Doc Berman reports on a Harris Poll on the death penalty. The big issue, for or against it, is pretty straightforward: “Currently, 63 percent of Americans believe in the death penalty while three in ten (30%) are opposed to it.” While I believe that the language “believe in” is meant to signify “in favor of” as opposed to “are unsure whether executed defendants are truly dead,” it’s clear that a majority of Americans remain enamored of killing defendants.
So what, you ask? Well, it gets “curiouser and curiouser,” as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson might say.
One question with regard to the death penalty is whether or not it serves as a deterrent to others. Just over half (52%) of Americans believe that executing people who commit murder does not have much effect on deterring others from committing murder. Two in five (42%) say that executing people does deter others from committing murder. These numbers are almost identical to 2003 as well as 2001, so attitudes on this issue appear to be holding steady. However, this is a difference from 1976. Then, almost six in ten (59%) believed executing people deterred others while one-third (34%) believed that it did not have much effect.
So more than half of all respondents do not believe that the death penalty has a deterrent effect. Then why are they for it? Do they just like killing people? I don’t know about you, but this one shocks me. If someone believes that putting a killer to death will protect an innocent life, then I can appreciate why they would favor the death penalty. There’s a rational, even if wrong, basis for their belief.
But this poll result tells me that they have no rational reason to favor death. What does this say about people? They just sleep better knowing that someone will be put to death at midnight?
The Harris poll goes further. In light of the lack of belief in a deterrence, consider this:
There is one issue almost all Americans agree on – 95 percent of U.S. adults say that sometimes innocent people are convicted of murder while only 5 percent believe that this never occurs. This is a number that has held steady since 1999. Among those who believe innocent people are sometimes convicted of murder, when asked how many they believe are innocent, the average is 12 out of 100 or 12 percent. In looking at this by race and ethnicity, African Americans believe more innocent people are convicted than both Whites and Hispanics (25% versus 9% and 12% respectively). Democrats also believe more innocent people are convicted than Republicans (15% versus 6%).
Thus, Americans believe that, on average, 12 out of 100 people convicted of murder and given the death penalty are innocent. And they are fine with that. What belies this approval, the belief that neither you nor anyone you know will ever fall into that 12% gap of innocent but dead men walking? This is acceptable collateral damage?
Again, bear in mind that the acceptability of 12 innocent people “taking one for the team” might at least have some tenuous rational basis, but that’s not what makes this number acceptable. These same people do not believe that there is a deterrence, so the 12 innocents dying are just a matter of bad luck?
Isn’t it nice to know that America’s view of the death penalty is so well-conceived.
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For aggravated murders it would seem rational to believe that justice demands the death penalty. What rational basis is there for keeping such murderers alive in a cage for several decades?
Might I say “simple justice” demands it.
There’s no rational nexus between “justice” and death penalty. What constitutes “justice” is purely subjective, which goes to the title of this post, “he needed killin’,” or as we like to call it, the Texas defense. Even the way you framed your statement, about “aggravated murders,” who defines what this is? Is it your choice, mine or someone else’s? We can all agree on the concept, and disagree on each individual case. Or, we lose the whole idea of a murder so horrible that the murderer “needed killin'” because no one can define it so well and comprehensibly to cover all variations on a theme.
As for the rational basis for keeping such “murderers” alive,
1. They may not be murderers, even if a jury said so. (They can be wrong, about 12% of the time according to the poll)
2. If killing is wrong, and hence subject to criminal sanction, then it is no less wrong when committed by the government, and perhaps more wrong since the government should reflect the example of compliance with its own laws.
Interesting that you wonder about the meaning of “believe in.”
One thing I’ve noticed is this: nearly everyone believes certain defendants *deserve* the death penalty. The question is whether the state should impose such a penalty.
That point gets lost in polls and discussions about capital punishment. People end up in the unwinnable argument about whether a defendant *deserves* death, and the larger question of state action is ignored.
So “do you believe…?” could mean “do you think people ever deserve…”
Excellent pick up. Yes, they are entirely different questions. I think we all come to have the visceral feeling that certain people, certain crimes, “deserve” the death penalty and, as Flash Gorden suggests, don’t deserve to live. But that isn’t the same thing as believing that the government should engage in capital punishment.
When you object to the death penalty you must be thinking about justice. It’s not justice for the government to inflict the death penalty is what you are saying. It’s what you “believe.”
I’m suggesting the focus of justice should be not only on the murderer who now stands before you, but also on the victim who cannot stand up and demand justice because he/she is not here anymore because of what the murderer did.
Why “must” someone be thinking about justice? Again, there’s no rational basis for the conclusion.
This is an emotional/visceral reaction, having nothing to do with reason. It would make sense if, by killing the murderer, the victim would come back to life. But since that doesn’t happen, it’s purely revenge. Nothing rational about it.
Hmmm. Looks like we are at an impasse on this one.
I once met a woman who made the same arguments that you all make here. After her brother was murdered she changed her mind and became an advocate of the death penalty. I always wondered why she wasn’t an advocate of the death penalty when other people’s brothers were murdered.
I can’t say that I’m philosophically opposed to the death penalty in all cases.(Though I think having it carried out by the prospective victim at the time of the offense is cleaner.) I’m not opposed to open heart surgery either–I just think you need something more than a rusty tin-can lid for a scalpel and a rock for anesthetic to do it. Our current justice system isn’t even that good, and unless and until it gets a WHOLE LOT better, we should refrain from imposing the death penalty.
Given these anecdotal stories, you can also find victim families who plea for life rather than death.Like”>http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20040616.html>Like so. . .
The simply unjust thing, even given a retributive perspective, is to continue a system that effectively guarantees that innocent people will be killed. It is especially galling when the moral impetus for killing those people is the declaration that killing innocents is wrong (as Scott aptly pointed out above).
I guess I’m saying that the impasse is largely of your creation until you answer how perpetuating a significantly flawed system is justice.
Slightly off-topic, I know, but what of the polls that show that when presented with a choice between death and life in prison, there is no significant divide among the population?