The Legitimacy Question Surrounding the Death Penalty - Research Paper Example

Like most decisive issues under contemporary public debate, the legitimacy question surrounding the death penalty (also referred to as “capital punishment”) in the United States presents one with two alternatives: legitimacy and illegitimacy. In the first case, legitimacy, the death penalty is legitimate and is a moral practice, justified by any of the statistics or moral arguments presented in favor of it. In the second case, illegitimacy, the death penalty is an immoral practice, probably because it is either immoral, inefficient, or both. The research literature on the topic of the death penalty reflects the polar nature of the debate, but oddly, both sides utilize statistics to support their respective positions. This is odd because the cliché “statistics don’t lie” does not seem to apply. However, primarily, the problem is how both sides use their statistics. An argument such as “death penalty deters future murders”, after all, cannot both be true and be false at the same time. However, a quick glance at the literature shows it is indeed possible for both a claim and its negation to find statistical support. Additionally, research is often done into the statistics of death penalty with a specific argument in mind. For instance, two very important articles in the history of the debate try to give an answer to whether there is a racial bias against certain minorities in how the death penalty is handled. Regardless, each article to be presented here is statistically and rhetorically interesting in terms of what it means for the death penalty debate. Each contains statistics and an interpretation of those statistics in terms of how the death penalty affects rates of violent crime in the United States. The first article was written by Isaac Ehrlich and published in 1975 dealing primarily with the deterrent effect of the death penalty. In it, he remarks that the deterrent argument against the death penalty is one of many arguments put favor in support of the practice: namely, that the thought the death penalty will make a potential killer “think twice” about committing a violent crime. This is an “economic” approach and defense to murder, which justifies the incentive-based approach Ehrlich takes in analyzing the deterrence effect. The model he creates is designed to represent an economic model of murder to test against available data for validation. The model he generates during the course of his article analyzes earning opportunities, employment, probability of apprehension, probability of conviction, and frequency of violent crime against actual violent crime rates. The conclusion Ehrlich arrives at by the end of his analysis is that despite the incentive to eliminate witnesses, the results of his investigation “are not inconsistent with the hypothesis that, on balance, capital punishment reduces the murder rate” (Ehrlich 416). However, this analysis rests on a number of assumptions, one being that murderers respond to incentives. The second article, a piece on the effect of race on death penalty distribution by Hans Zeisel, demonstrates a statistically significant race bias in the sentencing of murder convicts to death. He makes a number of policy suggestions in order to address the situation, first not denying the significance of the pattern. Zeisel most memorably looks after two cases that were overturned by appeals courts on the basis that their decisions were reached with race on the front of their minds. In both the first case, of Maxwell v. Bishop, and the second case, of Spinkellink v. Wainwright, the courts “refused to find proof of racial discrimination. Data that have since become available, provided by the criminal justice system itself, make it clear that both kinds of discrimination existed” (Zeisel 456). On the basis of this confirmed racial discrimination in the administration of the death penalty, and all of the unknown forms and cases of discrimination causing the death sentence, Zeisel remarks that there is simply no way for fallible and biased human beings to administer death without making the mistake of killing the wrong people. He concludes rather matter-of-factly: “That alone should be sufficient reason for its abolition” (Zeisel 468). The third article, also about racial characteristics and the imposition of the death penalty, was written by Michael Radelet, presents a different account of the role of race in death penalty sentencing. For first-degree murders, according to Radelet’s statistical analyses, “neither race of the defendant, race of the victim, nor is the interaction between these two variables significantly related to the probability of receiving the death penalty” (Radelet 925). Radelet finds no statistical significance with relation to death sentences assigned to those accused of killing whites either, which includes defendants of all racial and ethnic groups. Relative equalities in the assignment of the death penalty, it seems, appears false given prosecutors are more likely to acquire indictments for first degree murder from a grand jury for those cases in which the defendant is accused of killing white strangers than black strangers. What makes Radelet’s findings interesting is that he uses 600 homicide indictments in Florida counties for murders of strangers. Although African-Americans are more likely, by relative size of sample in the population, to receive the death penalty (but not by much), when one controls for race of the victim, the data “do not clearly support the hypothesis that race of the defendant is strongly associated with the probability of a first degree murder indictment or the imposition of the death penalty” (Radelet 918). Reid K. Hester