Another look at the DEATH PENALTY

[melensdad]

Generally speaking our church opposes the death penalty, while it is allowed within the CCC, it suggests that it should be rare and only used when society cannot reasonably protected in another way.

I think that what I have written above is an accurate.

I was reading some works of John Lott. Prof Lott is a known legal scholar, widely published for his studies on crime statistics. I wonder if the LACK OF USE of the Death Penalty is harming society as he suggests?

If so, then when we oppose the Death Penalty are we harming society?

His writing is from a secular point of view. Still, if we are to follow the CCC and use the Death Penalty only when there is no other way to protect society, should we actually support the Death Penalty?

DEATH PENALTY’S DEADLY VACATION
By JOHN R. LOTT JR.

November 2, 2007 – THE Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively halted U.S. executions via lethal injection until it can rule on a challenge to the constitutionality of a particu lar execution “cocktail.”

This is just the latest example of the whittling away of the death penalty - the courts have already cut executions by over a third since 1999. But this latest suspension of executions is likely to demonstrate yet again that the death penalty deters crime.

The most recent Gallup poll shows that 69 percent of Americans favor the death penalty, yet opponents continue to force a widespread public debate over its effectiveness.

A common claim is that executions - now down to about 60 per year - are too rare to deter criminals. To see the spuriousness of this complaint, consider that “only” about 55 police officers are killed each year - yet we (academics and the public alike) still see it as a dangerous job, one whose stresses help account for higher divorce and suicide rates.

Yet those killings are spread across about 700,000 U.S. police officers. By contrast, 2005 saw 60 executions and 16,700 murders - that is, we executed murderers at 45 times the rate at which criminals killed police officers. Given the impact on police, how can we believe that murderers would be unaffected by the much larger risk they face?

Critics also point to mistaken convictions - yet they still can’t point to a single case in which an innocent person was executed. This is ultimate proof that our justice system works well - making due account, for example, for the fact that witnesses sometimes make misidentifications.

Others, like the American Bar Association, claim racial biases in how the death penalty is applied. In fact, while African-Americans have committed 53 percent of all murders since 1980 in which the killer’s race is known, they have accounted for only 38 percent of the executions.

The campaign against the death penalty also gives us such spurious studies as a much-publicized look by The New York Times that compared murder rates in 1998 in states with and without the death penalty.

The Times concluded that capital punishment was ineffective in reducing crime, noting that “10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average . . . while half the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above the national average.”

In fact, the 12 states without the death penalty have long enjoyed relatively low murder rates - unrelated to capital punishment. When the death penalty was suspended nationwide from 1968 to 1976, the murder rate in these states was still lower than in most others.

What’s much more important is that the states that reinstituted the death penalty after 1976 collectively saw a significantly bigger drop in murder rates (about 38 percent larger than in the 12 no-execution states) by 1998.

Without executions, murder rates skyrocketed from 1968-76. Studies that sought to pin the '70s rise in violent crime to other factors were generally inconclusive.

Studies of the period since the death penalty’s return have shown its effectiveness. Generally, the studies over the last decade that examined how the murder rate in each state changed as the states changed their execution rates found that each execution saved the lives of roughly 15 to 18 potential murder victims. (About 75 percent of studies by economists find that more executions reduce murder. Overall, the rise in executions during the '90s accounts for about 12 to 14 percent of the overall drop in murders.)

Will the Supreme Court insist on forcing us to re-learn this awful lesson, by limiting the use of lethal injections? With the U.S. murder rate now rising slightly, the court would be wiser to reconsider all the restrictions that it has already imposed on the death penalty.

The Constitution explicitly recognizes the validity of the death penalty in four distinct passages; it is hard to see how the court could strike it down as unconstitutional. But too many lives are at stake for the courts to once again stop executions…​

 

[melensdad]

Here is what Pope John Paul II wrote:

. . . Nor can I fail to mention the unnecessary recourse to the death penalty when other “bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons. Today, given the means at the State’s disposal to deal with crime and control those who commit it, without abandoning all hope of their redemption, the cases where it is absolutely necessary to do away with an offender ‘are now very rare, even non-existent practically’”. (Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia in America January 1999)

So I am very much torn. I love my Church.

But if Professor Lott’s studies can be taken as factual, then clearly the words of our late Pope are not accurate with regards to the specific point of “protecting public order and the safety of persons.”

