NCJ Number
79386
Journal
Michigan Law Review Volume: 79 Issue: 6 Dated: (May 1981) Pages: 1177-1231
Date Published
1981
Length
55 pages
Annotation
Retribution and deterrence are examined as bases for capital punishment.
Abstract
Morally, the permissible bases for capital punishment are retribution and deterrence. Retribution, despite appealing to the desire to exact the ultimate price from persons who commit particularly heinous crimes, cannot be morally justified in practice because a system of State executions inevitably will be tainted by mistakes, bias, and caprice. Deterrence can justify capital punishment if it can be shown that capital punishment compared to less severe penalties significantly deters homicide. Empirical evidence must be examined to determine if capital punishment does have such a deterrent effect. Although there were occasional dissenters (never with empirical evidence), the belief that the death penalty does not deter criminals was the general consensus of the scientific establishment until 1975. In that year, Isaac Ehrlich used the techniques of modern econometrics to show that capital punishment does deter crime. An analysis of Ehrlich's research, however, shows it to be flawed conceptually and methodologically, and the study's conclusions are not supported by either State or national data when different time periods are examined or when other plausible variables, such as levels of gun ownership, are included in the regression equations. Econometric studies following Ehrlich's generally find no evidence that executions deter. Thus, the empirical evidence is sufficiently one-sided to require that the morality of the death penalty be discussed under the assumption that it does not deter homicide. A detailed discussion of retributivist justifications for the death penalty is appended. A total of 156 footnotes is provided.