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

[wiseferret]

Crock. The death penalty in the USA in not applied uniformly or fairly. Too many questions surround many convicted murders who claim innocence. DNA has exonerated many. Poor and inadequate representations have been the main cause as well as overzealous prosecutors seeking to have a "good" record of convictions. It is a sad state that the courts often prefer to look tough on crime rather than getting at the truth.
On moral grounds, the death penalty is a misnomer. It is a revenge for relations of the victim. The "punished" is hardly punished. Once dead, they learn nothing, nor feel nothing. What the hell was the point?
There is a place for it- in very rare, extenuating circumstance of truly disturbed individuals unable to conform and function safely in society.
Whether there is a statistical drop in murders or not, makes me snort with laughter. There is nothing explaining the data. What constitutes murder has shifted widely over time (in general, more is counted as murder than in 1979 in many states). Unless you define that data very narrowly ans consistently (and state laws have shifted in the time stated), how can it mean anything?
And, how does this hypothesis hold up in countries that have eliminated the death penalty? If it had such an effect, they'd be swimming in murders.

[TimmySlagle]

Wow, I'm surprised. I didn't expect to see this slant here on the HufffPo. Kudos to all involved,

Since the Death penalty is usually reserved for premeditated murder, it follows logically, that the potential penalty is going to be meditated, by the perpetrator, along with the rest of his plan. And if getting caught carries too big of a risk, they might change their plans.

Reminds me of the old joke about a guy crying at the bar. "What's the matter his old friend asked?"

"Remember how twenty years ago, I bought a gun, and was going to kill my wife, but you talked me out of it. You said don't do it, you'll go to jail."

"Yes, I remember the day well. you changed your mind, and look, you both just celebrated your 25th wedding anniversary!" So why the crying?"

"I just realized, that I would have been paroled today."

[musicman42]

Even if the death penalty was a proven deterent, how do you justify it with "thou shall not kill" number one, and two, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
The death penalty is just an emotional band-aid that won't last and it certainly doesn't promote the message of forgiveness that this "Christian nation" loves to brag about.
Revenge doesn't heal, time and forgiveness do.

[Advocate123]

Great piece Michael:

One thing that needs to be considered though is that more inmates die on "death row" of old age, rather than from the death penalty.

It very likely would be a deterrent if criminals were executed all w/in 6 months of their conviction.

Nevertheless, I still think the death penalty is necessary merely for punishment. I could care less about deterrence.

Those guys in Conn. who murdered that whole family and sexually assaulted the young girl should be executed before the end of the year. Whether or not it would reduce crime is irrelevant.

It makes me feel better. There is nothing compassionate about allowing violent murderers to live. In fact, it is just the opposite. I just care more about the victims than I do about the criminals.

And the libs better not go off-topic are argue that minorities are given the death penalty at a higher rate than whites. If a minority murders a child, he deserves to die. If a white person murders a child, he deserves to die too.

Advocate123
http://copiousdissent.blogspot.com

[sparkandy]

I became an oponent of the death penalty when my daughter's boyfriend broke into her apartment and tried to kill her. I decided then that what I would wish on a killer is a nice long life behind bars. Then I'd write every week saying how good that steak was, how nice the lake is this time of year, how much I like that new show on TV, how lovely the trees are this time of year. Every week for the rest of my life. I'm more vengeful than merely killing someone for taking the life of a loved one. I'd want real suffering for a very long time.

[jmpurser]

So, Michael, all we need to do is sustain an increasing number of state sponsored killings and the freelance killings will do down. And you're not one to see the fly in the ointment here are you?

If, what a murderer does is a heinous act, then what is it when a society decides to do the same thing?