Professor Lott wrote:

Without executions, murder rates skyrocketed from 1968-76. Studies that sought to pin the '70s rise in violent crime to other factors were generally inconclusive.

Studies of the period since the death penalty’s return have shown its effectiveness. Generally, the studies over the last decade that examined how the murder rate in each state changed as the states changed their execution rates found that each execution saved the lives of roughly 15 to 18 potential murder victims. (About 75 percent of studies by economists find that more executions reduce murder. Overall, the rise in executions during the '90s accounts for about 12 to 14 percent of the overall drop in murders.)

I understand that we should not support a culture of death, but by opposing the death penalty are we unintentionally supporting the murder of innocent people? Professor Lott’s numbers indicate there is factual evidence to suggest the death penalty saves lives.

 

[SoCalRC]

Professor Lott’s numbers indicate there is factual evidence to suggest the death penalty saves lives.

This is why science requires peer review and concensus. Professor Lott appears to be reality challenged.

There have been many extensive studies on this for nearly 100 years. There is no good statistical basis for claiming that the death penalty acts as a deterent to crime. In fact, one has to cherry pick, as Mr. Lott appears to have done, to even create the illusion of a statistical correllation.

Notice the words “a common claim…” Common among whom? You would be hard pressed to find any serious researcher to suggest that executions at any level have every served as a significant deterent.

Notice also how he mischaracterizes the ABA’s latest position. The ABA has not taken a position on the death penalty itself, only on the results of an 8 state process audit, which turned up terrible problems and systemic abuses.

Further, the Professor appears to even have difficulty grasping the concept of causal links. Consider how he attempts to address the obvious comparisons of states with and without the death penalty, and ignores the Times comparison between nations with and without the death penalty.

If you want to be provocative, ask about a link between birth control, abortion, and crime. We have 3 extensive studies strongly suggesting a statistical correllation between more abortions, more birth control, and less crime.

I see little reason to doubt the statistics. But nor do I see any reason to question my faith. If there is a corrllation, it is because we, as a society, have failed in our Christian obligations to part of our society.

If, as you say, you love your Church, why are you so willing to turn your back on the words of a single nitwit with tenure who seems willing to say anything for grant money?

 

[pnewton]

This is why science requires peer review and concensus. Professor Lott appears to be reality challenged… In fact, one has to cherry pick, as Mr. Lott appears to have done, to even create the illusion of a statistical correllation…I see little reason to doubt the statistics.

I have seen the statistics used by both sides of the issue for my entire life. The last thing I would do is discount statistics used by Mr. Lott, yet hold my own up as “better.”

But, the original poster is not turning his back on the church. I do not know where you get that idea. The Church’s charism does not extend beyound faith and moral. It surely does not extend to statistical analysis or the area of criminal science. I particular have been troubled of late by The Vatican making remarks that in this age we are able to safely incarcerate people for life. Surely it is a viable opinion, but it is commentary that lies outside faith and moral. I believe many have taken this teaching as to be doctrine we are to follow.

Most people are also unaware that this is a new teaching. The church’s teaching of the past has included the use of the death penalty even for the sake of justice and Vatican State used to have a death penalty on the books.

 

[Other_Eric]

It appears that the current fad of disparaging capital punishment within the Church owes much of its intellectual rigor to an ignorance of what the Church has already held:

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord. (1)

In this we can see that the use of capital punishment is a means of preserving human dignity. The question of the morality of the death penalty need not reach to whether or not this method produces a deterrent effect. It is readily demonstrable that it removes at least one properly convicted, dangerous individual from the ability to do further harm to the innocent.

As far as John Paul’s views on the matter are concerned, they must be treated as exactly that: the personal and possibly fallible views of a man, not a doctrinal definition. To my mind, they constitute more of a question about whether the practice constitutes the “judicious exercise” that the Council required. There is wide latitude for debate on this question but the historical approach that the Church has taken towards state-sanctioned death has been extremely supportive of the practice.

(1) Catechism of Trent. 1566, Part III, §5, #4. Available online at: cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tcomm05.htm. Online edition ©1996 by James Akin. All Rights Reserved.

 

[JimG]

I don’t know anything about the statistics as to whether or not the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime. But I seem to frequently come across news items wherein a paroled murderer has killed again. And I have known personally of families of murder victims who must make repeated trips to be present at parole hearings in order to testify against the parole of a murderer.

