging either cruel or unusual. Why not return to that? A few of those televised might be a deterrence.
Jul '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
I agree. If we really believe in the deterrence factor, we ought to stage public executions.
May '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
If the state acts in the name of the people, the people should witness what is done in their name.
May '10
Re: Jared Loughner and the Death Penalty
Well, Stuart, Kenneth brings an interesting fact to light that I had not heard before. He was researching the odds of the death penalty. He is fully compos, with malice aforethought. Crazy doesn't mean legally insane. He knew what he was doing, and the possible consequences.
Not sure about the deterrence factor, but don't much care, either. It is justice, and nothing less will do. He has deliberately waived his right to be breathing air required for the lungs of actual people.
I think you differentiate between justice and revenge a little too carefully, Kenneth. That's like trying to separate chocolate and peanut butter.