The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage.

Execution in America is far from common --like the Chinese who find execution a simple method to rid themselves of a drugs problem, or Mr. Ahmadinejad who claims his country has "no gays"-- it is used only for the most heinous crimes. It is not barbaric; nor is there need for all the barbaric torture associated with the likes of Guy Fawkes and his gang; because it is not about vengeance or retribution but it serves a simple purpose. It balances the scales of justice and in the process shows to what extent a society really values the lives of its citizenry. [Troy Davis - Justice Served Posted: 22 September 2011 2:08 PM in the Daily Mail]

The United Kingdom doesn’t have a death penalty and in cases like the Soham Murders, the Moors, Bulger, Fred West – ones so shocking that even execution is considered a proportional and measured response – this is a shame. The abolition of a death penalty here is not the sign of some form of modern day enlightenment but in fact just the opposite. If anything it is a sign of moral weakness, of a society that is so afraid of its own barbarity that it cannot grasp the difference or distinguish between justice and revenge. Instead like a deer frozen in the headlights of the sometimes scary demands of justice it does nothing; a community so scared to act in case it gets the justice confused with revenge will let both perpetrators and victims (mainly their families) suffer for a lifetime instead. Ultimately it is the sign of a society that will not take on the duty to protect its citizens or stand up to the responsibilities and demands of justice. Justice is more than a set of laws; it is the ability to fairly adjudge crimes, set fitting penalties, and then have the courage to carry out that which justice demands. If the penalty falls far short of the crime then eventually the crime itself is trivialized and so are the rest of us. [Troy Davis - Justice Served Posted: 22 September 2011 2:08 PM in the Daily Mail]

The deterrent effects of the death penalty in the United States are incontrovertible. One only has to look at studies and statistics concerning murderers who have been let out only to kill again to realize that the death penalty does work as a deterrent – if not for others, at least for the killer in question. It can also be argued that some crimes, so repugnant and horrific that the death penalty is the only morally appropriate response, particularly to satisfy the families of the victims and to protect the wider community. [Troy Davis - Justice Served Posted: 22 September 2011 2:08 PM in the Daily Mail]

Capital punishment is punishment for grown up societies -- not cowering in the face of the mass injustice of murder. [Troy Davis - Justice Served Posted: 22 September 2011 2:08 PM in the Daily Mail]

The war on terror is fought on many fronts. The killing of people like Awlaki with Hellfire missiles is one of them; so are the years of meticulous intelligence gathering and research that led to his assassination. The fact is that we also need to win the battle of ideas. That means the public need to understand the differences between the laws of war from criminal and civil law; why the laws of war apply here. It takes an understanding and acknowledgement of the real threats we are up against and the freedoms we are fighting for. That the ideology promulgated by the likes of Awlaki is illiberal, fascist and a threat to the cause of freedom. There are no moral relativisms here. Our failure to understand the threat against us will lead to our losing not just the battle of ideas but the battle itself. [“Of Course it was Right to Kill Awlaki – Why Would You Even Ask.” Posted: Friday 30 September 2011 8:42 PM in the Daily Mail]

The death penalty debate is back in full swing. The public's desire is no mystery. We want fewer debates and more executions. Every poll on the topic finds huge majorities in favor of executing first-degree murderers.

With 20,000 murders a year in the United States, most of us grasp instinctively what happens when the legal system fails to punish murder with a sentence that fits the awfulness and severity of the crime. That willful murderers should be put to death is a moral principle running straight back to Genesis. ("Whoso sheddeth the blood of man," God commands Noah, "by man shall his blood be shed.") [“Without the death penalty, innocents will die” by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe June 21, 1994]

There are many phony arguments against capital punishment, usually offered by death penalty opponents who would remain death penalty opponents even if their objections were met.

They claim to be against capital punishment because, they say, it has no deterrent effect. Or because other Western democracies have abolished it. Or because it is applied -- so they claim -- with a racist double standard. Or because rich killers hire top-notch lawyers and get off. Or because death by electrocution (or hanging, or even injection) is too gruesome. Or because the legal process is too expensive. Or because capital punishment is simply murder committed by the state. [“Without the death penalty, innocents will die” by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe June 21, 1994]

Phony, the lot. Each is either untrue (more white murderers are executed, for example, than black murderers); irrelevant (when did France become our role model?); or illogical (if capital punishment is state murder, a prison sentence must be state kidnapping). In most cases, these arguments are only rationalizations used to justify an opinion that won't change regardless of the facts.

This is easy to test. Ask the death penalty foe of your choice: If Belgium, Spain and Denmark reimposed capital punishment, would you favor it? If it were proven that executing murderers deterred potential killers? If the death penalty were administered with perfect color- and income-blindness? If all legal costs were paid privately? Then would you support it?