Very rarely does a life sentence actually mean life. Once a person is convicted, they come under the jurisdiction of the correctional system. (A system, which ironically, hardly ever “corrects” anything.)

 

[melensdad]

This is why science requires peer review and concensus. Professor Lott appears to be reality challenged.

He is a highly respected professor, considered one of the foremost experts in criminal studies, testifies before Congress, and is widely published. I think he probably has a reasonable grasp on reality.

There have been many extensive studies on this for nearly 100 years. There is no good statistical basis for claiming that the death penalty acts as a deterent to crime.

What would be your source for this broad claim? And while I realize that there are plenty of them, how easily can they be refuted?

Notice also how he mischaracterizes the ABA’s latest position. The ABA has not taken a position on the death penalty itself, only on the results of an 8 state process audit, which turned up terrible problems and systemic abuses.

Lott said that the ABA claims there is a racial bias. The ABA says there is a racial bias. I believe you misunderstood what he wrote because after citing the ABA the then went on to cite other sources.

If, as you say, you love your Church, why are you so willing to turn your back on the words of a single nitwit with tenure who seems willing to say anything for grant money?

Why would you call him a nitwit? Name calling seems less than charitable.

Where did I turn my back on the church? I simply asked questions based on his writings.

For the record, I oppose the death penalty and have for many years. I’ve stated that fact here on CAF many times. You seem to be jumping to conclusions and making more broad stroke claims without much justification.

I simply want to know if my position opposing the death penalty is a mistake. There appears to be some relational evidence to suggest that the death penalty may save lives. If so, then I would wonder if supporting a ban is actually a good intention with bad consequences for society.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Father Benedict Groeschel has recommended for very serious offenses that the criminal be locked up 24/7.

The only problem is that the courts have held that criminals cannot be locked up 24/7. Further, they have access to visitors and to other prisoners and to the prison guards … and the really incorrigible prisoners attack the guards and other workers and volunteers. And they work through visitors to attack people on the outside.

So, what can you do to protect innocent people against criminals in prison who desire nothing more than to kill and maim as often as they can?

 

[DaveBj]

There is a social deterrence factor involved in capital punishment. It is far from 100%, but it does exist. However, that is not the purpose for that penalty. Its purpose is that it “deters” that one criminal from ever offending again. That’s the only thing that matters.

 

[SoCalRC]

He is a highly respected professor, considered one of the foremost experts in criminal studies, testifies before Congress, and is widely published. I think he probably has a reasonable grasp on reality.

Seemingly not, since he went after a newspaper article without addressing the original studies. This is what he refuted:

amnestyusa.org/Fact_Sheets/The_Death_Penalty_Is_Not_a_Deterrent/page.do?id=1101085&n1=3&n2=28&n3=99

Notice that he did not address the FBI study or the study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The Harries and Cheatwood study is just one of many.

Lott said that the ABA claims there is a racial bias. The ABA says there is a racial bias. I believe you misunderstood what he wrote because after citing the ABA the then went on to cite other sources.

No, he used bullistics to address the claim. He comparied projected murder rate in the population to executions. Which is already apples to oranges. But he even fudged there. The racial bias was based on blind studies of like sentencing. The surveys in the 8 states removed all ethnic infomation and then submitted the cases to review. It also looked at the total death row population.

Bullistics is easy. Catholics procur more than their share of abortions in the US. Should we infer that Catholicism is pro-abortion?

Why would you call him a nitwit? Name calling seems less than charitable.

Because I have no respect for his ‘research’. He writes a lot of conclussions but never cites his research, presumably because when you track downt he numbers he is often drawing different conclussions from the original researchers.

 

[1Samuel8]

However, that is not the purpose for that penalty. Its purpose is that it “deters” that one criminal from ever offending again. That’s the only thing that matters.

I suppose.
I am just curious: who should throw the first stone?

Father Benedict Groeschel has recommended for very serious offenses that the criminal be locked up 24/7.

Does he offer any suggestion as to who should foot the bill?

So, what can you do to protect innocent people against criminals in prison who desire nothing more than to kill and maim as often as they can?

Easy: you banish them out of society.

I don’t know anything about the statistics as to whether or not the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime. But I seem to frequently come across news items wherein a paroled murderer has killed again.

You know, what you are pointing out is simply a failure of this nebulous and bureaucratic organization we are quick to adore called The State.
I would rather not look to faceless bureaucrats to handle a problem they create themselves.

