Death penalty deterrence articles

Below are citations and abstracts of articles on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Our goal is to collect the
abstracts of all studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals in the last ten years, as well as working papers
of studies submitted for such publication. We welcome suggestions for additions to this list.

Death penalty deterrence articles
Below are citations and abstracts of articles on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Our goal is to collect the
abstracts of all studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals in the last ten years, as well as working papers
of studies submitted for such publication. We welcome suggestions for additions to this list. Please e-mail Kent
Scheidegger via our contact page.

• ESSAYS
The following articles discuss the philosophical and policy implications of deterrence and capital punishment.
Because they do not claim to be empirical research, the criterion of peer-reviewed publication does not apply.
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule

Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
58 Stan. L. Rev. 703 (Jan. 2006)
Abstract: Many people believe that the death penalty should be abolished even if, as recent evidence seems to
suggest, it has a significant deterrent effect. But if such an effect can be established, capital punishment requires a
life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form
of punishment. The familiar problems with capital punishment— potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial
skew—do not require abolition because the realm of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute
form. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a sharp distinction between acts and omissions, but
that distinction is misleading in this context because government is a special kind of moral agent. The widespread
failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs potentially involved in capital punishment may depend in part on cognitive
processes that fail to treat “statistical lives” with the seriousness that they deserve. The objection to the act/omission
distinction, as applied to government, has implications for many questions in civil and criminal law.
Carol S. Steiker

No, Capital Punishment is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty
58 Stan. L. Rev. 751 (Jan. 2006)
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that, if recent empirical studies finding that capital punishment has a
substantial deterrent effect are valid, consequentialists and deontologists alike should conclude that capital
punishment is not merely morally permissible but actually morally required. While the empirical studies are highly
suspect (as John Donohue and Justin Wolfers elaborate in a separate article in this Issue), this Article directly
critiques Sunstein and Vermeule’s moral argument. Acknowledging that the government has special moral duties
does not render inadequately deterred private murders the moral equivalent of government executions. Rather,
executions constitute a distinctive moral wrong (purposeful as opposed to nonpurposeful killing) and a distinctive kind
of injustice (unjustified punishment). Moreover, acceptance of “threshold” deontology in no way requires a
commitment to capital punishment even if substantial deterrence is proven. Rather, arguments about catastrophic
“thresholds” face special challenges in the context of criminal punishment. This Article also explains how Sunstein
and Vermeule’s argument necessarily commits us to accepting other brutal or disproportionate punishments and
concludes by suggesting that even consequentialists should not be convinced by the argument.
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule

Deterring Murder: A Reply

58 Stan. L. Rev. 847 (Dec. 2005)

No abstract. .