Five Myths About the Death Penalty

David Garland, a pro­fes­sor of law and soci­ol­o­gy at New York University, recent­ly addressed some com­mon myths regard­ing the death penal­ty in America. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Garland pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion chal­leng­ing the com­mon wis­dom about capital punishment:

The United States is a death penal­ty nation. Garland con­tends that, in fact, the death penal­ty is rarely imposed today. It has been abol­ished in 15 states and in the District of Columbia. Of the 35 states that have the death penal­ty, one-third rarely impose death sen­tences, and anoth­er one-third impose death sen­tences but hard­ly ever car­ry them out. Eighty per­cent of exe­cu­tions are car­ried out in the South, large­ly in Texas and in Virginia.

The United States is out of step with Europe and the rest of the Western world. Since 1981, when France stopped exe­cut­ing peo­ple by the guil­lo­tine, Europe has been an abo­li­tion­ist con­ti­nent. However, for most of the past 200 years, American states have been active­ly work­ing towards death penal­ty reform. Michigan abol­ished the death penal­ty for all ordi­nary crimes in 1846, a cen­tu­ry before most European nations did so.

This coun­try has the death penal­ty because the pub­lic sup­ports it. Even though polls show that a major­i­ty of respon­dents say they sup­port the death penal­ty, it is less clear whether peo­ple are well-informed about the issue, have giv­en the mat­ter much thought, or have con­sid­ered alter­na­tives to capital punishment.

The death penal­ty works. “[I]t stretch­es creduli­ty to think that the death penal­ty, as admin­is­tered in the United States today, can be an effec­tive means for deter­ring mur­der — the only crime for which it is avail­able. Last year, there were more than 14,000 homi­cides in the nation but only 106 death sen­tences. The chances of any par­tic­u­lar killer being caught, con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death are vanishingly small.”

The death penal­ty doesn’t work. Among the pos­si­ble ​“ben­e­fits” of the death penal­ty, the author states, ​“Politicians give vot­ers what they want by enact­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statutes even when they will nev­er be enforced. Prosecutors use the threat of a death penal­ty as lever­age to elic­it plea bar­gains and coop­er­a­tion. The news media are drawn to death-penal­ty cas­es because they ele­vate a rou­tine case to a sus­pense­ful dra­ma where life and death are at stake.”

Professor Garland con­cludes, ​“We avid­ly con­sume these dra­mat­ic sto­ries and enjoy the oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage, once more, in the old and famil­iar debate. But it’s time to change the terms of that all-too-famil­iar debate. Getting past the myths and look­ing at how the death penal­ty actu­al­ly oper­ates is one place to start.”

Garland has a forth­com­ing book enti­tled, ​“Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition.”

(D. Garland, ​“Five myths about the death penal­ty,” The Washington Post, July 18, 2010). See Deterrence and Public Opinion about the Death Penalty.