COMMENTARY: Death Penalty Climate Changing

Commentary from nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed colum­nist E.J. Dionne (pic­tured) and the New York Times reflect­ed on the chang­ing state of the death penal­ty in the U.S. in light of recent devel­op­ments. Dionne cit­ed the repeal of the death penal­ty in Connecticut as an exam­ple of a ​“remark­able piv­ot in the pol­i­tics of the death penal­ty, the pre­mier issue on which an over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus favor­ing what’s tak­en to be the con­ser­v­a­tive side has begun to crum­ble.” He observed that ​“sig­nif­i­cant groups of lib­er­tar­i­an Republicans and oppo­nents of abor­tion have crossed to the repeal side.” In an edi­to­r­i­al titled ​“The Myth of Deterrence,” the New York Times not­ed that ​“a dis­tin­guished com­mit­tee of schol­ars work­ing for the National Research Council has now reached the strik­ing and con­vinc­ing con­clu­sion that all of the research about deter­rence and the death penal­ty done in the past gen­er­a­tion … should be ignored.” The Times con­clud­ed that oth­er states should fol­low Connecticut’s lead in repeal­ing the death penal­ty. Read full texts below.

Little Connecticut’s big mes­sage on the death penal­ty
By E.J. Dionne Jr., April 29, 2012

Since the 2010 elec­tions, new­ly empow­ered con­ser­v­a­tive and Republican state leg­is­la­tures have gained nation­al atten­tion with their wars on pub­lic employ­ee unions, addi­tion­al restric­tions on abor­tion and new bar­ri­ers to voting.

Against this back­drop, the lit­tle state of Connecticut has loomed as a large pro­gres­sive excep­tion. Last year, it became the first state to require employ­ers to grant paid sick leave. It also enact­ed a law grant­i­ng in-state tuition to stu­dents whose par­ents brought them to the United States ille­gal­ly as young children.

And last week, Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy signed a law repeal­ing the state’s death penal­ty. There are now 17 states with­out cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Illinois hav­ing joined the ranks last year. What hap­pened in Connecticut brings home the flaw in see­ing every­thing that has hap­pened in the states since the midterm vote as embody­ing a steady shift rightward.

Where they hold pow­er, pro­gres­sives have also been using their states as lab­o­ra­to­ries, and Malloy is part of an impres­sive group of most­ly small­er-state Democratic gov­er­nors who have com­bined a mod­er­ate, busi­ness-friend­ly style with pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy­mak­ing. Their ranks include, among oth­ers, Govs. Jack Markell in Delaware, Martin O’Malley in Maryland, John Hickenlooper in Colorado, Deval Patrick in Massachusetts and out­go­ing Gov. John Lynch in New Hampshire.

After the 2012 elec­tion, a key front in the bat­tle for America’s polit­i­cal future will involve how the var­i­ous left and right exper­i­ments in the states are judged. Aggressive con­ser­v­a­tives such as Govs. Scott Walker in Wisconsin and John Kasich in Ohio are in the head­lines now, and the recall Walker faces will keep him there for a while. But there will be a qui­eter and more com­pre­hen­sive reck­on­ing down the road.

Part of this reck­on­ing will be a remark­able piv­ot in the pol­i­tics of the death penal­ty, the pre­mier issue on which an over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus favor­ing what’s tak­en to be the con­ser­v­a­tive side has begun to crumble.

In the 1980s and ​‘90s, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was a sta­ple of Republican cam­paigns against a hand­ful of lib­er­als who brave­ly stuck with their oppo­si­tion to the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment. George H.W. Bush used the issue effec­tive­ly against Democrat Mike Dukakis in the 1988 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Republicans also used it in their 1994 elec­toral sweep, notably in defeat­ing three-term Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo in New York. And no won­der: In 1994, sup­port for the death penal­ty hit its peak of 80 percent nationwide.

