Death Penalty Deters

I have a distinct recollection of one of my first lectures at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Stephen Schulhofer, a brilliant academic (he's now at NYU) who looked as if he'd responded to Central Casting's call for a liberal, was leading a discussion of the death penalty - and he was having difficulty finding anyone to speak in support.

I still had hair back then, admittedly not much, and perhaps my close-cropped coif was just the invitation Schulhofer needed to include me as a participant as he looked for a contrarian. I took the bait and weighed in.

"But do you think it's a deterrent, Mr. Smerconish?" he pressed. When I responded affirmatively, my classmates literally hissed their disapproval.

For me, the only thing that has changed relative to the death penalty in the intervening 20 years is that I've grown accustomed to the public ridicule that often accompanies my view. I still think it's a deterrent, and my opinion is emboldened by a recent analysis of execution and homicide data published in the Wall Street Journal.

Roy Adler and Michael Summers, both professors at Pepperdine University, have recently analyzed the relationship between the number of U.S. executions by year and the number of murders in the year thereafter for 1979-2004. They relied on raw data supplied by the Death Penalty Information Center and the FBI.

They have documented a relationship between capital punishment and the future rate of homicide. When executions leveled off, the professors found, murders increased. And when executions increased, the number of people murdered dropped off. In a year-by-year analysis, Adler and Summers found that each execution was associated with 74 fewer murders the following year.

That's a stunning statistic, but as I have already learned, not one that will necessarily sway death-penalty opponents. When I shared the data last week with actor, M.A.S.H. TV star, and death-penalty opponent Mike Farrell, he dismissed it as "peddled" and part of an agenda: "It's a claim, it's a typical claim that comes up periodically, and it's been refuted generally. As is always the case, this hard data is analyzed by people that have a bias one way or the other."

But one of the Pepperdine professors assured me they brought no agenda to the table.

"The morality of the issue is something for someone else to argue," Adler, himself a Fulbright professor, told me this month. "We're just simply presenting the data and lifting the veil that says, 'There's no deterrent effect, therefore . . . ' Well, there is, and it's about 74 to 1. And other people can argue moral grounds on either side."

Based on their analysis, Adler and Summers properly recast the issue that confronts society when deciding whether to implement the death penalty. The question is not whether to spare the life of the convicted, but rather, whether to spare the lives of 74 innocents in the year that follows.

"Our intent was to open this up to a dialogue. The ratio is not 'save a life or not;' it's 'save this life or save dozens of others next year.' And that's a much more difficult moral dilemma that deserves wide discussion, I think," Adler told me.

My interview with Adler and review of his work with Summers reminded me of a similar body of work conducted in the 1980s by a then-Auburn University criminology professor named Steven Stack. Now a professor at Wayne State University, Stack sought to answer a more specific question: Do well-publicized executions deter future homicides? Because if the public is unaware of an execution, Stack argued, its deterrent effect cannot be calculated.

Stack targeted 16 execution cases between 1950 and 1980 that met his criterion for "nationally publicized." His analysis led him to conclude that approximately 30 fewer homicides are committed in the month that follows a publicized execution story.

When I caught up with Stack last week, he told me his work has withstood the test of time and that he was looking forward to publishing an update that is currently being circulated for peer review. When I told him his findings were not as significant as those of Adler and Summers, he appropriately quipped, "I suppose it's especially significant if you're one of those 30 people who would've been killed otherwise."

Of course, what put the issue of crime and capital punishment on my mind was the violence against Philadelphia police officers, specifically the murder of Officer Chuck Cassidy. How ironic that one day after the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office decided not to pursue death for Solomon Montgomery (who pleaded guilty to the brutal killing of Officer Gary Skerski), the execution of Officer Cassidy rocked the city anew.

