Rebutting letter on death penalty

By Steve Danning, Las Vegas

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 | 2 a.m.

The writer of the April 19 letter headlined “Death penalty should endure” claims that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to future crimes. He argues that death penalty opponents ignore “the obvious fact” that executing someone deters that individual “100 percent” from committing another crime.

His specious argument confuses the concept of “specific deterrence,” which seeks to prevent a particular criminal from committing a subsequent crime, with the concept of “general deterrence,” which is the goal of the death penalty and which seeks to prevent all members of the general population from committing a crime.

He also ignores “the obvious fact” that executing a criminal is not the only way to prevent that person from committing another crime. Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole would accomplish the same result.

Most significantly, the writer acknowledges that “[i]t is impossible to determine the deterrent value of the death penalty” on people who have not committed crimes.

So if the writer’s goal is to prevent people convicted of murder from being repeat offenders, that purpose is served if they are confined to prison for life without the possibility of parole. Especially in a time when many death row inmates are being exonerated by DNA or other evidence, the writer might wish to reconsider his apparent desire to see people get executed.