But a Gallup sur­vey last fall showed how much things have changed: Support for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was down to 61 per­cent. Among the many rea­sons for the drop are a decline in crime rates, which has increased pub­lic con­fi­dence in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and a stream of reports cast­ing doubt on the guilt of some who were exe­cut­ed. In addi­tion, sig­nif­i­cant groups of lib­er­tar­i­an Republicans and oppo­nents of abor­tion have crossed to the repeal side. An impor­tant test of the new pol­i­tics of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment will come this November in a California death penalty referendum.

For all this, it still takes polit­i­cal courage to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week as Malloy signed the death penal­ty repeal found 62 per­cent of Connecticut vot­ers still favor­ing exe­cu­tions of those con­vict­ed of mur­der, with only 30 per­cent opposed. Just 29 per­cent of those queried approved of the legislature’s han­dling of the issue, while 51 percent disapproved.

But (and it’s a very impor­tant but) sup­port for the death penal­ty, in Connecticut and else­where, is not as robust as it looks. When Quinnipiac posed a dif­fer­ent ques­tion — ​“Which pun­ish­ment do you pre­fer for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der, the death penal­ty, or life in prison with no chance of parole?” — only 46 per­cent favored the death penal­ty. An equal num­ber chose life with­out parole. Death penal­ty oppo­nents have an open­ing they haven’t had for some time.

Moreover, vot­ers aren’t as agi­tat­ed by the issue as they once were. Only 37 per­cent of Connecticut vot­ers told Quinnipiac that the issue would be ​“extreme­ly” or ​“very” impor­tant to how they cast their bal­lots in legislative elections.

Malloy is under no illu­sions about the strong resid­ual oppo­si­tion to repeal. When he signed the repeal bill last Wednesday, he did so with lit­tle cer­e­mo­ny, care­ful­ly observ­ing that ​“many peo­ple whom I deeply respect, includ­ing friends and fam­i­ly … believe the death penal­ty is just.”

Nonetheless, what Malloy did was his­toric, and it was a sign that despite the drea­ry polar­iza­tion that char­ac­ter­izes our debates, American pol­i­tics is still capa­ble of springing surprises.

The Myth of Deterrence

Editorial, N.Y. Times — April 28, 2012

One of the most fre­quent­ly made claims about the death penal­ty is that it deters poten­tial mur­der­ers. That was the claim when the Supreme Court rein­stat­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976. It is the claim today after a revival of research about the top­ic in the last decade.

But a dis­tin­guished com­mit­tee of schol­ars work­ing for the National Research Council has now reached the strik­ing and con­vinc­ing con­clu­sion that all of the research about deter­rence and the death penal­ty done in the past gen­er­a­tion, includ­ing by some first-rank schol­ars at the most pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ties, should be ignored.

The com­mit­tee found that the research ​“is not infor­ma­tive about whether cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment increas­es, decreas­es, or has no effect on homi­cide rates.” No study looks at what real­ly mat­ters, by com­par­ing the deter­rent effects of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with oth­er penal­ties, like life with­out parole. A lot of the research assumes that ​“poten­tial mur­der­ers respond to the objec­tive risk of exe­cu­tion,” but only one in six of the peo­ple sen­tenced to death in the last 35 years have been exe­cut­ed and no study prop­er­ly took that dimin­ished risk into account.

“Nothing is known about how poten­tial mur­der­ers actu­al­ly per­ceive their risk of pun­ish­ment,” said the crim­i­nol­o­gist Daniel Nagin, chair­man of the committee.

The com­mit­tee was care­ful to say what it did not exam­ine, includ­ing the proven risk that an inno­cent per­son could be sen­tenced to death and the fact that the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment could well be discriminatory.

On Wednesday when Connecticut’s gov­er­nor, Dannel Malloy, signed the state’s new law abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty, these prob­lems were on his mind. As a for­mer sup­port­er of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, he said that he ​“came to believe that doing away with the death penal­ty was the only way to ensure it would not be unfairly imposed.”

The 33 states that retain the death penal­ty should fol­low that lead.

(E.J. Dionne, ​“Little Connecticut’s big mes­sage on the death penal­ty,” Washington Post, April 29, 2012; ​“The Myth of Deterrence,” New York Times, edi­to­r­i­al, April 28, 2012). See Deterrence and Public Opinion. Read more Editorials. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Deterrence.