The death penalty clearly is a stronger deterrent than LWOP in reducing murder-especially capital murder. Not only is this COMMON SENSE! BUT, this conviction has statistical support!
www.health-care-technology-llc.com/frbdeathpen.htm QUOTE:
Since 1972, when the death penalty was banned, there have been over 591,000 murders in the U.S. This analysis shows that the DEATH PENALTY DOES REDUCE MURDER!
IS THE DEATH PENALTY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING MURDER?
This analysis demonstrates that the death penalty DOES REDUCE MURDER in general, and serial murderers in particular. Since ancient times capital punishment was recognized as the most effective way of dealing with crimes against society. The Bible condones and even commands death for murder and a variety of other offenses including kidnapping, witchcraft, and sodomy. Jesus never condemned capital punishment and the Apostle Paul appeared to condone it. The practice of capital punishment came to America from English common law. Since then the death penalty has almost always been a feature of our criminal justice system. The first known execution in America was of Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 in the Colony of Virginia for the crime of theft. The phrase in the Fifth Amendment, which states that no man, shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law certainly seems to indicate that death was seen as an acceptable punishment for convicted criminals. Widespread approval of the death penalty, with the exception of the abolitionist movements of the mid nineteenth century, appears to have persisted in the United States from colonial times up to the 1950s.
However, beginning in the 1950s and the civil rights era, critics of the death penalty claimed that it was barbaric, racist, and ineffective in preventing murder. They point out that States such as Texas and Florida that employ capital punishment have higher murder rates than do states that don't employ it, and that no statistical correlation can be shown between capital punishment and murder. Concern is also expressed about innocent men, especially minorities, being executed. At that time, the violent crime rate was low and the belief among many Americans was that capital punishment was no longer justified as a crime deterrent. Consequently, executions declined sharply in the U.S. from an average of 130 executions yearly (1930s-1940's) to just one in 1967. The late 1960s were challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment (Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 153 (1972). Three justices focused on the arbitrariness of the application of capital punishment and the appearance of racial bias against black defendants. Although the violent crime rate was at historic lows in the early 1950s, the murder rate began to increase sharply in the 1960s and 1970s. Capital punishment laws were subsequently rewritten to comply with the Supreme Court's decision against the death penalty as practiced and executions resumed in 1977.
With the increase of murders in the 1960's came a new phenomenon. The explosive increases in serial or series murderers. Prior to the 1950s, the number of serial murderers in the U.S. since colonial times was typically between two to four per decade (Figure 1 below). The exceptions were the turbulent decades of the 1870s and 1920s, when nine serial murders were recorded. However, during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the number of serial murderers increased exponentially from 10 to 60 per decade! Never before in history had such an explosion of serial killings occurred. Serial murders were killing dozens of people before being captured. Jack the Ripper, with five victims, is an amateur compared to today's serial murderer. Of the over 15,000 murders committed annually in the U.S., an estimated 30 to 40 percent are committed by serial murderers. Before the 1970s the term "serial murderer" did not even exist. Robert K. Ressler of the FBI coined the term 'serial killer' in the mid-1970s because the murders occurred in a series over time.
Why the sudden increase in murder in general and serial murder in particular, beginning in the late 1950s? Was it caused by poverty, racism, and despair, or was it caused by the suspension of the death penalty? Figure 2 shows the number of murders, the number of sentences for murder, and the number of executions in the U.S. for the period 1972-2000 (Source: US Department of Justice, FBI). The decline in the number of murder can be seen starting in the 1990's. A steady increase in sentences since 1972 and a sharp increase in executions preceded this decline in murders. When polynumerial curves are fitted to the number of murders and executions, a definite inverse relationship is evident. As executions declined in the 70s, murders increased, and as executions increased in the 1980s, murders decreased.
Let's consider the effect of capital punishment on serial murderers. Figure 3 shows U.S. serial murderers and executions by decade for the 1930s through the 1990s (Source: US Bureau of Justice Statistics). The direct relationship between the number of serial murderers in a given decade and the number of executions during that decade is inescapable. During the 1970s when the number of executions reached their lowest point at three, the number of serial murderers reached their highest point at 60! And as executions increased in the 1980s and 1990s, their number has declined.
Thus, a statistical correlation is shown between capital punishment and murder, especially serial murder. When one considers that the U.S. with just six- percent of the world population has three quarters of the world's serial murderers, the importance of this correlation cannot be ignored. Profiles of serial murders show them to typically be white males between 25-35 years old with average to above average intelligence. They usually come from middle income homes, are married with children, and have careers. Serial murderers are not the product of poverty, cruelty, or social injustice. They kill simply because they enjoy killing. Base upon the above analysis, serial killers are also very rational and are deterred by the threat of retribution for their heinous crimes. No one wants to die, including serial murderers. Proof of this is the very long stay on death row for murders, now over eight years. If the death penalty is not a deterrent, why do murderers so fear it?
The next question is, given that capital punishment deters murder, how much capital punishment is enough. Unfortunately, reliable execution statistics are not available prior to the 1930s when the Bureau of Justice began to systematically collect them. According to the ACLU, over 13,000 people have been executed in the U.S. to date. Dividing this number by 200 years (1790s-1990s) gives an average of 65 executions a year or 650 per decade. Considering the relatively small number of serial murderers prior to the 1950s, this level of executions, appears justified.
Death penalty critics argue that it should be abolished since an innocent man may be put to death. As they say, "you can't pardon a corpse".
A friend of mine once asked me, "Frank, would you want to be unjustly executed. I answered, "Steve, would you want to be a victim of a paroled murderer?"
We must weigh the innocent man argument with the 15,000 plus innocent victims of murder in the U.S. each year. How many lives does executing one murderer spare? Can this be determined? Should it be determined? I say yes to both questions. Between 1994 and 2000 an average of 65 murderers were executed. During this same period the number of murders dropped from an average of more than 20,000 yearly between 1972 and 1993 to about 15,000 yearly. Thus a yearly average of 65 executions reduced murder by about 5,000 per year. Each execution during this period appears to have prevented about 77 murders of innocent victims. Think of the many thousands of innocent lives that could have been saved had the death penalty not been banned during the 1970s. The U.S. Constitution requires the government to protect its citizens. The use of the death penalty is not only effective, but is constitutionally required! REMEMBER, EXECUTED MURDERERS DO NOT MURDER AGAIN! See Repeat Murderers.
Looking at Chart 1 - Repeat Murders - we see that over 8 percent of convicted state and federal prisoners under sentence of death had PREVIOUSLY BEEN CONVICTED OF MURDER! When we consider that about 37 percent of homicides committed in 2000 went UNSOLVED (BJS Statistics), we must wonder how many innocent people these convicted murderers have really killed! When we consider that the average sentence for murder in 1996 was only eight and one-half years (with time off for good behavior!) with the median sentence only 5 years, and that only about 45 percent sucessfully completed parole, the wisdom of putting murderers to death is evident.