and Ronald E. Smith, psychologists from the University of Washington, wrote the fourth article. In their study, they simulated juries and studied the effect of a “mandatory death penalty” policy that is in place for many counties around the United States. Given the choice between a lifetime prison term and a mandatory death penalty, and equivalent evidence against defendants, juries tended to convict less when told the death penalty was mandatory in the case of a conviction, even though this decrease in likelihood of conviction was dependent on the nature of the crime. In conclusion, the authors write, “The results supported the experiment’s hypotheses that simulated jurors would acquit the defendant more often when the sentence was a mandatory death penalty than when it was a prison term, and that when the nature of the crime was heinous, the influence of a mandatory death penalty would be lessened” (Hester and Smith 325). In terms of policy, these findings suggest that a mandatory death penalty raises the bar in terms of evidence for a conviction for a “gang war” murder. That is, the characteristics of a murder (its actors, its context, etc.) are more important in the capital punishment case. Inequities in the system carrying out death penalties state-to-state is likely since some states have such policies and others do not. Taken with other demographic and crime factors, a mandatory death penalty may increase the likelihood of misconduct (Hester and Smith 326). The fifth and last article, entitled “Relationship of offender and victim race to death penalty sentences in California”, is another perspective on the relationship between race and death penalty sentencing. Analyzing statistical data from nearly 500 California defendants in cases involving either life-sentences or death penalties, the authors conclude, “There was no evidence in our California database to indicate that the death penalty is imposed in an arbitrary or racially discriminatory manner” (Klein and Rolph 44). This is because, statistically, in the California sample at least, the empirical data matched the generally accepted principle that the race of victim should not play a role in sentencing decisions. This, of course, conflicts evidence from other areas of the United States, areas whose statistics do support the idea that death penalty sentencing is, mostly, discriminatory against minorities, based on either a prejudice against the defendant or a prejudice for the victim. In addition to being non-discriminatory, Klein and Rolph remark that sentencing is predictable (non-arbitrary); this means law is quite clear about how the death penalty is assigned, depending on the nature of the case. In other places in the United States, such laws are not so clear and sentencing is left to jurors. Each of these articles presents its own unique perspective and addition to the long-standing and polarizing debate about the death penalty in the United States. But together they offer a unique mosaic of research and interpretations describing differences in samples across the United States. For instance, findings from a sample in Florida differ considerably from findings from a sample in California. What this seems to suggest is a large role of policy in shaping the numbers and details of capital cases. District to district, rules differ in terms of the who and under what conditions juries are allowed to impose a death penalty. Mandatory death penalties, for instance, according to Hester and Smith, primarily cause differences in the incidence of capital punishment district to district where these policies differ. By reading these research articles, I have found that the question of how the death penalty affects violent crime rates is actually mistaken. It is actually the differences in the districts that have the freedom to assign their own laws and regulations concerning the death penalty that have the largest difference in determining what effect death penalties actually have on crime rates. My study into the issue further would help answer the question of the death penalty’s legitimacy (or illegitimacy). Right now, it seems the statistics contradict each other; however, if we are trying to find a conclusion that fits for the entire United States, then the statistics are useless. Statistics related to the effect of capital punishment must be applied to specific districts, which is the level where specifics related to the death penalty are written into law. At the state level, attention is generally given only to the issue of whether to allow the death penalty in the first place; at the local level, the conditions and provisos for that practice are drafted. Personally, if there is a racial bias against minorities inherent to the death penalty, or the deterrence argument fails, I would like to see the death penalty abolished in those places where it is not achieving its desired effect. Works Cited Ehrlich, Isaac. "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death." The American Economic Review, Vol. 65, No. 3 (1975): 397-417. Hester, Reid K. and Ronald E. Smith. "Effects of a mandatory death penalty on the decisions of simulated jurors as a function of heinousness of the crime." Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 1, No. 4 (1973): 319-326. Klein, Stephen P. and John E. Rolph. "Relationship of offender and victim race to death penalty sentences in California." Jurimetrics, Vol. 32 (1991): 33-48. Radelet, Michael L. "Race Bias in the Administration of the Death Penalty: The Florida Experience." American Sociological Review, Vol. 46, No. 6 (1981): 918-927. Zeisel, Hans. "Race Bias in the Administration of the Death Penalty: The Florida Experience." Harvard Law Review, Vol. 95 (1981): 456-468. Read More