The answer is never yes. [“Without the death penalty, innocents will die” by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe June 21, 1994]

In other words, if the death penalty is revived, an innocent man might be killed.

That is true, and the point has some force. But if the death penalty is not revived, even more innocent people will be killed. The risk to innocent life is greater without capital punishment than with it. The only moral choice, therefore, is to favor its reimposition. [“Without the death penalty, innocents will die” by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe June 21, 1994]

Execute killers and they can never hurt another soul. Let them live and some number of them will kill again. It is easy to talk about locking murderers up for life. Even if that were possible, some would escape and kill again. Some would kill prison guards. Some would kill other inmates. [“Without the death penalty, innocents will die” by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe June 21, 1994]

The death penalty is the only just response to murder. With capital punishment, society faces the tiny possibility that an innocent life may be taken. Without capital punishment, society faces the certainty that more innocent lives will be taken. For anyone of sound mind and conscience, the choice should be clear. [“Without the death penalty, innocents will die” by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe June 21, 1994]

It is up to the law to speak to them-to speak for all grief-stricken survivors confronted with the butchery of someone near and dear. Capital punishment says to them: We, the community, take your loss with the utmost seriousness. We know that you are filled with rage and pain. We know that you may cry for vengeance, may yearn to strangle the murderer with your bare hands. You are right to feel that way. But it is not for you to wreak retribution. As a decent and just society, we will do it. Fairly. After due process. In a court of law.

"The Abolitionist's Cop-Out". The Boston Globe. 8 June 2000 - On the contrary. The growing infallibility of forensic science should if anything increase, not lessen, our confidence in the accuracy of criminal verdicts. And if that is true of convictions in general, it is especially true in death penalty cases, which are subject to multiple levels of post-trial review and intricate layers of due process. Of all the sanctions in our criminal code, a death sentence is the *least* likely to be the result of error or caprice.

"The Abolitionist's Cop-Out". The Boston Globe. 8 June 2000 - Nevertheless, let us suppose the worst. For the sake of argument, let us assume that the death penalty -- despite all our best efforts, despite all the safeguards and caution built into the system -- leads to the deaths of a few innocent people. Is that a good reason to do away with capital punishment?

Of course it isn't. Every institution that is of benefit to society also poses risks to society -- including the risk that innocent victims will die.

Patients die on the operating table because their surgeon made a mistake. Forty thousand Americans die in car accidents every year. Are those good reasons to abolish surgery and interstate highways? Anyone who said so would be dismissed as a crank.

Should policemen be allowed to carry guns? After all, if law enforcement officers go armed, innocent victims will sometimes lose their lives, as the recent deaths of Amadou Diallo in New York and Cornel Young in Providence, R.I., so tragically prove. If death penalty abolitionists really want to make sure that no one is unjustly killed by an agent of the state, they ought to call for disarming cops.

But is that what they really want? Is it the threat to innocent life that truly galvanizes the abolitionists, or is it simply their visceral dislike for capital punishment?

"The Abolitionist's Cop-Out". The Boston Globe. 8 June 2000 - No one who genuinely worries about the legal system putting innocent people at risk can afford to waste time denouncing the death penalty. In one 17-month period, criminals released "under supervision" committed 13,200 murders. Why is it that the enemies of capital punishment never have a word to say about those innocent victims?

"The Abolitionist's Cop-Out". The Boston Globe. 8 June 2000 - To say that society should refrain from executing murderers for fear of making a mistake is not noble. It is a cop-out. A soldier on the battlefield who refuses to shoot at the enemy lest he inadvertently hit the wrong man is no moral hero, and neither are those who demand that all murderers be kept alive so that we never face a risk -- however tiny, however remote -- of executing an innocent defendant.

"The Abolitionist's Cop-Out". The Boston Globe. 8 June 2000 - Granted, it is not easy to condemn someone to death, still less to carry out the sentence. Executions are irrevocable and irreversible; to take away anyone's life -- even a brutal criminal's -- involves an assertion of moral certainty that might make many of us tremble.

But trembling or not, we have a duty to carry out. A duty to proclaim that murder is evil and will not be tolerated. That it is the worst of all crimes and deserves the worst of all punishments. And that while we will bend over backward not to hurt the innocent, we will not let that paralyze us from punishing the guilty.

With McVeigh's death, wrote Rob Ham of California, "What has changed? The victims are still dead. Do the families now have closure? Can anyone ever have closure after losing a child, a husband, a wife, or a parent?"

