Le Musee du KingEdward

      The Truth Tree's position on capital punishment is that it should be abolished.  It has, however, two undeniable advantages.  The first of these is that it positively guarantees that the person executed will not repeat his crime.  The second is that it saves money, since the presumable alternative is life imprisonment.  With these advantages in mind, it is fair to ask why capital punishment should not be an appropriate punishment for almost every crime.  Advocates of capital punishment must draw a line somewhere between crimes punishable by death and those requiring less severe measures.  Asking why the line is drawn at particular crimes often reveals highly questionable assumptions regarding crime and punishment.

      Deterrence: One of these assumptions is that capital punishment will deter crime.  Under this theory, someone who contemplates murder will be deterred because he knows that if he is convicted he can be sentenced to death.  This is believable, but it applies only to premeditated murders and requires a certain level of rationality and intelligent planning.  A further objection is that the deterrent effect is cancelled if the criminal can convince himself (as he typically does) that he will not be caught or convicted.  And unpremeditated murder, often committed in an extreme of emotional arousal, would not likely be deterred at all.  Perhaps these considerations are responsible for the fact that well controlled studies of the effects of capital punishment on crime rates fail to show consistently any substantial effect.  Such studies are few and none are beyond criticism, but the preponderance of the evidence seems to be against capital punishment as a deterrent.

      Justice: Advocates of the death penalty, when they can't justify it on the basis that it is a deterrent, often resort to the concept of "justice."  This is a concept which is commonly believed to be well defined and something on which all can agree.  Quite to the contrary!  Just a little thought will reveal the complexity of the concept and the often questionable assumptions which are hidden within it.  The Bible has much to say about justice.  In the Old Testament it was an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life.  (It is not widely realized that this was in the specific context of causing a pregnant woman to miscarry.  See Exodus, 21:22-26.)  Then Jesus radically departed from the Mosaic Law (as it is called) and advocated loving your enemy, turning the other cheek, etc.  (See Matthew 5:31-38.)  Religious thinkers have interpreted this contradiction with a voluminous literature.  Perhaps one of the best ideas to come out of this controversy is that the Bible reflects a growing maturity across the centuries and thus ascribes more authority to the advice of Jesus than to that of Moses.  By and large, present day Christian fundamentalists embrace the "old time religion"  of the Old Testament, favor the death penalty, and are more likely to be hawks than doves.  Franc has criticized references to the Bible here as "blather".  The references are only introduced to create a historical perspective.  The point is that there exists no clear unequivocal concept of justice.  Franc asks, "Does (the Tree) disagree that justice justifies death for a certain category of crimes?"  The answer is, "Yes indeed!"  The Truth Tree's position on this is that the concept of justice is not well defined and is therefore useless as a guide to policy.  The ensuing discussion reveals some of the poorly conceptualized ideas that often are involved when people try to clarify what "justice" means.

      Pay-back:  One concept of justice is the idea that for every crime there is a punishment which in some sense balances the crime.  People say, "He got what he deserved."  Or "Justice was done."  Or "He had it coming to him."  Or "It served him right."  All these phrases express the idea that something is in balance when the proper punishment is administered.  The metaphorical Lady of Justice is blindfolded so she can't show unfair partiality and she holds the scales of justice which will weigh the crime against the punishment.  When the punishment and the crime are balanced, somehow there is supposed to be an account which has been paid in full.  But what is the nature of this account? Who gets paid?  What is weighed in the scales of justice?  If I steal $100 from your wallet and later am required to pay you back $100, the account has been settled in the monetary sense at least.  If I shoot you and you lose your right eye, however, having my right eye removed will not restore yours.  For reversible crimes, or crimes in which restitution is possible, the pay-back theory works quite well.  If I burn your house down, the appropriate restitution is for me to build you another house complete with furnishings to match as nearly as possible the original furnishings, and pay your expenses including your rent while your new house is being built.  But If I murder you, it is not clear how that crime can be balanced.  Having an agency of the government murder me because I murdered you does not balance anything.  You are certainly no better off because I have been executed!  But perhaps we shouldn't place only money and goods and services in the balance.  How about pain and suffering? If I murder you, your friends and relatives will suffer not only financially or materially but also emotionally.  How can I recompense them for their suffering?  How can I alleviate their suffering?  How do I weigh their suffering? It may be that they are glad I murdered you and saved them the trouble of doing it themselves!  Or they may be really devastated emotionally and may seek psychiatric and psychological help in handling their grief and getting their life back on track.  I could pay the psychiatrist and psychologist. These efforts might be called emotional restitution.  But there is another time honored concept: punishment for its own sake.  Another word for this is "revenge"  or "vengeance."  In this concept we put the suffering of the victims on one side of the scale and administer a punishment to the perpetrator which will cause a commensurate amount of suffering in him.  According to this theory, if I murder your son, you should murder my son so that I will "find out what it feels like"  to have my son taken away from me.  Or if I burn your house down, you should burn my house down so I can "find out what it feels like."  Or perhaps you calculate by some obscure method that if you levy a severe financial penalty on the perpetrator the suffering he will experience during the years it will take him to recover financially will in some sense balance the suffering experienced by the victim or his friends and relatives.  Revenge is the most questionable theory so far examined. Just how is it better for two people to suffer than for one to suffer? And capital punishment can be administered without causing any suffering at all except for the anxiety experienced before the execution.  For some death row inmates this anxiety can indeed be severe and may be prolonged for many years under present policies, but there is certainly a lot of individual variation.  Some death row inmates seem quite calm and unconcerned about their plight.  There is still another kind of balance that sometimes seems to be what justice seekers are after.  We can balance the harm done (emotional and material) against the amount of sadistic satisfaction which people will enjoy when the punishment is administered.  The people who might be expected to enjoy this kind of satisfaction are perhaps the victim's family, friends, lovers, and associates.  But also, not infrequently, it seems that the sadistic satisfaction even of casual bystanders or the public in general will supposedly balance the crime.  But not everyone is equally sadistic. I have known of family members who want to forgive the murderer.  Indeed, justice is not a simple idea about which all can agree.

