Execution is only a deterrent when it is done while the crime is fresh in the minds of those effected by it.
Let a murderer sit in prison for 20 years before execution and people forget why he was put there. California has 650 people on death row, 98% of them will die a a natural death. How is that a deterrent?
A subject given the death penalty should get a new trial 6 months after the first one. New lawyers, a new judge, a new Jury, if found guilty and sentenced to death a second time he /Her should be executed within 24 hrs.
Agree completely. Any argument that delves into 'the deterrent effect' should treat it as nothing more than a happy coincidence when and where it's established. My thoughts on capital punishment generally run along two streams...first, capital punishment is n fact, life affirming. If the penalties we exact as a society are to reflect our collective view of the severity of the infraction, the failure to exact the most severe penalty possible in effect devalues the life of the victim(s).
Second, I think capital punishment ought to be on the table for any crime in which the victim would have been justified in using lethal force to resist the crime. In such cases, it is the criminal who has openly placed the value of their own life below those of the fruits of the crime; that they did not get killed during the commission of the crime is merely a sad accident for the victim.