This is an appeal to emotion, not reason. Of course the victims are still dead. They would still be dead if McVeigh had gotten life in prison, too. Or 20 years. Or probation. No one thinks the purpose of punishment is to undo the crime, yet death penalty abolitionists routinely remind us that killing a murderer won't bring his victims back to life. If that is a reason to ban executions, it is a reason to ban all punishment. [Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist. "The feeble 'arguments' against capital punishment". Jewish World Review. 19 June 2001]

Ham's "closure" argument, meanwhile, is simply uninformed. The families of murder victims do not stop mourning when the killer dies, but for many, there is indeed a measure of solace in knowing that the monster who destroyed their loved one will never hurt anyone again. Abolishing executions certainly won't bring "closure" to grieving relatives. On the contrary, it will deepen their torment, mocking them each time they remember that the person they loved is in the grave, while his killer continues to breathe. [Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist. "The feeble 'arguments' against capital punishment". Jewish World Review. 19 June 2001]

Why is it barbaric to require that one who violently steals the life of an innocent (or 168 innocents) not be allowed to keep his own? Where is the moral tradition that prescribes life for mass-murderers? How can it be civilizing to tell the world's worst people that no matter no matter how many victims they butcher, no matter what cruelty they inflict on others, the worst that will happen to them is that they will go to prison? Those are questions that abolitionists never answer. [Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist. "The feeble 'arguments' against capital punishment". Jewish World Review. 19 June 2001]

‘The loss of freedom for the remainder of one's life is no mild punishment,' James Bernstein of New York wrote to the Times. 'We do not need the death penalty to express society's utter repudation of those who would take the lives of others.'

Bernstein has it exactly wrong. A society that bans the death penalty outright is confirming that it does not utterly repudiate its worst murderers. The United States last week made clear just how seriously it regards McVeigh's monstrous crime. Change the law so that no future McVeigh can be put to death, and the United States will be sending a different message: Mass murder isn't that bad. [Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist. "The feeble 'arguments' against capital punishment". Jewish World Review. 19 June 2001]

In his view, executions are nothing but organized savagery:

"The execution of Timothy McVeigh will not bring back Julie or her colleagues," Welch says, "nor will it end the grieving for any of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. Revenge and hate are the reasons 168 people died that day in 1995. I oppose the death penalty absolutely, in all cases, because in all cases it is an act of revenge and hatred.

Bud Welch is wrong to describe capital punishment as nothing but "revenge and hatred" and wrong to imply that revenge and hatred -- as opposed to fairness and justice -- are what drive those who disagree with him. Welch deserves our sympathy for his daughter's death, but he is not entitled to impugn the motives of everyone who supports the death penalty. [Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist. “An execution, not a lynching”. Jewish World Review. 15 May 2001]

Executing 'Children,' And Other Death-Penalty Myths 2 June 2002 - It's hard to say which is more offensive - the pretence that giving a lethal injection to a 25-year-old convicted murderer amounts to "executing children," or the spectacle of people who never shed a tear for the innocent John Luttig weeping so noisily for his killer.

Executing 'Children,' And Other Death-Penalty Myths 2 June 2002 - In any case, the age issue is a red herring.  No state allows the death sentence for anyone younger than 16, and no one younger than 23 has been executed in modern times.  Anti-execution activists seized on Beazley's age for the same reason they seized on Karla Faye Tucker's death row conversion to Christianity and Ricky McGinn's last-minute plea for DNA testing:  They'll seize on any excuse to keep a murderer alive, no matter how lame the excuse or how obvious the murderer's guilt.

DEATH PENALTY abolitionists don't usually mention it, but in promoting a moratorium on executions, they are urging us down a road we have taken before. [Capital Punishment Saves Lives 6 June 2002]

In sum, between 1965 and 1980, there was practically no death penalty in the United States, and for 10 of those 16 years - 1967-76 - there was literally no death penalty: a national moratorium.

What was the effect of making capital punishment unavailable for a decade and a half? Did a moratorium on executions save innocent lives - or cost them?

The data are brutal. Between 1965 and 1980, annual murders in the United States skyrocketed, rising from 9,960 to 23,040. The murder rate - homicides per 100,000 persons - doubled from 5.1 to 10.2. [Capital Punishment Saves Lives 6 June 2002]

Was it just a fluke that the steepest increase in murder in US history coincided with the years when the death penalty was not available to punish it? Perhaps. Or perhaps murder becomes more attractive when potential killers know that prison is the worst outcome they can face. By contrast, common sense suggests that there are at least some people who will not commit murder if they think it might cost them their lives. Sure enough, as executions have become more numerous, murder has declined. [Capital Punishment Saves Lives 6 June 2002]

Obviously, murder and the rate at which it occurs are affected by more than just the presence or absence of the death penalty. But even after taking that caveat into account, it seems irrefutably clear that when murderers are executed, innocent lives are saved. And when executions are stopped, innocent lives are lost. [Capital Punishment Saves Lives 6 June 2002]

But the due process in non-death penalty cases is not nearly as scrupulous. Everyone knows that there are innocent people behind bars today. If the legal system's flaws justify a moratorium on capital punishment, a fortiori they justify a moratorium on imprisonment. Those who call for a moratorium on executions should be calling just as vehemently for a moratorium on prison terms. Why don't they?

