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Ernest van den Haag The Ultimate Punishment

1st Argument Against: The Death Penalty Does Not Deter Crime. Rebuttal (1): The Trouble With Statistics. Statistics this broad can be misleading. There are too many variables to control for (which state, general economic health, gun availability, drug availability, publicity, etc.)Some studies conclude there is a deterrent effect, some studies conclude the oppositeCoincidentally, the studies seem to prove whatever the people who pay for the study wants it to prove.Statistics and studies are,30305

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Ernest van den Haag The Ultimate Punishment

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    1. Ernest van den Haag—The Ultimate Punishment Van den Haag considers several standard arguments against C.P. and tries to reject them. In this spirit, rather than just going through van den Haag’s paper I want to use it as a point of departure for exploring some common arguments against C.P. and their rebuttals.

    2. 1st Argument Against: The Death Penalty Does Not Deter Crime

    3. Rebuttal (1): The Trouble With Statistics Statistics this broad can be misleading. There are too many variables to control for (which state, general economic health, gun availability, drug availability, publicity, etc.) Some studies conclude there is a deterrent effect, some studies conclude the opposite Coincidentally, the studies seem to prove whatever the people who pay for the study wants it to prove. Statistics and studies are, at best, inconclusive. But there are good reasons to think it does deter.

    4. Rebuttal (2): The ‘Best Bet’ Argument: Even if we don’t know for sure if the death penalty deters, we should bet that it does (it’s a bet either way.) If it does, then we save innocent lives; if it doesn’t we only loose the lives of convicted killers. If we don’t have a death penalty and it doesn’t deter we’ve lost nothing (except maybe justice?) If we don’t and it does deter, we loose innocent lives.

    5. Rebuttal (3): The ‘Common-Sense’ Argument: What people fear more will have a greater deterrent effect on them. People fear death more than they do life in prison. Therefore, people will be deterred more by the death penalty than by life. This won’t deter all capital crimes (a lot is done in passion) But some such crimes are done on a cost benefit analysis; make the costs higher and they won’t do it. The combination of the best bet and the common-sense arguments is powerful Common-sense gives us reason to think it might work, and the best bet abolishes the need to be sure.

    6. 2nd Argument Against: The Death Penalty is Arbitrarily Applied Who gets the death penalty is subject to irrelevant factors (prosecutorial discretion, judicial discretion, identity of the victim, etc.) Each case is too complicated to set hard and fast rules, and hence there is no way to eliminate capriciousness. The most prolific serial killer in U.S. history, Gary Ridgeway the ‘green-river killer (at least 48 victims) only got life in prison. Many people are on death row for killing only one person. How can any system this random be just?

    7. Rebuttal: Prosecutorial Leverage Prosecutors often have to cut deals with criminals (usually in the form of a lighter sentence). This is due to having a weak case or needing information/testimony/allocution from the defendant. If the state has the death penalty then the prosecutor can use that as leverage. Seek the death penalty but offer life in prison if the defendant cooperates. If the state doesn’t have the death penalty then the most the prosecutor can seek is life in prison. They must then offer a lighter sentence (say, 25 years) in exchange for cooperation. Thus, without C.P. some criminals will get lighter sentences than they deserve.

    8. 3rd Argument Against: The Death Penalty is Racist It is a fact that racial minorities are more likely to be sentenced to death then are white people when their crimes are comparable. Why this is the case is open for debate (systemic racism, racist judges/juries, unequal legal council, etc.) In order to be just legal institutions must be color-blind. The fact that the death penalty is applied in a racially discriminatory manner means that it is not just. It should therefore be abolished.

    9. Rebuttal (1): All That Matters is Guilt So long as the sentenced are guilty it makes no difference if it’s applied in a discriminatory manner. A more equal distribution may be desirable, but it won’t make it more just. Irrational or capricious discrimination causes no one to be punished unjustly. Therefore it has no bearing on the justice of the punishment. Individuals are punished, not racial groups. Guilt is personal. The only question is ‘does this person deserve execution?’

    10. Rebuttal (2): ALL Punishment is Racist Even if it’s true that the death penalty does discriminate, so does the entire penal system. Racial minorities are more likely to be found guilty and receive harsher sentences than whites. If this argument works against the death penalty, then doesn’t it work against ALL punishment? Shouldn’t we abolish all punishment by this logic?

    11. Rebuttal (3): Punish Whitey Harder One way to balance the scales is to punish white convicts harder, a sort of ‘affirmative action’ for punishment. Conversely, we could punish minorities less. This can seem demeaning (‘Oh, you’re Mexican so you weren’t really as responsible as your white cohort.’)