It is readily demonstrable that it removes at least one properly convicted, dangerous individual from the ability to do further harm to the innocent.

Nonesense – unless you have blind faith in the bureaucracy that decrees what “one properly convicted, dangerous individual” happens to be, none of that “is readily demonstrable” at all.

I dismiss any Catechismal reference to a devotion to The State justice system as nothing but idealism with no practical nor objective merit. Otherwise, I wonder whether six million Jews simply committed State-decreed suicide.

To my mind, they constitute more of a question about whether the practice constitutes the “judicious exercise” that the Council required. There is wide latitude for debate on this question but the historical approach that the Church has taken towards state-sanctioned death has been extremely supportive of the practice.

As such, we have every right to dismiss State-sanctioned executions if the legitimacy of the State bureaucracy can be discredited.

I like Pope John Paul II’s statement. He presents more of a delineation between individuals and collectives.

 

[melensdad]

Seemingly not, since he went after a newspaper article without addressing the original studies.

What I quoted above is not a scholarly study by Lott, it is a short article. I believe you are simply being biased and missing the point.

No, he used bullistics to address the claim. . .

Please reread it. You are clearly wrong. Further, you are simply missing the point of the greater question then you further err by simply citing a biased work from an opposing source. I’m not disputing that Professor Lott has his opinion. I’m trying to find out if the basis for our opposition is simply misguided. Your opposing bias is concentrated not on the overall question but on nitpicking Prof. Lott. There is no point in that. Opposing sides can throw counter statistics all night, but doing that misses the point.

I have no respect for his ‘research’. He writes a lot of conclussions but never cites his research, presumably because when you track downt he numbers he is often drawing different conclussions from the original researchers.

Again you are wrong. He writes a lot of short articles, which I suppose could be called conclusions, but he also write well respected, documented, scientifically sound research. I understand you don’t like it, that is fine with me. But I really don’t appreciate your uncivil tone and name calling. It adds nothing and degrades you and the topic.

You have a habit of picking apart post and jumping to conclusion but missing the point. You are now stuck on criticizing someone you don’t like and the whole topic is lost.

Regardless of if you like this researcher or not, the question is valid. ** If it can be reasonably shown that the Death Penalty does save lives, then are we wrong to support it? ** Please try to stick to the topic.

 

[Ender]

But I seem to frequently come across news items wherein a paroled murderer has killed again.

I looked this up on line once and the numbers I found were that in the US 30-60 people are killed each year by recidivists, criminals who had killed before, served time, and been released.

DaveBj:

However, that is not the purpose for that penalty. Its purpose is that it “deters” that one criminal from ever offending again. That’s the only thing that matters.

The Church teaches that there are four objectives that justify punishment: retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and protection, and that retributive justice, which seeks to reestablish the right order of things, is the most important.
Other Eric:

As far as John Paul’s views on the matter are concerned, they must be treated as exactly that: the personal and possibly fallible views of a man, not a doctrinal definition.

This is correct. The statements on the death penalty are not actually Church teachings, they are the prudential opinion of JPII.

pnewton:

The Church’s charism does not extend beyound faith and moral. It surely does not extend to statistical analysis or the area of criminal science.

True, and at some point this section of the Catechism will have to be reworked.

Ender

 

[Newbie2]

I see two levels to this discussion:

1. Theoritical; what should be the case, i.e. if we were able to afford to lock up everyone who should be locked up, and execute only those who continue to pose a danger to fellow inmates or correctional staff.

and

1. The reality of our society; that we cannot lock up for live everyone who may deserve because of space, $$ considerations, that the justice system doesn’t necessarily apply life terms or the death penalty evenly and fairly, and that capital punishment is rarely carried out in a timely fashion.

 

[SoCalRC]

What I quoted above is not a scholarly study by Lott, it is a short article. I believe you are simply being biased and missing the point.

Yes, I am biased. I despise chickenhawks and intellectual prostitutes. I consider Lott to be both.

It is not a study at all, it is an opinion piece. Lott generates a great deal of material (I believe he claims to be the 26th most prolific economics writer in the world), but he is not exactly “respected” (although he claims to be 26th in generated materials, he is somewhere aroud 90th in actually being cited - and a goodly portion of those are for the purpose of debunking).

Well known economisit Steven Levitt has asserted, in print, that Lott’s research cannot be reproduced - which is essentially saying he makes numbers up. Lott sued for defamation, but that aspect of the case has been dismissed (the court agreed that economists and statisticians, working in good faith, could not reproduce the works in question).

