# Why does the U.S still have the death penalty? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 26, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102 "2014-07-26T16:09:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/41 "2014-07-26T21:05:05Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > “Too” far. The grammar death penalty for you. But hey, it least its not _fascist_ in your mind. A government run by and for corporations is fascist by definition. No, it’s not. That isn’t what the word “fascism” means. ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/42 "2014-07-26T21:09:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I live (almost) in London. Never had my pocket picked. Been to Paris a few times, Brussels, Copenhagen - didn’t happen to me. Well, England is more like us and less like the rest of Europe. You are our grandaddy after all! You probably didn’t get pickpocketed in those places because you were a tourist and living as a tourist. As a tourist you are sticking to the nice areas, which you have the money to do because you’re only staying there for a week or a few days. Living on a budget all year long is a different story, and you gotta live in high crime areas Plus, you were just lucky. Even wth tourists, they get pcikpocketed in Europe a lot. Often gypsies like to target tourists. They always tell American travelers to Europe to watch their wallet ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/43 "2014-07-26T21:10:36Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I live (almost) in London. Never had my pocket picked. Been to Paris a few times, Brussels, Copenhagen - didn’t happen to me. > > Oddly enough - that’s still the most reasonable suggestion in your post. We don’t care as much about stopping crime? On what basis? Are we just generally more immoral than Americans? What appears to be the American perspective is that if we cannot walk into a town and act like we own it, there is something dreadfully wrong with that town. If there seems to be a lot of crime, it is probably because Americans have a natural habit of making targets of themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/44 "2014-07-26T21:10:46Z")
Everyone knows tourists are the least likely group to be targeted by pickpockets. ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/45 "2014-07-26T21:14:20Z")
the death penalty _does_ have a strong deterrent effect in one particular class of crime - the murdering of **witnesses**. This makes sense, since such crimes are far more often far more premeditated. In general though, we just don’t find it barbaric here. Frankly, if you limit it to crimes with overwhelming evidence, I’d say you’re barbaric if you _don’t_ believe in it. You gonna tell me, if there’s a _video_ showing that the suspect is the murderer, you don’t think he should be killed? How about someone who gloats about his murder or multiple murder (happened a couple of times)? Really gonna say it’s barbaric to execute him? If in those latter cases you still claim the death penalty is barbaric, then we are just going to disagreee, it’s just a different way of looking at things. Of course, I don’t believe that, I’d actually say you’re screwy and there’s something wrong with you, but whatever the point is at it’s heart it’s a disagreement ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/46 "2014-07-26T21:15:56Z")
> [@](#): > > What appears to be the American perspective is that if we cannot walk into a town and act like we own it, there is something dreadfully wrong with that town Well the idea that you don’t have the freedom to do whatever bothers us more. I’d also point out that it’s a massive inefficiency, and highly inegalitarian, as poor people oare more likely to be affected by the crime and its chilling effect ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/47 "2014-07-26T21:21:54Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > the death penalty _does_ have a strong deterrent effect in one particular class of crime - the murdering of **witnesses**. This makes sense, since such crimes are far more often far more premeditated. > > In general though, we just don’t find it barbaric here. Frankly, if you limit it to crimes with overwhelming evidence, I’d say you’re barbaric if you _don’t_ believe in it. You gonna tell me, if there’s a _video_ showing that the suspect is the murderer, you don’t think he should be killed? How about someone who gloats about his murder or multiple murder (happened a couple of times)? Really gonna say it’s barbaric to execute him? > > If in those latter cases you still claim the death penalty is barbaric, then we are just going to disagreee, it’s just a different way of looking at things. Of course, I don’t believe that, I’d actually say you’re screwy and there’s something wrong with you, but whatever the point is at it’s heart it’s a disagreement I must disagree strongly with the idea that _not_ killing someone is barbaric. I must also disagree strongly with the idea that killing someone improves the state of the world such that it’s wrong to let them live, excepting situations where you’re clearly saving innocent life by doing so. I would say that I’d be considerably less bothered by the existence of a death penalty if it were limited to situations where there is clear, indisputable video evidence of a premeditated murder, and the sentence itself was chosen for entirely consistent reasons without consideration for race or other irrelevant factors. Gloating would be optional, but I suppose it would make me feel that much better about the whole thing if it were to occur. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/48 "2014-07-26T21:22:05Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > ]You can’t go to any major city without getting your pocket picked. Why, I’ve managed to avoid that every single time! ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/49 "2014-07-26T21:23:12Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > the sad thing is that they are surrounded by examples of why such an obtrusive and cruel criminal justice system is a voluntary choice and not a necessity, and yet are collectively unable to make the intellectual and emotional leap to what could be done. Truly moral and intelligent polities look at other ones and ask why things that they do are not done elsewhere; unfortunately this is just not part of the American psyche where there is a belief that The USA is God’s own country \*\*where everything is done better and more morally than other lesser nations, \*\*and consequently has nothing to learn from other places and peoples. You do realize you show the same attitude when claiming the UK is more civilized and culturally superior to the US, right? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/50 "2014-07-26T21:26:59Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I think there are a few States (Texas primarily) where capital punishment is a major political issue and where many voters and politicians are deeply committed to it. Outside of that, I honestly don’t think the common trope of “politicians want votes for being tough on crime” applies to the death penalty. I don’t know hardly anyone who votes on the death penalty as an issue, and avoiding the moniker of being “soft on crime” tends to be more associated with your position on things like mandatory sentencing / truth in sentencing laws and etc. I don’t think a presidential candidate opposed to the death penalty could be elected. That’s why Democratic candidates, John Kerry, was against the death penalty before he was for it. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/51 "2014-07-26T21:27:49Z")
Appealing to European mores to convince Americans of, well, _anything_, is a really bad idea. I’ve found the most useful tactic is to appeal to the idea that government can’t do anything right, so obviously they can’t decide something this important. You can point out cases of wrongful executions and if nothing else introduce some cognitive dissonance. Another method is to appeal to their blood lust. You can say that execution lets them off too easy and they should rot in a cage for 50 years. ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/52 "2014-07-26T21:32:17Z")
> [@](#): > > must also disagree strongly with the idea that killing someone improves the state of the world such that it’s wrong to let them live, excepting situations where you’re clearly saving innocent life by doing so. Like I said, the statistics clearly show the death penalty works when applied specifically to the murdering of witnesses. So in that case, every time you execute according to that, you’d be helping the world by deterring future witness-murdering by maintaining the disincentive. Remember, ANY punishment by itself doesn’t show immediate returns, but the fact is it needs to be applied consistently for it to work. I mean, how about other punishments for lesser crimes? You going to say those don’t help out “the state of the world”? Are you a pacifist anarchist? You’re also forgetting prisoners can escape, and they’re likely to kill again. You could monetize crudely the value of a human life, and compare it to the cost of an execution, but of course, that isn’t really an accurate comparison, since everybody values his life to infinity essentially. Plus, it also wouldn’t be a fair comparison for the entire issue, since there can be schemes where the death penalty costs less if you restrict it to cases of strong evidence, so all the appeals don’t work and the government doesn’t have to spend all that money on all those cases, like we both suggested above. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/53 "2014-07-26T21:32:42Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > You probably didn’t get pickpocketed in those places because you were a tourist and living as a tourist. As a tourist you are sticking to the nice areas, which you have the money to do because you’re only staying there for a week or a few days. Living on a budget all year long is a different story, and you gotta live in high crime areas > > Plus, you were just lucky. Even wth tourists, they get pcikpocketed in Europe a lot. Often gypsies like to target tourists. They always tell American travelers to Europe to watch their wallet I’m incredibly impressed by this post, and I’d like to set out the reasons. 1. Tourists aren’t pickpocketed often. 2. Oh, except tourists _do_ get pickpocketed a lot. Therefore I was just lucky. Many, many times. 3. Gypsies. 4. Seriously, gypsies? 5. I’m sure American travellers are told to watch their wallets. I’ve been told that. But guess what? I went to the US once - and I got told to watch my wallet. It’s standard travel advice because, well, tourists are standard marks. They’re likely to carry cash, they’re likely to be enjoying the sights and not paying attention to what’s going on around them, they’ll have a harder time with the police if they speak a different language, they congregate in easily selected areas. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/54 "2014-07-26T21:38:00Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > Like I said, the statistics clearly show the death penalty works when applied specifically to the murdering of witnesses. Which statistics “clear show” this? ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/55 "2014-07-26T21:51:30Z")