You can't blame the D.A.'s Office or the Skerski family for not pressing for Montgomery's execution. No doubt they were reflecting that in one month, the Faulkner family will mark the 26-year anniversary of the night Mumia Abu-Jamal murdered Officer Danny Faulkner - a death-penalty case with no end in sight. Soon, the Cassidy family may have to make its wishes known relative to John Lewis, given his confession Tuesday to the murder of Chuck Cassidy.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has instituted a de facto death-penalty moratorium. For all practical purposes, capital punishment is on life support.

Too bad.

Because while the academics tabulate their evidence suggesting that the death penalty deters crime, what I told my law professor at Penn two decades ago remains incontrovertible. When he asked me if I thought the death penalty was a deterrent, I borrowed a line I'd heard Frank Rizzo once deliver.

"Professor," I said, "I know it deters at least one person at a time."

Comments

[HeevenSteven]

A quick google shows national murder rates the last 7 years are 5.6 per 100,000. That's about 17,000 per year for a population of just over 300 million.

Doesn't look like a convincing case for deterrence.

[Aramingo]

By the logic presented in this column, countries without the death penalty should have murder rates comperable to or high than those that do. Is this the case?

And, quoting Micheal:

"what I told my law professor at Penn two decades ago remains incontrovertible. When he asked me if I thought the death penalty was a deterrent, I borrowed a line I'd heard Frank Rizzo once deliver.

"Professor," I said, "I know it deters at least one person at a time."

How does it deter that person in a manner that's more effective than life in prison? Doesn't locking them up at least diminish the probability that they will kill again?

[Robert59]

If DNA or some other forensic data can leave no doubt you committed the crime, why not put you to death?

A couple of days ago, two men took a young girl (the stepdaughter of one of the men). They took turns raping her then strangled her.
Why should they live out the rest of their lives in prison? I see them as rabid dogs that you put down.

As for deterrence, the death penalty or life without parole would both deter but only if we started broadening the definition of murder eligible for such punishment. In my community we have young men who have committed multiple murders. They serve a few years then get out and do it again and again. Their victims are almost always other young blacks. If you threw away the key or put them to death it would definitely deter them and it would remind the community's rougher elements we treat murderers harshly but it's because we value human life so highly.

[strangelet]

Mr Smerconish -- where are the links to the studies you cite? One thing I have noticed over the years in social-science (well, let's be fair, any science) statistical studies is that the short-form conclusions are not always supported by the detailed data. I understand that you may not want to present the details, since that would distract attention from the thrust of your argument, but you MUST provide links. Personally, I ignore any assertions of "study says" where I cannot review the source material. For now, that means I ignore you.

Regards

[MsLiz]

The fact that cops murder their wives and girlfriends leads me to question the deterrence factor. But I guess they just figured they wouldn't be found out or convicted.

[MsLiz]

It may not be a true story, but it is a good story. Former Alabama Governor Guy Hunt was asked about the possibility that he would prevent the execution of criminals who had been sentenced to death. He responded that he would only commute a death sentence if he were certain of the defendant's innocence, in which case he would give them life without parole.

[spencerh]

Sounds to me like someone does not understand the Brutalizing Effect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_debate#Brutalizing_effect

[ljsfolly]

The death pentalty has been a joke for many years as who actually gets killed as a result of it? Maybe after so many years the crime has lost it's emotion and no one really can remember the details. I understand also that innocent people also get behind bars for whatever the reason and that is the other side of the debate. I wonder with DNA and with more video cammeras in the room when the police question people will deter those from false imprisonment and death if we have a better system. Oh yeah there is also those guys suing because it is cruel and unusual punishment. Like what they did to someone else is not? For them to suffer as they die for one to twenty minutes might not be long enough for the family and friends of who they killed. Especially a child. How much pain would you accept someone having to endure when they have killed your child? I see both sided but I know that everyone on death row should get the chance for DNA to free them and then if guilty beyond doubt then do it. Don't wait for years and appeals when the appeal is for naught when they are beyond doubt guilty just get it done and save the money for the rest of costs.

[TheHandyman]

It is the Barbarians like Smerconish who perpetuate this barbaric practice. He uses some of the stupidest statistics possible to make what isn't more important than what is. What isn't, the death penalty as a deterrent. If it was, wouldn't murder, theft, treason, rape, being a witch or a warlock, a heretic, or even a patriot all be a thing of the past. Heaven knows that enough hands, feet, heads, entrials, legs, and arms have been chopped off in public squares through history that if they really deterred anyone from those crimes the practice would have ceased. And yet some of these practices are still taking place today in the world. So what is, is the long term proof that the execution of someone by the State, no mater how gruesome or how simple does not prevent another person from committing the same crime.

[ThomasDoubting]

One way to deter murder, would be to put people in prison, before they commit murder, or another way would be to solve every murder case. Unless we do that, the idea of a deterrent for a crime, like murder, is absurd. Murder is almost always, a crime of passion. It is inconceivable that one, would hesitate to commit murder due the threat of being executed, when the alternative is spending the rest of your life in prison. I am not willing to tell this government, that it is alright to kill me, if I commit a crime, any crime. While some people euphemistically call it the "Death Penalty", I prefer to identify it as an Official Government Execution of a Citizen. There are unofficial executions also, killing by police etc., but that is another story. We allow the government to kill any of us. but they choose to only kill certain of us. We all know the profile of those being killed. Is it part of our agreement with our government, that they only kill the poor?

[azureblue]

questions to ask death penalty opponents:

Then how is a murderer punished?

If imprisonment, then who pays for it? A life time incarceration costs a lot of money.

Should a murderer be forced to work to pay for his "room & board"?

Should the practicalities of life time imprisonment weigh against the moral opposition to the death penalty? That is- is money a factor in killing murderers?

If it is a moral issue, then should those opposed to the death penalty pay for incarceration?

Finally, is there any point where the death penalty is justified?

BTW, I am opposed to the death penalty, but I believe that those that earn the death penalty spend their lives at hard labor, earning money to pay for their room & board and something for restitution.

[repearwo]

Death is a pretty permanant thing. Before one can take a life of even the most horrible person, one must make sure that it justice or vengance, and that it is something that promoted the general welfare.

I call the death penalty "post-birth abortion", inconvenient people finally after years of abuse being terminated. Pro-Lifers are all to willing to kill when it suits them. If the fetus is inocent in the womb when does it loose that status? After abuse and neglect? Once the fetus pops out it is on its own. No one cares then.

Justice? Society must protect itself but not at the cost of acting out the crime we claim to hate. God creates life and only he may set in judgement and take life.

It absurd to think that the death penalty is a deterant. The United States is a violent place. We worship guns. "Kick Ass" falls formn our youth's lips as easy as anything they say. They play violent video games. Violence begets violence.

For a "Christian" natrion we do not know how to love our neighbor very well. We shall be judged as we judge.

It is not justice, it is not a deterant, it is pure barbary, and we are barbarians to the degeree to which our society does not model respect for life.

At this point some one says what about the life taken in a murder? Does that person not deserve justice? Does not their family? Justice yes, revenge, no. Justice is accomplshed not by a life for a life. It is acomplished by depriving the accused and convicted of his freedom. Revenge is a cancer that spreads and feeds upon itself. What about the family of the accused and convicted, waht about their justice when the accused is exonerated after execution. IT happen too often due to sloppy police work and often just innocent human error.

We will be truly civilized when we heed that words of Jesus to love your enemies. Naive?

No.

[Malkintent]

It's hard to see how a painless death by lethal injection is more of a deterrent than life behind behind bars in a maximum security prison, what with the pervasive violence, rape and general hopelessness. I've read stories of inmates who talked of looking forward to their executions--they wanted to be put out of their misery.

[retarius]

Getting caught is the deterrent not the death penalty...­if people were sure to be caught, they would not commit premeditated crimes.

My own view is that I object to innocent people being executed..­.although I have no particular opposition to the death penalty for people that are 100% known to have committed a murder. The problem in the US is that innocent people and/or wrongly convicted people are put to death.

[Rickerando]

Any country that still employs the death penalty is a little country.
America is a gun.