First Posted: 2/17/2015
FEBRUARY 17, 2015 — The Old Testament’s recommendation of an “eye for an eye” to compensate an injured party has been cited over the ages by proponents of capital punishment. Meanwhile, death penalty opponents note the New Testament’s directive to set aside the desire for retribution and “turn the other cheek” when slapped.
No biblical debate is required, however, to determine the value of capital punishment. There is more than enough empirical evidence to show that the practice is neither fair nor cost-effective and that it fails to deter violent crime.
No wonder most countries no longer sentence prisoners to death. It’s a shame that the United States not only still executes prisoners, but is listed among the rogues’ gallery of the five countries with the most executions since 2010, which also includes China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen.
That unsavory distinction could go away if more states abolish the death penalty. New Jersey did in 2007, and Pennsylvania took a giant step in that direction last week, when Gov. Wolf suspended all executions pending the release of a state task force’s report on capital punishment.
Wolf made it clear that he wasn’t motivated by sympathy for death-row inmates, including Terrance Williams, who was scheduled for execution on March 4 for a 1984 murder. “I take this action because the capital punishment system has significant and widely recognized defects,” Wolf said.
Perhaps the biggest defect is the death penalty’s fallibility. Evidence revealed after conviction has led to the exoneration of some 150 people sentenced to die in this country since 1973. No one knows how many of the 1,200 people executed during that period were also innocent.
Racial bias is a factor in imposition of the death penalty. A 2007 Yale study showed that black defendants were three times more likely to be sentenced to death than whites when victims were white. An American Bar Association study that year concluded that a third of Philadelphia death-row inmates would have been sentenced to life in prison instead if they were white.
Of course, a death sentence rarely means death. Pennsylvania has executed only three people since the penalty was reinstated 40 years ago, and all had voluntarily abandoned further appeals. Two of the 186 people still on the state’s death row have been there more than 30 years, and one has been scheduled for execution six times. Shouldn’t that qualify as “cruel and unusual” punishment?
But it’s not just cruel to prisoners spending year after year in mortal limbo; it’s cruel to the families of victims. The certainty of a life sentence might not be as satisfying for those who seek vengeance for their pain, but it would keep them from having to relive their tragedies each time a defendant is due for appeal.
States without the death penalty have lower murder rates, and after reducing lengthy appeals and cutting incarceration costs, they also have more money for education and other budget needs. Those facts are expected to be corroborated by the task force report, giving Pennsylvania all the evidence it needs to end capital punishment.