      Compassion:  An interesting test for a person who favors capital punishment is to ask him how he would feel if he were the one required to carry out the sentence.  It is helpful to consider such methods of execution as strangling (four strong men hold the murderer while the advocate of capital punishment chokes him to death,) stabbing, or shooting.  There is a natural reluctance to kill a fellow human. That is why firing squads have only one rifle with a live round in it and no one knows (supposedly) which gunman had the live round and which the blank cartridges.  (J. Erhardt has called to my attention that actually only one rifleman had the blank cartridge, but that doesn't completely change the force of the argument.)  Also in electrocutions it is customary to have a row of buttons only one of which is connected.  Then when the time for execution comes several people push these buttons, but there is no way of knowing precisely whose button actually electrocuted the criminal.

 

      The Truth Tree believes, with Jefferson, that every living, born human has a right to life.  As long as a person is living and breathing and not suffering from an incurable illness, I for one, would vote to support him and make him comfortable.  So this sounds like the "right to life"  argument against abortion. But a fetus has no consciousness and no memories.  He has made no friendships, has established no relationships.  The important things that make a human life of great value have not yet occurred.  Killing a fetus may be justified when economic and social conditions predict a miserable life.  But a child or an adult is a different matter altogether.  There is a difficulty here. In ancient Greece, infants were sometimes placed in clay bottles and "exposed" when they were not wanted.  If their families could not feed them (and sometimes for less cogent reasons!) it was thought better to let them die than to cause suffering and to continue to suffer themselves.  Just where should the line be drawn?  There are no clear cut rational reasons to draw it at a particular point in the devolopmental sequence, but the present line (prior to the fourth month of pregnancy) would seem to be a satisfactory practice.  This issue is discussed more fully in the Abortion page.

      Economy:  The argument that money would be saved should be challenged with the question, "How much money?"  Most advocates of capital punishment exaggerate the expense of keeping a criminal in prison.  And with suitable work programs the cost can be brought to zero. Also, the number of people who would be executed under present capital punishment laws is not a very large number anyway.  So the economic argument doesn't seem to be very strong.

      Recently, Lee has posted some arguments in favor of the death penalty for all violent crimes.  His thinking includes the idea that there is an increase in violent crime that threatens civilization.  Specifically, he says, "My grandmother didn't have to worry about getting stabbed to death for $10.  My girlfriend does."  Where is the evidence that crime is increasing at an alarming rate?  Lee says to "read the papers." The following chart from the Bureau of Justice Statistics is submitted in refutation of Lee's position.  Reading the papers will always give a distorted picture because the worst crimes are reported in the biggest type face and the population is increasing.  When one makes careful comparisons of crimes committed in different decades it turns out that being stabbed to death for $10 is an unusual crime in any decade.  There is little evidence that it is more likely now than before.

      Franc has criticized this position statement for not including arguments against capital punishment; only refutation of arguments for capital punishment.  Of course, refutations of arguments for are certainly arguments against, but perhaps a summary statement of arguments against will answer his criticism.  Capital punishment all too frequently results in the execution of innocent people.  There is no evidence that it deters.  It cannot be unambiguously defended on the basis that it is just.  And, finally, it gives the police too much power.  There can be no doubt that sometimes prosecutors and police officials become involved in political affairs to such an extent that their own livelihood and political future depend on obtaining a conviction.  There is, thus, a conflict of interest which would not be allowed in many other aspects of criminal or civil justice.  When the prosecutorial arm of government faces loss of livelihood or political damage, how convenient it is to have a suspect executed!  Dead men tell no tales!