The theme of the article is that the death penalty is done for, and we should examine the reasons why. This self-satisfied meme has started to show up all over abolitionism -- partly as a way of self-bolstering in the wake of its unmentionable wipe-out in Glossip -- but is particularly obnoxious, and dishonest, in the Economist article.
For one thing, the article starts out by implying that Sec. Clinton is opposed to the death penalty. It avoids any direct statement of her position, since it is to the contrary, as she
said less than two months ago. It also notes that Sen. Sanders opposes capital punishment, but omits to mention that no sensate person thinks he'll become President. It then cites Jeb Bush saying that he is "conflicted" about it, neglecting to note that (a) conflicted is not opposed, and (b) that Jeb Bush is at a
whopping 4.6% among
Republican voters.
It gets worse from there, and I won't much go into it, since readers can see it for themselves if they care to, which I am not particularly recommending. The main thing I want to point out is that, while purporting to look for the reasons we're having fewer and fewer executions, it says not one word about the biggest and most obvious cause, to wit, that we're having fewer and fewer murders. This omission raises the level of dishonesty in the article from characteristic (for abolitionism) to breathtaking.
Kent covered much of this territory
here. and I only want to add some numbers so that readers can see how stark the dropoff in murder has been. Last year, there were
10,451 fewer murders than there were in the peak year (1991), but just
63 fewer executions than in its peak year (1999). Now it's true that, in terms of
percentages, there has been a greater drop in executions than in murders, but to entirely omit the staggering decrease in murder in an article about the decreasing number of executions is just mind-blowing dissembling.
I will only add that, contrary to the article, public support for the death penalty is stable (not declining) and has been for years, specifically, at or exceeding 60% for the last four decades.
Gallup tells the story.
When the severity of the disease is less, the need for harsh medicine is less. That is the No. 1 story with the decline of executions. Other factors would be, as Kent mentioned, the cynical "guerrilla war" against capital punishment, noted by Justice Alito in the Glossip argument (a war having nothing to do with its moral merit); and the overall jamming of the gears of justice with the courts' increasing obsession with procedure over substance -- a problem in litigation of all sorts.
P.S. I want to note with thanks Doug Berman's take on the article discussed in his blog, in which he, though a death penalty agnostic, observes that one can be a retentionist without being a barbarian or a dunce:
This article does an effective job summarizing how and why the death penalty in the US continues to be subject to attacks that could lead to its eventual demise. But, even using just 2015 evidence, one could still build an argument that capital punishment has steady heartbeat in the United States. Prez Obama's Justice Department sought and secured a federal death sentence against the Boston bomber in deep blue Massachusetts, while Gov Brown's Attorney General appealed and got reversed a judicial ruling threatening the largest state capital punishment system in deep blue California. Meanwhile, officials in swing state Pennsylvania and activists in heartland Nebraska still (reasonably) think advocating for the death penalty makes for good politics.
Ultimately, I see 2016 as a make-or-break year for the future of the death penalty in the US. If voters in Nebraska (and perhaps also California) vote for the death penalty's repeal, or if US voters elect a new Prez likely to appoint abolitionsit-minded judges and Justices, I will jump on the "death penalty is dying" bandwagon. But, because actual voters rather than just elites still shape the direction of significant legal reforms in our democracy, I do not expect the death penalty to be truly dying until a significant majority of Americans share the legal elite's belief that "killing prisoners is fundamentally inconsistent with the precepts of a law-governed, civilised society."
It is these words at the end of this article that put me off because I continue to struggle with the notion that giving tens of thousands of lesser offenders life-without-parole prison sentences is somehow more "civilized" than giving a few of the very worst murderers a death sentence. Though I respect and understand why abolitionists feel strongly that the death penalty is inconsistent with many American values they cherish, I find it problematic and troubling that so many abolitionists seem to have little respect and understanding for those who believe the death penalty vindicates legitimate values. And, I think that the reduced use of the death penalty well-chronicled in this Economist article suggest reasons why, over time, it could become easier for supporters of the death penalty to show to voters that capital punishment will in the future only be used in the very worst cases involving no doubt about the guilt and the horrors of the murders committed.
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