oh jeez, ya jerk, yeah, twist around what I said. I could do the same thing with what you’re saying Look, as long as I’ve heard, I’ve heard people always say you gotta watch your wallet in Europe, got it? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/56 "2014-07-26T22:11:00Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > Look, as long as I’ve heard, I’ve heard people always say you gotta watch your wallet in Europe, got it? We all hear a lot of things that aren’t true. If you want to play in this forum, you’re going to be expected to back up your statements. So, back it up. No one here cares about things you’ve heard. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/57 "2014-07-26T22:13:29Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Would an amendment to the Constitution be required for the federal government to simply take away that states’ rights to execute? The appropriate constitutional theory is yes. States have sovereignty and both enumerated and unenumerated rights. The Federal government essentially only has enumerated rights and things the SCOTUS “derives” from those enumerated rights. Generally, there isn’t a lot of room for Federal legislation to tell a State what sort of punishments it can mete out for crimes or even what areas of behavior it can criminalize. The Federal government can “persuade” but not dictate, criminal law matters to the States. An example of “persuasion” is the law that says if you drive a car with a BAC .08 or above you’re driving while intoxicated and that such behavior is illegal. Prior to the 1980s States had different limits from State to State, anything form .08 to .15, back far enough some States didn’t even have a “per se” limit, just a general law against intoxicated driving. The Federal government really wanted every State to have the same .08 limit, so they said that since drunk drivers impact the Federal highways, the highway funding bill was going to contain a provision saying that any State which did not have a .08 BAC DWI/DUI limit would lose 10% of their Federal highway apportionment (highways are paid for in the United States by a combination of State and Federal funds.) Most States were not willing to lose money over this issue and caved immediately, I believe a few up in the “beer belt” (Minnesota/Wisconsin maybe) where there has been a long permissive culture on driving drunk may have fought it for a year or two, but once they felt the pain they complied as well. Now this is legislative action I’m talking about. The Supreme Court can interfere pretty heavily in a State’s criminal justice system based on any valid constitutional concerns that may arise. For example, if it says that criminal law violates say, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (say a law criminalizes activity based on race of the perpetrator), or if a punishment is “cruel or unusual.” My prediction is that states like Texas will probably never actually repeal capital punishment, instead I suspect eventually the Supreme Court will rule that capital punishment is cruel and unusual and that will be the end of it. But you can’t “make” the Supreme Court act, so in the day to day aspects of government, yes if there were people who wanted to see capital punishment gone tomorrow we would need to pass a constitutional amendment specifically making it something states cannot do. Very similar to say, the prohibition amendment, the Federal government absolutely could not have outlawed the transportation/sale/production of alcohol without that amendment. No reading of the powers of the Federal government at that point would have permitted it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/58 "2014-07-26T22:15:17Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > oh jeez, ya jerk, yeah, twist around what I said. I could do the same thing with what you’re saying > > Look, as long as I’ve heard, I’ve heard people always say you gotta watch your wallet in Europe, got it? You are welcome to challenge the statements of other posters in this forum. You are not welcome to engage in name-calling or hurling insults. Knock it off. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/59 "2014-07-26T22:15:34Z")
> [@](#): > > We all hear a lot of things that aren’t true. If you want to play in this forum, you’re going to be expected to back up your statements. So, back it up. No one here cares about things you’ve heard. B.S. Don’t change the subject. You tried to make me look “silly” by ascribing an absolutist position to each of my statements, when I clearly never stated anything as a total perfect absolute If you’re going to resort to ad hominem by twisting all my words I really don’t care in engaging what you call “debate” ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102/60 "2014-07-26T22:19:03Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I don’t see any particular reason to think that politics in the US is any more chaotic or manipulatable than European politics. It’s structural, even Federal states in Europe do not, I believe, have criminal justice that is so localized as it is here in America. In America even cities and counties can pass their own criminal law, depending on the State constitution (which may or may not empower cities and counties.) So we have to actually rewrite how we do Federalism for there to be a “national” decision about the death penalty. Instead, we’re really talking about 50 individual state decisions. I think 15 States have made the decision to not execute at all, some dating back to the mid-1850s. Another 25-30 States still have capital punishment on the books but have essentially stopped using it. Only about 5 really go for it full bore at this point. But even in the large number of States that basically just abandoned it but never repealed it, we have a political system that basically takes the view that you shouldn’t change something unless there’s a really good reason. This is both ingrained in how our constitution was written and how many state constitutions were written, and it’s had political culture effects as well–in that most voters and politicians in America (even those on the left which tends to be a more radical group in terms of wanting societal changes) are more change-averse than people I suspect in political systems where changes are easier and more rapidly applied to the whole country. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-the-u-s-still-have-the-death-penalty/694102.md?page=4)