Because they know how ridiculous it would sound. If there are problems with the system, the system should be fixed, but refusing to punish criminals would succeed only in making society far less safe than it is today. [Capital Punishment Saves Lives 6 June 2002]

The same would be true of a moratorium on executions. If due process in capital murder cases can be made even more watertight, by all means let us do so. But not by keeping the worst of our murderers alive until perfection is achieved. We've been down the moratorium road before. We know how that experiment turns out. The results are written in wrenching detail on gravestones across the land. [Capital Punishment Saves Lives 6 June 2002]

That is a worthy goal, but it cannot be an absolute criterion. No worthwhile human endeavor is utterly foolproof. Dr. Bieber's hospital would have to shut down its operating rooms if surgeons had to guarantee their infallibility. Even at hospitals as renowned as the Brigham, patients sometimes die on the operating table because of blunders or inadvertence. Is that an argument for abolishing surgery? Should air travel be banned because innocent passengers may lose their lives in crashes? Should the pharmaceutical industry be shut down because the wrong drug or dosage, mistakenly taken or prescribed, can kill? [Execution saves innocents... by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe September 28, 2003]

To make the perfect the enemy of the good is irrational and counterproductive. The benefits of surgery, air travel, and prescription drugs are enormous -- far too valuable to give up even though we know that people will die because of the fallibility of doctors and pilots and people who handle medicine. The same is true of capital punishment: The benefits of a legal system in which judges and juries have the option of sentencing the cruelest or coldest murderers to death far outweigh the potential risk of executing an innocent person. And there is this added reassurance: The risk of an erroneous execution is infinitesimal, and getting smaller all the time.

And the benefits? First and foremost, the death penalty makes it possible for justice to be done to those who commit the worst of all crimes. The execution of a murderer sends a powerful moral message: that the innocent life he took was so precious, and the crime he committed so horrific, that he forfeits his own right to remain alive. [Execution saves innocents... by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe September 28, 2003]

When a vicious killer is sent to the electric chair or strapped onto a gurney for a lethal injection, society is condemning his crime with a seriousness and intensity that no other punishment achieves. By contrast, a society that sentences killers to nothing worse than prison -- no matter how depraved the killing or how innocent the victim -- is a society that doesn't really think murder is so terrible.

But there is more to executions than justice for the dead. There is also protection for the living. [Execution saves innocents... by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe September 28, 2003]

…the real threat to innocent life is not the availability of the death penalty, but the absence of one. For every time a murderer is executed, innocent lives are saved. [Execution saves innocents... by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe September 28, 2003]

The foes of capital punishment have denied for years that putting murderers to death has a deterrent effect on other potential killers. That has always flown in the face of common sense and history -- after all, wherever murder is made punishable by death, murder rates generally decline. But it also flies in the face of a lengthening shelf of research that confirms the death penalty's deterrent effect. [Execution saves innocents... by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe September 28, 2003]

Actually there have been close to 600,000 homicides in the United States since 1976, and the total climbs by roughly 15,000 each year. Where is the uproar over those round numbers? Where are the protests, the petitions, the Hollywood rallies aimed at stopping those deaths? I understand that some people think capital punishment is wrong as a matter of principle. What I cannot understand is how anyone can be more outraged by the lawful execution each year of a few dozen murderers than by the annual slaughter of thousands of victims at the hands of such murderers. (Misplaced sympathy for killers By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 7, 2005)

Opponents of capital punishment make much of the theoretical possibility that an innocent defendant might be killed. What they never acknowledge is that the abolition of capital punishment guarantees that innocent victims will die. That isn't only because executing murderers has a powerful deterrent effect, as a number of recent studies confirm. It is also because prison bars can't keep some killers from killing again. (Misplaced sympathy for killers By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 7, 2005)

Ultimately, the case for putting murderers like Williams and Boyd to death isn't just a practical one, strong though the practical arguments are. It is also a moral one. When the state executes a murderer, it is making a statement about the demands of justice and the sanctity of human life -- a statement as old as Genesis, and as essential as ever. (Misplaced sympathy for killers By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 7, 2005)

"If you're saying that the worst that could happen to someone who commits a murder is that he spends time in prison, to me, that's like saying, 'Really, we don't consider murder to be that terrible.”

