I don’t know about thousands (Du Pont in Bhopal, maybe?), but he may be thinking about The Ford Pinto, which allegedly was known to have a defect that would result in fiery death and was still not fixed. Looking at Wikipedia, it was apparently not so clear-cut.
How about the BBC:
Ok, so according to your cite here out of 1.4 million crimes that COULD bring the death penalty, 10k actually did. Admittedly, that’s pretty freaking high (ironic when people from England, Wales or Scotland talk about the US death penalty :p), but I’m not seeing the deterrent factor for pickpockets in the crowd watching a public execution, though I guess it does make a certain sense.
It’s a punishment. A consequence for an action. Period.
Exactly what violation of law, whether minor or major, have we as a society ever deterred? I can’t think of one crime that never happens because of the consequences of committing it.
I once had a student tell me that the only thing keeping him from punching me was that he’d get in trouble, so there’s that.
That’s an individual example. People get punched all the time.
I’m talking as a whole. Can you show me a statistic that there is a law (ordinance violation, misdemeanor, felony) that is never broken by anyone?
Deter doesn’t mean 100% prevention - plenty of laws have some sort of effect on behavior - they don’t even have to be laws - changing the 1040 to require SSNs to be able to count dependents led to millions of peoples dependents going off the tax roles.
But that isn’t what we are talking about here - IMHO the question really is - does anyone really think “I want that fucker dead - but I don’t want to get the death penalty, but I’m ok with life in prison”?
I don’t think many do.
Of course some could argue it has more subtle effects, but you can argue the reverse too - if the government thinks killing is ok in some cases - maybe if Steve is a really BIG dick - he deserves to die.
I agree with the - it’s hard to decide thing - posted above.
You can Cherry Pick stats, and say that the death penalty doesn’t deter people, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that the areas where the death penalty are carried out have poor social services that lead to more crime - and you’ll never know for sure.
I don’t know the answer - my guess is in a vacuum it probably doesn’t make much of a difference, but it isn’t in a vacuum - and those areas that use it - pat themselves on the back and say they are being tough on crime rather than making real reforms. So I think it is harmful. Can I prove it? No
Pretty much this. If a would be murderer were to do a cost benefit analysis regarding his actions that took into account punishment, and prospect of life in prison isn’t enough deterrent to over shadow the benefits of committing the murder, than it is unlikely that the possibility of execution would be either.
ETA: or what DataX said.
Maybe we should abolish incarceration. It doesn’t deter crime.
Thank you for the inevitable silly extreme that adds nothing to the conversation.
Honestly, you can’t have it both ways…either imprisonment (and execution presumably) deters some non-zero amount of crime or it doesn’t. Personally, I think of imprisonment as a punishment and to get people who commit crimes out of public circulation.
I think that one can be opposed to the death penalty on most structural or rational grounds and think that it does in fact have a deterrent effect, though just like for other crimes it’s not 100% since the actors aren’t always rational.
One of my ancestors was sentenced to death at the age of 14 for shoplifting two handkerchiefs.
Actually a good idea when the crime is something like smoking dope which has little if any negative impact on society. Jail certainly hasn’t deterred its use - and we see states doing away with jail time for it.
Besides the other good points made, lots of murders are crimes of passion. Someone in a blind rage about a SO cheating is not going to go “wait - I had better tone it down.”
Plus, lots of murderers aren’t the brightest candles in the Menorah. I’m guessing they won’t be making these calculations.
I believe in most states, though, the death penalty is used for only for first degree murder – premeditated. A crime of passion would be considered second degree, wouldn’t it?
(Note: I’m anti-death penalty. I’m simply asking a question)
That’s true - but it is possible for a DA to look for evidence that the tools for the murder were bought in advance, since it is hard to know for sure how premeditated a murder is. Scott Trurow, who was on the Illinois panel, noted that prosecutors sometimes jacked up the charge as much as possible in order to plea bargain. Which hurt the truly innocent who didn’t want to serve a lesser term for something they didn’t do.
Anyhow passion need not be spur of the moment. See a whole bunch of blues songs.
Given the magnitude of the crime, I’d suspect that fewer murderers act rationally compared to other crimes - like knocking over a bank or crashing the world financial system. The exception would be hit men, of course.
I’ve been up for the jury for two murder cases - one a guy who killed a woman during a rape (which was a death penalty case) and the other a guy who killed someone during a street robbery, which wasn’t. I doubt either killer was all that rational, though luckily I didn’t get picked.
I believe this is true, but can this be validated? I also assume that if someone admits to the crime, they are not executed. If this is the case, then it pretty much supports the idea that encarceration is for punishment and removing bad people from general circulation (as XT stated), not crime prevention.
Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!
This surprises me. I seem to recall cases such as the Boston Marathon Bomber and the DC sniper where prosecutors announced their intention to seek the death penalty within days of catching the perp. Is there any evidence to support this claim?