With Democratic mayors and governors in the major cities, you can expect the murder rate to keep going up. O'Mallory made Baltimore into one of the top "murder capitals" in the US and now he is going to do it to the whole state of Maryland.
Philadelphia's mayor is a total disgrace and coward.
Bloomberg in NYC is missing a few marbles, even if he is a RINO.
Check out Chicago, St. Louis/E. St. Louis, LA, Detroit, Atlanta, etc.
Over 20 years ago I wrote a column in the Baltimore News American entitled "An Executed Murderer Can Never Kill Again".
That is the only important consideration for using the death penalty. Everything else is just useless debating.
On a year-to-year, is it possible that death penalty convictions tend to be a lagging indicator with regard to the actual murder rate?
In other words, as overall crime increases, is there a point when juries, (society in general), says, "Enough is enough."
Could the inverse also be true?
That is not the only reason. Locking a person up for good can also assure the same thing. The DP is an act of punishment, pure and simple.
However one of the main benefits of the death penalty is lost when executions are carried out behind closed doors. If executions are meant to deter, an example has to made of the execution process, since most murderers dont give much thought to it before commiting their crimes. Public executions are pretty much out of the question, so an execution channel on broadcast tv may not be a bad idea.
The verdict for a SF gang banger just came in today in SF. The jury convicted him of 2nd degree murder.
The perp, a gangbanger (16 or 17) out to make a name had bragged about taking a cop out, he gunned down a young police officer with an AK47.
The SF DA , Kamala Harris, would not go for the death penalty, but she fully supports life in prison without parole. She should be removed from office, but being as this is SF much less California, he'll grow old and fat in prison.
A couple week ago another police officer was killed while attempting to detain another "model citizen" who should have still been in lockup, he ended up shooting an officer in the head,,,
Fortunately the SF DA didn't get a crack at getting this perp life in prison, another officer put him down hard when they cornered him.