“If the criminal taking of a human life does not merit forfeiture of one's own life, then what value have we placed on the life taken?”

The best arguments against the death penalty are two:

One, you might execute the wrong person. In the case of Palestinian terrorists acting and killing in the open, check this box: Argument not applicable.

Two, you engage in the very brutality that the murderer engages in. In the case of convicted murderers who will likely be released in these immoral prisoner exchanges, who express no regret, who — to the contrary — will do their best to kill innocent people again, check this box: Argument not applicable. [Death penalty for Palestinian terrorists Thursday, 20 October 2011 06:24 IJN Editorial Staff]

To make him a magnet for kidnapping, to make a mockery of his life sentence by letting him out, and to help him kill again, is totally different from the non-Palestinian-terrorist context; and totally transcends the argument that to execute him is to sink to his level of brutality. Exactly the opposite. To execute the Palestinian terrorist is to engage in the very purpose of the life sentence: the protection of the innocent. [Death penalty for Palestinian terrorists Thursday, 20 October 2011 06:24 IJN Editorial Staff]

O.J. was 'proved innocent' too (Jewish World Review June 30, 2000) - The breathless reports of prisoners being released from death row after DNA testing is just the latest salvo from a movement that wants to end the imposition of the death penalty under any circumstances, for any murderer, no matter how heinous and no matter how guilty.

The anti-capital punishment faction, badly outnumbered in modern life, basically believes nobody should be executed for anything. A request for clemency, under this worldview, resembles an entitlement. Not to extend clemency is somehow an affront - to the changed behavior of the condemned, to the process of abstract justices. To something. [Opinion: Clemency critics mask true objectives by William Murchison Lone Star Report VOLUME 3, ISSUE 16 -- January 8, 1999]

Incapacitation is the goal of making it physically impossible for the criminal to commit further crimes against his fellow human beings. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part I) By Andrew Tallman 25 January 2008

What, then, is the proper retribution for murder? As death penalty opponents are so fond of saying, “Executing the murderer will not bring his victim back to life.” That, of course, is true. It’s just as true, however, that giving him LIPWTPP will also fail to accomplish a resurrection. And that’s the point. There is simply nothing the murderer can do to truly restore the social fabric to the status quo ante for the obvious reason that there is no way to replace missing people. Nonetheless, as history and the Bible so clearly have held, blood alone can atone for shed blood. By requiring his life of him, we make him pay the only correct price and force him to fully pay it. This balances both the moral fabric as well as the murderer’s personal register. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part I) By Andrew Tallman 25 January 2008

Once we comprehend this distinction between murder and all other crimes (which can be restituted for), it should be clear that retribution not only justifies execution, it requires it. Execution is the only correct penalty-in-kind for murder, and retribution is the only value so far analyzed which justifies taking this most precious of payments from someone. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part I) By Andrew Tallman 25 January 2008

Deterrence is the goal of giving people who might otherwise be willing to commit a crime a strong enough disincentive to prevent them from making this choice. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part II) By Andrew Tallman 28 January 2008

But here’s a thought experiment for you. Imagine that Mr. H. wants to kill his wife and lives near the border of a state which executes and whose neighbor state does not. Other than in the movies, can you really imagine the long process he would have to go through that would result in him saying, “Well, I guess I’ll drive her over next door before I kill her so that, just in case I’m caught, prosecuted, and lose my appeals over 25 years, at least I’ll get to live out the remaining 15 years of my life rather than die by lethal injection”? Such fantasy is beyond even my nimble imagination. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part II) By Andrew Tallman 28 January 2008

The obvious problem is that, as much as we hate graffiti, the punishment is disproportionate to the crime. Punishing a person more than his crime merits is itself an act of injustice, all the more so when done with the solemnity and deliberation of the state. Just as the lex talionis (eye for an eye) principle in the Bible was meant as a limit on retribution not an escalation, our system of ethics likewise obligates us to never punish a person more than he deserves. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part III) By Andrew Tallman 14 February 2008

The justification for killing the enemy when doing so entails either the chance or the certainty that non-combatants will be killed comes from the principle of “double effect.” We would avoid harming the innocent if we could, but if practical factors prevent it, we accept the tragedy so long as it is still less than the good accomplished by killing the known bad guys. People often use the medical analogy of cutting off a leg to save the body or killing a few healthy cells along with the cancerous ones. The problem with this is it doesn’t apply to the single individual isolated within a jail posing no imminent threat to anyone. Also, since the only thing justifying killing the innocent would be the certainty of also killing the dangerous, not knowing for sure which one stands before us renders the principle of double effect unhelpful. Also, the protection of other citizens cannot be used because the alternative is LIPWPP, not release, for a given convict. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part IV) By Andrew Tallman 12 March 2008

