This is what Justice Scalia had to say about today's death penalty ruling:?

Question

"The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment — in deterrence, and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes — outweighs the risk of error."

My questions are, what deterence is he talking about? Doesn't seem to me the death penalty is slowing down murder rates, and certainly doesn't stop homocidal maniacs from butchering people.

Why does Justice Scallia feel that "the risk of error" (in this case, innocent people put to death by the state) is acceptable?

EDIT:

1) Research proves that the death penalty does not deter those motivated to murder. Lack of a death penalty does not encourage murder. If you are going to kill someone, you aren't thinking about the consequences.
2) If stopping one person from killing is a good thing, then killing someone who was given a bad lawyer and railroaded into a death sentence (yes, it does happen....especially to the poor and indigent) is much worse. We aren't talking about the frivolous "risk of errors" that can be fixed later. Once you put someone to death, there's no fixing them.
3) Instead of making it easier to put someone to death, maybe it would be better to have more stringent standards so that the possibility of wrongly killing someone in the name of justice is at least minimized.

4) I know the point of the case was to point out that popular sentiment should rule. Just because some viewpoints are popular at one point, doesn't make them right however. At one point in human history, it was popular to go to an arena and watch people being eaten by wild animals. At another point, it was popular to burn people at a stake for not "confessing their crimes" to the Justices of the court.

Answer 1

Scalia is wrong, but he would say, it doesn't matter whether he thinks there is deterance, the point is that the legislature elected by the people has decided that good results from execution, and therefore we take the risk of executing a few inoocents along the way.

His position is that this a a question the legislature gets to decide, and there is no place for any court to overrule such a legilative decision. (Of course, on the same day, he voted to overturn a campaign finance law passed by the Vermont legislature, despite that legislature finding that the good in that law outweighed the harm. so he is hardly consistent.)

Now -- does the death penalty deter? Almost every study says no, or at most a tiny bit, too small to measure. Most murders are done in untinking circumstances, and almost all otheres are done by people who don't believe they will get caught. Others don't care, or don't think they care. But Scalia will say -- that's not my decision, it is up to the legislature.

Answer 2

If you did your research, then you would know that when the courts in the 70's placed the mortorium on the death penalty, murder rates skyrocketed. The murder rate dropped after it was returned to law, and states that have the death penalty do have a slightly lower violent death rate per 100,000 than those without.

Answer 3

The fact that A. if you kill a criminal, they're not likely to commit any more crimes B. The fear of death deters crime
C. There is risk of error in everything we do, does that mean we shouldn't do anything?

Answer 4

The death penalty sure as hell deters at least one individual from ever committing a capital offense again.

And THAT is good enough for me.

Answer 5

Easily answered. He believes that if people know they will be killed for committing certain violations of the law, it will dissuade them from committing the crime.

He believes this deterrant effect occurs so much more often than mistaken conviction, that it is the better alternative.

There is no other answer.

Answer 6

Its a very limited deterrence...the sh!tbag being executed won't commit anymore crimes will he? Seems like he's deterred to me...

Answer 7

I am with you on this. I was little annoyed after reading this.