    12. 4th Argument Against: The Death Penalty is Permanent Death is final. Once you put someone to death you can never take that back if you make a mistake. Executing an innocent person is the worst kind of miscarriage of justice. Of the 7000 people executed in the US between 1900 and 1985, at least 35 were found to be innocent of capital crimes. Because we know that we make mistakes we shouldn’t impose irreversible punishments.

    13. Rebuttal (1): Miscarriages are Unavoidable… and Worth it Miscarriages are unavoidable. The only way to guarantee we never make them is to abolish all punishment. “Nearly all human activities, such as trucking, lighting, or construction, cost the lives of some innocent bystanders. We do not give up these activities, because the advantages, moral or material, outweigh the unintended losses. Analogously, for those who think the death penalty just, miscarriages of justice are offset by the moral benefits and the usefulness of doing justice”

    14. Rebuttal (2): A Life Sentence is a Death Sentence Practically speaking a life sentence is a death sentence. Life expectancy in prison is much lower than outside of prison. Most lifers die in prison. The alternative to being executed for a crime you didn’t commit (for the vast majority of convicts) is spending the rest of your life in prison for a crime you didn’t commit… …and then dying anyway.

    15. Rebuttal (3): C.P. Decreases Miscarriages of Justice Yes we make mistakes, but we’re much more likely to catch them if we keep the death penalty. If we eliminate the death penalty then capital cases will be commuted to life sentences. Life sentences have statistically much lower judicial oversight, fewer appeals and fewer advocates (charities, law-schools, etc.) petitioning for review. A far lower percentage of people with life sentences are exonerated, in comparison to people with death sentences.

    16. Rebuttal (3): C.P. Decreases Miscarriages of Justice Thus, if all death sentences become life sentences the odds of an innocent person spending the rest of their life in jail increase exponentially. Ironically, if you’re innocent your odds of being exonerated are much higher if you get a death sentence.

    17. 5th Argument Against: The Death Penalty Is Too Expensive In California putting a prisoner to death costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of incarcerating them for life. In Texas it costs three times as much to execute a prisoner than it does to imprison them forever. Those funds can be much more wisely spent on: Other forms of deterrence (i.e.—more police officers) Addressing the root causes of crime (i.e.—better education, crime prevention programs, etc.) Victim restitution.

    18. Rebuttal: Yes, but Why Is It So Expensive? Most of the cost comes from two places: Maximum security on death row and The appeals process. (1) Isn’t going to change It just so happens that most death-row convicts are amongst the worst of the worst. It will cost just as much to incarcerate them regardless of whether or not we execute them. (2) Is what prevents miscarriages of justice. All the money we save by reducing appeals when we commute death sentences to life comes at the cost of making it more likely that people will be punished for crimes they didn’t commit.

    19. 6th Argument Against: The Death Penalty Is Hypocritical It is hypocritical of us to kill someone as punishment for killing someone else. By killing a murderer, we encourage, endorse, or legitimize killing. “Why do we kill people who kill people to teach people that killing is wrong.” Mohandas Gandhi said of Lex Talionis “An eye for an eye ends up with the whole world blind.”

    20. Rebuttal: ALL Punishment is Hypocritical This rationale would also work against all forms of punishment. Is it hypocritical to imprison a kidnapper against his will? Is it hypocritical to fine a thief for taking other people’s money?

    21. 7th Argument Against: The Death Penalty is Uncivilized, Degrading, Cruel and Unusual Dostoyevsky said that the measure of civilization in a society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners. The death penalty degrades the value of all human life by not respecting it as an absolute value. One of the reasons why killing is generally wrong is because it is vicious, brutal, dehumanizing and degrading. By executing killers we are lowering ourselves and our society to their level. The death penalty is the only form of corporal punishment still practiced in the U.S., and the U.S. is the only western country that still practices it.

    22. Reply: This is an Article of Faith How can the death penalty be ‘uncivilized’ given that most civilizations throughout history have used it? Saying the death penalty is degrading assumes that no crime merits death. This isn’t an argument, it’s ‘an article of faith.’ Remember Kant and Hegel’s argument that argued that far from being dehumanizing, capital punishment is the only way to respect a person as rational and responsible for their actions. Doesn’t imprisonment, the taking of ones freedom and autonomy degrade more? Everyone dies, but not everyone has their freedom taken from them

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