There are two different kinds of capital cases: those with some doubt, but not a reasonable doubt, and those with no doubt at all. If we executed only those people who are guilty beyond any doubt, this objection evaporates. Thus, juries in capital cases would return one of three verdicts: not guilty, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and guilty beyond any doubt. Regardless of aggravating circumstances, only those in the third category would be eligible for the death penalty. Legislators will doubtless need to more precisely define this new standard, but in principle I’m confident a court can recognize cases that are beyond mistakenness. As an example, consider the case of Timothy McVeigh. People rightly worry that some capital convicts are innocent, but no one worries that he was one of them. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part IV) By Andrew Tallman 12 March 2008

What punishment could we assess against criminals that wouldn’t be wrong when done to innocent people?

Is it inconsistent to punish embezzlers with fines? Is it inconsistent to put kidnappers in the liberty-deprived condition of prison? Would we be inconsistent, or merely brutal, to adopt a more Indonesian response to assault by publicly flagellating offenders?

Precisely because every form of punishment is a form of harm to the convicted, the problem with this objection is that it proves too much, indicting all expressions of any justice system. That’s why the proper response to it is to ask why the person advocates anarchism, since only the anarchist view (that all outside impositions upon a person are wrong) is consistent with the principle of this argument. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

But that’s probably a bit much for your naïve friend in a casual discussion. Instead, ask him if he also opposes execution because of the risk that the convict is innocent. If so, then he is simultaneously arguing that all killing is wrong and that the killing of innocents is uniquely wrong. Every person who opposes capital punishment because of the risk to innocents affirms, in making that argument, that there is something vastly different between killing those who have done nothing to deserve it and killing those who have. And clearly, this is the distinction that solves this objection. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

Simply put, to allege that killing murderers and killing innocent citizens are the same is to deny the distinction between guilt and innocence which is the presupposition foundation of all law in the first place. If we cannot distinguish between how we should treat lawbreakers and non-lawbreakers, we have much more elementary problems than rationally discussing the validity of capital punishment. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

There are two ways for our justice system to show that something is sacred: by protecting it from violation and by punishing those who violate it. Clearly, in this case, the two are interconnected. Life is uniquely precious, which is exactly why taking the life of one who deliberately takes innocent life is the only way to affirm life’s sacredness. Rather than proclaiming the preciousness of life, allowing a known murderer to live is a declaration that life is not precious enough to justify the forfeit of another life as punishment. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

When something is sacred, that does not mean that it cannot be violated. Rather, it means that it must be violated only in the rarest of cases and only in the most deliberate of ways. The almost absurd solemnity with which we execute people in this country is not a defect of our system, but a testament to the importance we attach to human life. Instead of eroding the sanctity of life, execution practiced with such regard actually affirms it. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

What so offends us about abortion is the taking of an innocent life, the destruction of someone utterly vulnerable and guilty of no wrong. Executing a murderer doesn’t elicit the same response because we are, again, making the simple distinction between the innocent victim of a crime and the guilty perpetrator of that crime. Since this distinction is at the heart of our justice system, the person who can’t make it is back to equating being stolen from with being fined, and being kidnapped with being incarcerated, equivocations that make a life sentence in prison every bit as problematic as execution. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

I am convinced that even those who grieve the death row convict do not view his death as a tragedy equal to that of his victim. In fact, I’d have trouble taking someone seriously who told me that his horror at an executed murderer was equal to his horror at the original murder itself. This difference of reaction acknowledges a distinction even at an emotional level. It may not seem big enough to justify execution, but just getting opponents to admit the difference might start to erode their notion that the two are morally indistinguishable. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

Furthermore, if the idea is that we must oppose all homicides if we oppose any, then we might reasonably demand that such opponents also protest every form of warfare or self-defense. Obviously, most death penalty opponents are not pure pacifists, which makes them no less inconsistent on this issue than they allege pro-lifers to be. I only point this out to show that many capital punishment opponents are skewered by their own willingness to distinguish wartime and self-defense homicides from others. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

I am willing to concede that it would be more philosophically rigorous and less confusing to use the more cumbersome label “pro-innocent-life.” But we all know that rigor often yields to pith in modern discourse. Nevertheless, there are clear lines distinguishing abortion from capital punishment which this objection colors quite sloppily across.

