Hang ‘em High Part One

“Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.” - Woody Allen

For most of my life I was in favor of capital punishment for murder where there was no doubt about the guilt of the convicted. I had a few reasons for my view:

1. A simple urge for revenge. Not one of my more noble character traits, I'll grant you, but so be it.
2. I could not see any justification for the state (i.e.taxpayers) paying to house, feed, clothe, provide medical and dental care to, train and sometimes entertain someone who had taken a life illegally. Given that some people in society are literally starving, the thought of spending a penny of my money on murderers seemed like a twisted and sick policy and I resented it.
3. I found most arguments against capital punishment to be unpersuasive.

The main argument that always raised the hairs on my neck was that it was not a deterrent. This one I found specious because of two points.

Firstly, it assumes that the purpose of all legal punishment is deterrence to other potential perpetrators. That is simply not always true. Often people are incarcerated where their crime was entirely ad hoc and the circumstances giving rise to it cannot reasonably be expected to ever occur again.

Secondly, and more importantly, the statement itself - "Capital punishment does not deter murder." - falls squarely into that "meaningless" category of statement. That is, it is a negative statement that cannot be proven (though its positive might be).

Of course statistics show no correlation between capital punishment and a reduction in murder rates. So what? Statistics also show that smokers will die years earlier than non-smokers. But those statistics tell us nothing regarding a specific smoker; they only predict probabilities across an entire population. That's fine when calculating insurance premiums, but to apply the same reasoning to capital punishment and murder misses a critical point. If only ONE person anywhere, at any time, stopped and gave thought to the suicidal consequences of their contemplated act and as a result, they did not act and a potential victim's life was spared, then the execution of any number of guilty murderers is justified if deterrence is one's measure of justification.

If anything, I think this whole question of deterrence is one of my "wrong questions" items. There are only 3 possibilities:
1. Capital punishment encourages murder.
2. Capital punishment has no effect on murder rates.
3. Capital punishment deters murder.

Number 1 is provable simply by identifying one murderer who asserts convincingly that he or she was encouraged to their act by the execution of others. Number 2 is problematic, as I point out above, and simply cannot be proven or disproven other than in terms of general populations, not in terms of individual criminal/individual victim. Number 3 might be provable, again, simply by identifying a person who convincingly argues that they were dissuaded from murder through fear of being executed.

The question should not be "Will executing proven murderers deter other potential murders?"; it should be "Will executing proven murderers encourage other potential murders?". That is the only meaningful or consequential question. Unless the answer to that question is "Yes", then if there is only a one in a billion chance that a single murderer will be deterred by the execution of others are we not morally obliged to perform those executions? If we do not, is the murder of that single victim not on our hands because we failed to prevent it?

So, that's how I felt.

Recently though, I have changed my mind for two reasons, the first practical and the second philosophical:

1. DNA technology has brought to light just how widespread erroneous convictions are. There's no complex reasoning needed here. The state executes innocent people. That is unacceptable.

2. This one is more subtle. Consider: An armed man walks into a store to rob it but the store owner manages to disarm him and hold him until the police arrive. No problem here. Now, a man wielding a knife enters a store to rob it and the owner shoots the man? Well, in most jurisdictions there is a very high probability that the store owner will be charged with a crime. I might not agree with that but I do understand it. Clearly there is an underlying principle at work here and that principle is "One may only use force to the extent necessary to eliminate the threat." Once you have eliminated the threat or subdued a perpetrator you cannot go further. Or once you driven them off you cannot chase them out the door and shoot them in the back - unless they committed a murder. It's a debatable principle but it is objective and understandable.

So how does this relate to capital punishment? Simple. Once a murderer has been convicted and imprisoned, where's the threat? It's gone. To press on and execute him/her is not just shooting him in the back as he runs from the store; it is capturing him, tying him up then killing him. My point? The principles that limit action by a citizenry should apply equally to the state itself.

Now, the real truth about how I view the subject? If problem number 1 - the execution of innocents - were eliminated, I could live with problem number 2. In fact, I'd go much further and extend capital punishment to all crimes of violence. Wha!!!! Yup. Start a bar fight - head to the gallows. Smack your wife around - crank up the chair. Call me crazy ( I no doubt am) but from my view ALL acts of violence are inherently attacks on someone's life. We tolerate that or we don't.

I do have a slightly less Draconian alternative that would satisfy me, but I will save that for Part 2.

So, have I managed to offend your sensitivities yet?

(One more minor point about deterence: Executing a killer certainly deters one person from killing: that murderer. That is not necessarily the case when merely incarcerating him, as prison murders and recidivism make abundantly clear.)