Quote:
Originally posted by IROC
I voted "no" only because I don't think it really works - not because I'm anti-corporal punishment.
As a deterrent, it fails because I don't think that criminals *really* stop and think as they are committing some heinous crime "Hey, wait a minute - if I do this I might get the death penalty!". Plus, I read once that the average criminal sentenced to death spends something like 14 years on "death row" while his multitude of appeals, etc., are processed. All at the cost of something like $49k/year to the taxpayers.
Mike
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The reason it provides little or no deterrence is because it's rarely used (as a percentage of violent criminals convicted) and ineffectively used in this country. When someone is convicted and sentenced to death, it then takes 25 to 30 years to carry out the sentence thanks to endless appeals and legal maneuvering. By that time, there is little deterrent value left. Many criminals will be saying, "I wasn't even born when that guy killed all those people.
If a reasonable appeal period were allowed and sentences carried out in less than 5 years there might be some thought given to capital punishment as a possible outcome to getting caught.