However, as a point of practical concern, ending abortion is far more important to me than continuing to execute. I’d certainly rather save a few million innocent than kill a few hundred guilty. So, if I thought that opposing capital punishment would make me look more consistent to those who can’t make such distinctions and thus gain their support for ending abortion, I might well consider it. But I’d like to hope, perhaps naively, that we can get both issues right without pandering to such superficial thinking. - Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part V) By Andrew Tallman 20 March 2008

“When I think of the thousands of inhabitants of Death Rows in the hundreds of prisons in this country...My reaction is: What's taking us so long? Let's get that electrical current flowing. Drop those pellets [of poison gas] now! Whenever I argue this with friends who have opposite views, they say that I don't have enough regard for the most marvelous of miracles - human life. Just the opposite: It's because I have so much regard for human life that I favor capital punishment. Murder is the most terrible crime there is. Anything less than the death penalty is an insult to the victim and society. It says..that we don't value the victim's life enough to punish the killer fully."

Death penalty is valid retribution Friday 4 March 2011 - Another argument is that capital punishment doesn’t deter crime. Academic studies have found that it does. But if deterrence is the gold standard for judging laws, maybe we should stop throwing corrupt politicians in jail because the unending parade of dishonest governors, aldermen and other officeholders in Illinois is testimony to the failure of good-government laws to deter corruption. As the sad soap opera of former Gov. George Ryan and his ailing wife shows, we keep Ryan in jail to make him pay for his crimes. The death penalty is just retribution for a few heinous murders.

Death penalty is valid retribution Friday 4 March 2011 - Repeal advocates point to the shameful wrongful convictions of the past. The Legislature has enacted reforms. If more common sense reforms are needed, Quinn should push them. But let’s not throw up our arms and declare society is incompetent to deliver justice for Shannon McNamara and her devastated family. What mercy would Quinn show them by rescuing Mertz from the fate he earned?

During a videotaped interrogation by police, Smirnov said “he researched whether Illinois still had the death penalty and he researched it as recently as the morning of the murder,” Berlin said.

Opponents of capital punishment argue it has no deterrent effect. A dozen academic studies demonstrated the deterrence value of capital punishment; other studies rejected that finding. But Vesel’s murder, the prosecutor said, “is not an academic study, this is an actual case, which I would argue is proof that the death penalty is a deterrent.” - Repeal of death penalty backfires Monday 18 April 2011            

Quinn signed repeal into law after his office five times callously rejected an appeal for a hearing from Cindy McNamara, whose daughter was slain by one of the 15 men then on Death Row. I called Quinn’s office about the Vesel murder and was told: “Illinois’ capital punishment system was irreparably broken, and ending it was the right thing to do. The killing of Ms. Vesel was a senseless tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family as they cope with their terrible loss.”

Shannon McNamara was raped, murdered and mutilated by Anthony Mertz. In signing repeal, Quinn also commuted the sentences of Mertz and the other 14 to life imprisonment. They include Cecil Sutherland, who kidnapped, raped and murdered a 10-year-old girl; Andrew Urdiales, who confessed to killing eight women; Paul Runge, a sadist who raped and murdered a Chicago woman and her 10-year-old daughter, and Daniel Ramsey, who admitted killing two women.

There’s no evidence any of these men were wrongfully convicted by an “irreparably broken” system. As this list demonstrates, the victims of the most heinous crimes are often women and children hunted by murderous sexual predators. Protecting the innocent and delivering justice for the victims are why Illinois still needs the death penalty. - Repeal of death penalty backfires Monday 18 April 2011        

Respect for human life should mean a murderer ought to forfeit his or her own life as payment for the life taken. Life in prison is unequal punishment. It is not fair to the victim, to the victim's family or even to the killer who has not received his or her "just deserts." [Cal Thomas: Death penalty foes discriminate against unborn March 18, 2013 | 9:00 pm]

In the case of abortion, obviously there can be no sentence of death or life in prison for the "murderer." But that doesn't mean that Maryland cannot exercise an equivalent respect for life through laws that restrict abortion. Shouldn't the unborn also be spared a death sentence? If the Maryland legislature can stop the state from taking the lives of murderers, it can adopt restrictions that save the lives of many threatened by abortion. [Cal Thomas: Death penalty foes discriminate against unborn March 18, 2013 | 9:00 pm]

I have often proposed a deal for my liberal friends who are anti-death penalty but pro-choice: I will surrender my position in favor of the death penalty, if pro-choicers support laws that protect the unborn.

It seems like a fair deal to me, but so far I've gotten no takers. This seems ideologically inconsistent, if they argue all human life is valuable.

The death chambers will close in Maryland for a few murderers, but thousands of abortions will continue in Maryland each year -- more than 1 million annually nationwide -- "sentencing" innocents to death without due process. [Cal Thomas: Death penalty foes discriminate against unborn March 18, 2013 | 9:00 pm]

“I have heard all the arguments against capital punishment. Most are easily dismissed. There are hundreds of good arguments for capital punishment in every state that has a death penalty. They kill time in prison cells, waiting for a death that is always more humane than the cruel and unusual ways they murdered innocent men, women and children.”

