| | |
|
PeterWadeFirstPaper 5 - 31 May 2010 - Main.PeterWade
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
|---|
| | | You are missing the headline on your public opinion data. The 65% support level is a low compared to the support levels measured in public opinion polls in the mid-1980s, when I was clerking, or for a decade after. Take a look at historical collections of polling data to see what has happened to public opinion since the exoneration campaigns began. | |
>
> | 65% is surely not an all time high, but even after the exoneration campaigns, there are a number of people in this country to whom the fact that innocent defendants have likely been executed, or sit on death row currently, does not matter. There is, however, as noted below, a gap between the percentage of people who merely don't think that Capital punishment is morally wrong, and those who would affirmatively choose it over life without parole. For me, this argument is an increasingly relevant one in continuing that downward trend in public support until the two percentages match up (hopefully still at less than 50%, see below). | | | When the UK banned capital punishment for murder in 1969, it did so against public opinion. In 1994, when Parliament was to vote on reinstating it, some reports had public support as high as 75%. They voted it down.
The same is not going to happen here. In order to change the law, advocates must change public opinion. | | | worries that he'll be thrown out of office for too much spending on
trying to execute the "worst" murderers. | |
<
< | Popular support for the death penalty makes opposing it an uphill battle, and principled negative attacks on capital punishment may be more polarizing than effective. It would be more persuasive to shift focus from abstract arguments based on morality and human rights, to increased empirical study and a positive discussion of the practical economic impact of alternatives. Though not the newest argument, in today's struggling economy, further study and emphasis on the financial burden of the capital system is an important part of the discussion. | >
> | I don't necessarily think that prosecutors will feel the pressure to stop enforcing capital punishment, but think rather that this is a push that would be made through the legislature. For instance, last year a bill to ban the death penalty, specifically so that the saved funds could then be dedicated to the investigation of cold cases, passed the house in Colorado. It eventually came up short in the Senate, but is an example of the growing acknowledgment that state money could do more good, in fact even deter more crime (by being used to catch more killers), when used for things other than executing people. The recent dialogue among politicians in Maryland regarding ending the death penalty also often references the Urban Institute study above.
Popular support for the death penalty makes opposing it an uphill battle, and principled negative attacks on capital punishment may be more polarizing than effective. It would be more persuasive to shift focus from abstract arguments based on morality and human rights, to increased empirical study and a positive discussion of the practical economic impact of alternatives. In today's struggling economy, further study and emphasis on the financial burden of the capital system is an important part of the discussion. | | | Conclusion | |
<
< | Taking this path, maybe we can avoid trying to topple the beliefs of the “morally acceptable” crowd, and instead appeal to that section of America that might be persuaded to consider alternatives. If what the current system might be doing to innocent defendants doesn't give people pause, what it is doing to them will. | >
> | Taking this path, anti-death penalty advocates should try to appeal to that section of America that might be persuaded to consider alternatives. There are less people who would choose the Death Penalty over life without parole than those who merely think it is "morally acceptable." Continuing to show the taxpayers the unfair and arbitrary nature of the current system, and adding a greater emphasis on the effect that it has on them will cause them to further question just how necessary the practice is. | | | | |
<
< | A conclusion about
"maybe" shows that the preceding argument doesn't have much purchase
even with the author. Because you haven't gone inside the survey | >
> | Because you haven't gone inside the survey | | | data, you don't have any reason to think cost is a substantial
motivating factor: it has little effect on peoples' desire for long
incarceration, even when the much larger costs of incarceration |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |