Another take on capital punishment, from Cass Sunstein and Adrain Vermeule. Noting that an Emory University study found a direct link between the reauthorization of the death penalty and reduced homicide rates (the researchers’ “conservative estimate” was that every execution deters 18 murders), Sunstein and Vermeule argue that the the death penalty is not just morally licit, but morally required, since failing to use it effectively condemns large numbers of citizens to death.
“failing to use it effectively condemns large numbers of citizens to death.”
Nice. So the govt is responsible for murder because they didn’t threaten criminals with death. I can’t wait to see this one come up from a defense attorney during trial.
Hmmm… based on my quick calculation…
We only need to execute about 16,000,000 persons in the US and everyone would be safe from homicide.
How about we start tomorrow on this moral requirement? 
Joe
**Hmmm… based on my quick calculation… **
Something tells me Francois wouldn’t approve of your math . . . 
We have a death penalty, but we don’t really execute anyone statistically, except maybe for Texas.
It cost so much for a death penalty case, the best use of it is to get a confession in return for life. I think it was Oregon that had a serial killer that confessed to a large number of murders in return for no death penalty. Great deal. No trial, no appeals, families get closure. Works for me.
… I agree…he would probably find the actual number… But, I bet it would still be a REEeeeally big number.
Joe Moya
But, I bet it would still be a REEeeeally big number.
I think you’re misunderstanding the point of the statistic. Nobody is trying to use it to say that murder could be eliminated by capital punishment, only reduced to a pretty startling degree.
Me myself and I can’t get comfortable with the goverment killing it’s own citizens.
Why not?
Because I don’t trust the goverment enough to excute it’s own citizens. You lock someone up in jail for the rest of their lives they are not a threat.
I live in Texas (we’re whack’em off at about one a day)… and, I don’t see any startling reduction in homocides…
To me, startling would be something like 90% reduction in homocides. Quantifying the idea of “startling” is pretty tough to do?
Why not take the kill’em all and let God sort’em out approach? Now… that would make a startling reduction in homocides.
I don’t think I’m mis-understanding the point that really seems to make sense… and that point being that you can NOT prove/verify their 1 in 18 kind of number… according to my research (which I did while picking the lint out of my belly button)… it’s more like the saving of .22 lives per execution.
Let me explain… as I clip my toenails…
I can see it now… as the wife is about to kill her husband found in bed with another woman… I’m sure the first thing that will pop into her head is - WAIT! I might get the death penalty if I kill this bastard. Yep… that’s the first thing people think of when the are about to commit murder that is NOT premeditated. Same analogy can be made with a drugged crazed act of murder.
As I see it, the concept of premeditation exists because there are times when rational thought does NOT fit into the equation.
Which leads me to the first question… How do you determine the amount of persons saved by the death penalty when you can’t even determine which homocide was done in conjunction with rational thought (such as a professional hit) and those which are without rational thought (which is the case for most homocides)?
These guys seemed to have found a way to prove something that isn’t based in rational thought in the first place… NOW, that’s a NEW definition of science (or would that be stastistics).
Ah… toenails look nice and neat now.
If anyone wants to justify the death penalty… why not just say it like it is? Criminals that commit certain crimes should die. It’s pretty simple. But, trying to rationalize the idea that the death penalty will solve the worlds problems is a bit lame. However, rationalizing the death penalty as something that will add the “revenge/justice” element toward the criminal sounds like acceptable logic. Also, to say that the particular criminal who was put to death will not commit another crime in the future is also correct. But, to say the execution has some deterant of 18 to 1 is just wrapped in a whole bunch of assumptions that could easily make any stastitical numbers pretty much unproveable (if not worthless).
As I “sees” it… there are just as many stupid liberals professors as there are conservative… and to insinuate that this makes them correct, adds validity to their numbers or makes the conservative-right look correct is naive.
BTW, I like the original post… seems like someone is desperate to find a justification for the death penalty… specially when it just a simple case of… We kill criminals because they are very bad people. I could go into the rehabilitation argument, but that would take too long… besides my toenails are done and I have no more lint in my belly button (… hmmm…that stuffs a bit more difficult to get to than you might think).
FWIW Joe Moya
See great minds can think alike.
Post the link for that study, if you could. On the face of it, that strikes me as an egregious overextension of linear regression technique - correlation does not imply causation, etc…
Sounds similar to what Dubner/Levitt have said in Freakonomics - Roe v. Wade has led to a lower crime rate, because of fewer unwanted births, tending toward lower income women, etc…
As for morally licit, I think that is quite an extension of logic. They apparently don’t take into account all the people falsely sentenced to death, and the moral implications of a system with this type of irreversible flaw.
"Sounds similar to what Dubner/Levitt have said in Freakonomics - Roe v. Wade has led to a lower crime rate, because of fewer unwanted births, tending toward lower income women, etc… "
Dubner and Levitt has said that Roe v. Wade has had a small but noticable effect on the crime rate. Which make sense.
I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it were true. As a matter of course, I think that talking about the causes of the dropping crime rate is pretty complicated - you can talk about prisons, general prosperity (especially in the 90s when it was better distributed to the poor), crack, Roe v. Wade, and computerized crime analysis. Because of their simultaneity, I think it’s pretty difficult to pin down causes and effects. But it doesn’t stop people from trying.
“I think it’s pretty difficult to pin down causes and effects.”
Unless your a Republican.
Yeah, but then you’d be proven wrong at every turn. And still believe it.
True but just to be an ass the same goes for the left.
is this the report?:
http://aei-brookings.org/publications/abstract.php?pid=922
From the original Emory U. report: “In particular, each execution results, on average, in eighteen fewer murders – with a margin of error of plus or minus 10.”
couldn’t find the whole Emory U. report… just one or two quotes thrown around the net.
“BTW, I like the original post… seems like someone is desperate to find a justification for the death penalty…”
Any study or argument that is presented to encourage the execution of more murderers is a good thing, so who really cares about what the intention is? Also, about 50% of all murders in this country go unsolved so there are many people roaming around who have killed again and have gotten away with it. And most people who are against the death penalty are also against citizens having weapons so they can kill the people who are trying to harm them.