Lott’s populist work “Freedomomics” (presumably named to cash in on Levitt’s wildly popular “Freakonomics”) draws a tremendous amount of negative academic scrutiny, particular on statistical methodology. So much so that Lott took to inventing fictional students and fans. That is, he basically created online personas and then raved about himself. When first caught, he adamently denied it, accusing his accusers. He finally conceded that he had, in fact, pretended to be ex students, etc. when confronted with an in depth investigation.

He also has a bit of a plagerism problem in his distant UCLA past. Which is why I really have no respect for him. It isn’t that he is a lousy, self promoting economist (the world has plenty of those). It is that when you scrutinize his earliest work it seems apparent that he is an opportunist. That is, he knows that his outlier studies on guns, death penalty, and other political-right leaning subjects, tells an audience what it wants to hear.

Regardless of if you like this researcher or not, the question is valid. ** If it can be reasonably shown that the Death Penalty does save lives, then are we wrong to support it? ** Please try to stick to the topic.

I answered, you missed it. We know that their is a statistical correlation between birth control and abortion and other social ills (from multiple reasearchers and studies). My answer, ‘So what?’ It does not invalidate Church teaching. The correlation just shows us other Church teachings that we are still falling short on.

Evil means always, ultimately, lead to evil ends. Would you kill Justice Ginsburg to allow Bush to make an appointee? Or kill Bush and Cheney to end the death and destruction in Iraq?

Christ offers us a third way. We don’t have to be victims and we do not need to worship the myth of redemptive violence.

 

[SoCalRC]

This is correct. The statements on the death penalty are not actually Church teachings, they are the prudential opinion of JPII. True, and at some point this section of the Catechism will have to be reworked.

So you are asserting not only that JPII exceeded his authority in EVANGELIUM VITAE, but the Church went further and mistakenly modified the Catechism?

“If anyone should say that the Roman Pontiff has merely the function of inspection or direction but not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not only in matters pertaining to faith and morals, but also in matters pertaining to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the entire world, or that he has only the principal share, but not the full plenitutde of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate over all Churches and over each individual Church, over all shepherds and all the faithful, and over each individual one of these: let him be anathema” -Vatican Council I, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ, #3

It is inherently a Church teaching because of its source. It is also widely accepted as such by the Princes of the Church. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has already indicated that disagreeing with the teaching does not, in of itself, make one unworthy to receive communion. So why attack the apostolic nature and Gift of Authority of the Magesterium?

You reject a church teaching, fine, accept that. Why rehash Protestant Reformation? Or worse, try to undermine the inherent Primacy of the faith?

 

[Al_Masetti]

Does he offer any suggestion as to who should foot the bill?

Easy: you banish them out of society.

.

Mechanically, how do you actually banish someone?

And, of course, the taxpayers foot the bill… who else?

 

[pnewton]

So you are asserting not only that JPII exceeded his authority in EVANGELIUM VITAE, but the Church went further and mistakenly modified the Catechism?

The catechism has been modified before. The fact that it was modified at all shows that the possibility exists. Do you think the Church’s charism applies to areas of statistics and science?

I have yet to see where any one is talking about rejecting the teaching on faith and morals, or a matter of disciple. The Church has not called for all discussion to be closed. That would be a case of discipline. This is also not a question of Church government.

 

[Genesis315]

Church teaching on the death penalty is similar to its teaching on self defense or just wars. In a perfect world, there would be no wars or death penalties, but because of the sins of men, sometimes inflicting death is necessary to protect those whom you have the duty to protect.

That being said, if there are alternate means as effective or moreso, those should be taken.

I have studied this issue a lot and have written an essay on it. The data presented in the OP is pretty much unique. On the other hand, my findings and the findings of many, many others was that the extra cost per death administered is very high (this is because death penalty cases involve an expensive extra phase of trial and even then only a small percentage ever result in the death penalty anyways). The effect of the death penalty is negligible (sometimes there is a correlation of increased crime).

On the other hand, in places where those extra funds are used to put more cops on the beat in certain high crime areas, there are significant drops in violent crimes.

 

[pnewton]

The effect of the death penalty is negligible (sometimes there is a correlation of increased crime).

I do not trust what others tell me about statistics. After I read your post, I took a quich check of murder rates in Texas.

disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm

It looks pretty significant to me. I guess everyone has to decide for themselves.