Peter Bronson. "Death Penalty Guards What is Valued Most". International Herald Tribune. 8 Mar. 2001 DNA testing has also been a dud for death penalty opponents. It is not springing open dozens of cell doors on death row, because DNA tests are far more likely to confirm guilt than show that exhaustive appeals have still convicted the wrong person. Nonetheless, many states are adopting DNA testing to eliminate even the remote chance of a wrongful execution.

"A cruel penalty for victims". Cincinnati Enquirer. 3 Feb. 2003 - Death penalty opponents who twist the truth to protect killers are also torturing victims' families.

Sunday, June 18, 2000

Death penalty

Still guilty

Pretend the death penalty is a toaster that is tested for 10 years, in 24 inspections by an army of toaster testers — to make sure nobody gets electrocuted by mistake.

Sound safe enough?

Not to opponents of capital punishment. Their new argument is that we should unplug every toaster because some did not pass inspection.

I'm no death-penalty fanatic. I've seen good arguments in favor, and the shattered victims they left behind. The best case against it is moral, but the worst opponents are not ethical. They ignore victims and make martyrs of murderers. They sabotage the system at taxpayer expense, then say executions are too costly. Defense lawyers salt the record with deliberate mistakes, then say the killer had a lousy defense.

Take for example the Feb. 9 execution of Martin Link, convicted of the 1991 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl kidnapped on her way to a St. Louis school bus. Link, previously convicted of raping a 13-year-old child and, while awaiting trial, accused of raping and beating a 15-year-old, could be the poster boy for continuation of the death penalty. [J. KARL MILLER: Opposition to capital punishment is misdirected By J Karl Miller Posted in: Columbia Missourian February 16, 2011 | 12:01 a.m. CST]

Contrary to the claims of capital punishment opponents, the death penalty is not a means of exacting revenge, nor does it debase us as a society. Instead, it is a legal, judicial means of judging responsibility and an appropriate punishment for particularly atrocious or hideous crimes.

For example, how can one justify leniency for someone who abuses and murders a child? Not only is that youngster deprived of the carefree experience of childhood, but also the family is forever denied the joy of guiding the child through to maturity and the hope of grandchildren. There can be no more horrific experience than that of a parent burying a child. [J. KARL MILLER: Opposition to capital punishment is misdirected By J Karl Miller Posted in: Columbia Missourian February 16, 2011 | 12:01 a.m. CST]

Finally, the time from sentence to execution, measured in weeks at the nation's founding, has increased to well over 10 years, with many instances exceeding 20 years. The Supreme Court's suspension of the death penalty from 1972 until 1976 resulted in mandated reforms, such as lengthier appeals, automatic sentence reviews and changes in law and technology, making it highly unlikely that the innocent will be put to death. [J. KARL MILLER: Opposition to capital punishment is misdirected By J Karl Miller Posted in: Columbia Missourian February 16, 2011 | 12:01 a.m. CST]

It's hard to imagine, then, any of the same people would argue that a killer who has the chance to plead his or her innocence but is convicted by a jury is any less worthy of the death penalty, particularly when it is more humane and has a post-conviction appeal process. Should only the number of victims justify capital punishment? Are individual lives less precious, more replaceable? - Validating The Death Penalty Submitted by Adam Dickter on Mon, 2 May 2011 - 12:42

Statistical studies and common sense aside, it's undeniable that the death penalty saves some lives: those of the prison guards and other inmates who would otherwise be killed by murderers serving life sentences without parole, and of people who might otherwise encounter murderous escapees.

So those of us who lean against the death penalty must confront the very real possibility that abolishing it could lead to the violent deaths of unknown numbers of innocent men, women, and children. And those who are still skeptical that the death penalty deters any killings must also confront the risk-benefit calculus suggested by political scientist John McAdams of Marquette University: 'If we execute murderers, and there is, in fact, no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims.’

“I have to tell you as much as I want to, I despise these people.  I despise these people.  But… let’s not become them.  Let’s not close down people’s freedom of speech.” [Cop Killer Mumia Abu Jamal death sentence overturned Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 at 4:48 AM + 0800]

While Maher is joking about it, and says it in a joking manner, it doesn’t take a genius to know he means what he says. Agree or disagree with him, he’s one of the more honest personalities in the media when it comes to his perspective.

While Pat and Stu believed, by “more D.N.A. testing, Maher was referring to death row inmates, Glenn wasn’t willing to give him that benefit of the doubt.

“It sure sounds to me like he’s not just for the prisoners, but also, let’s kill the right people — let’s make sure — you know, there’s too many people. Let’s kill the stupid people…” Glenn commented. [Bill Maher: “We need to promote death.” Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 4:50 AM +0800]