Debunking the Deterrence Myth
What supporters of the death penalty aren’t telling you
When it comes to life-and-death public policy questions, New Yorkers expect a rational debate focused on facts and empirical data, not an emotional rant fueled by myths and misinformation. Yet supporters of the death penalty, in both the State Senate and in the Assembly have repeatedly made false, misleading, or unsupported claims to bolster the myth that capital punishment functions as a deterrent. This fact sheet is intended to expose the bluster of pro-death penalty politicians for what it is: an emotional appeal designed to foster false beliefs. Crime and violence are real problems that cry out for serious solutions. Instead of relying on unsupported claims to manipulate our emotions, our elected representatives should concentrate on effective, fact-based approaches to combating crime.
False Claim # 1: There has been a dramatic increase in murders of police officers ever since the state’s death penalty law was invalidated in June 2004. This claim has been repeated over and over by death penalty supporters who cite misleading statistics to support it. For example, they point out, correctly, that seven police officers were “killed in the line of duty&tdquo; in 2006, but they fail to mention that only three of the seven were murdered. Four others died in accidents.
The Real Story: The highest toll of police murders in any given year since 1993, according to the Officer Down website, was eight police officers murdered in the line of duty in 1996 – the first full year after New York’s death penalty was reinstated. In 2005, the first full year without a death penalty in New York, two law enforcement officers were murdered in the line of duty. In 2006, three were murdered in the line of duty. So far in 2007, three have been murdered in the line of duty. The total number of law enforcement officers feloniously killed (excluding those killed in the 2001 terrorist attack) when New York had a functioning death penalty statute between September 1995 and July 2004 was 23 - an average of 2.6 officers murdered per year. So having two officers murdered in 2005, three in 2006 and three so far in 2007 hardly constitutes a statistical spike.
False Claim # 2: The sworn testimony of Bryan Adams, Anthony Horton’s co-defendant in the killing of State Trooper Andrew Sperr, proves that the death penalty is a deterrent in some cases. On September 25, 2006, Bryan Adams - who had already pleaded to a reduced sentence in return for his cooperation – testified at the trial of Anthony Horton in Chemung County about the day he and Horton robbed a bank and were subsequently pulled over by Trooper Sperr. On the witness stand, asked by Chemung County DA John R. Trice if he and Horton had discussed the death penalty that day, Adams testified that Horton told him he was going to shoot the trooper because “New York don’t have a death penalty.”
Politicians immediately seized on Adams’ testimony. On the evening of the 25th, gubernatorial candidate John Faso referred to it in a televised debate with Eliot Spitzer to argue that the death penalty is needed as a deterrent. In press conferences over the next few days, Sen. George Winner and Assemblyman Tom O’Mara used it to call for the restoration of New York‘s death penalty and Assemblyman Jeff Brown cited it in his campaign for the state Senate seat of David Valesky, a death penalty opponent. Versions of this story have been repeated dozens of times by members of the Senate Majority including Senate Majority Leader Joseph R. Bruno and several co-sponsors of S319 at press conferences and during the Senate debate.
The Real Story: As Erik Kriss reported in the Syracuse Post Standard last October 16th, the defense lawyer in the case says the conversation never happened. From Mr. Kriss’ story: Lawyer Richard W. Rich Jr. said [Bryan] Adams, who drove the getaway car, gave 144 pages of testimony to the state police before the trial “and nowhere did he indicate anything to the effect that Horton had even mentioned the death penalty.” Rich, who said he was speaking with [convicted killer Anthony] Horton’s permission, said his client thought New York did have a death penalty. “He had no idea it was ruled unconstitutional” in 2004, Rich said. “From his questions, it was painfully obvious that he thought he was facing the death penalty.”
Mr. Rich, a Republican appointed Chemung County public advocate by a Republican county executive and confirmed by the Republican-controlled county legislature, went on to say: “ I want to set the record straight. No matter what your position on the death penalty, policy shouldn’t be based on perjury.”
Far from proving that the death penalty is a deterrent, this story illustrates the untrustworthiness of co-defendant and snitch testimony; the potentially disastrous effect on public policy when over-eager politicians rely on doubtful sources to shape public opinion; and the abuse of public confidence that can occur when the legal system is used to promote a political agenda.
False Claim #3: The experience of other states demonstrates that the death penalty decreases the incidence of police murder. During the Senate debate over S319, Sen. Martin Golden stated that three death penalty states - Texas, North Carolina, and Florida – have had fewer murders of police officers so far in 2007 than New York. According to Sen. Golden, this fact should persuade us that the death penalty is needed to protect the lives of police officers.
The Real Story: According to official FBI statistics, Texas - with the busiest execution chamber in the nation - experienced roughly twice the rate of police murders that New York did between 1996 and 2005. New York – with no executions during this period and no death penalty since mid-2004 - had 22 police officers murdered. Florida, with 1.4 million fewer residents and 64 executions, lost 20 police officers to murder during the same period. North Carolina, with less than half of New York’s population and 43 executions, had 24 police officers murdered. The most striking statistic is from Texas, where despite 393 executions (more than a third of the national total) and a population slightly larger than New York‘s, 48 police officers were murdered in the line of duty between 1996 – 2005. Of the four states mentioned by Golden, New York has the lowest general homicide rate. The murder rate in Texas over the ten-year period was 49% higher than New York‘s.
False Claim # 4: The death penalty is the only available means to deter or punish inmates serving life sentences who might otherwise kill a correctional officer. This has been the mantra of death penalty supporters ever since serial killer Lemuel Smith murdered correctional officer Donna Payant in 1981. This argument was repeated by nearly every pro-death penalty speaker during the Senate floor debate on S319.
The Real Story: It is 26 years since a correctional officer has been murdered in the line of duty in New York. 89% of correctional officers, when surveyed, say that lifers present fewer disciplinary problems than inmates serving shorter sentences for lesser crimes. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, prison staff are 82 times less likely to be murdered on the job than the average person outside prison. To argue that the death penalty is the only way to protect correctional officers assumes that the death penalty deters prison murder - but 90% of prison murders occur in jurisdictions with the death penalty. It also ignores other, more cost-effective means of keeping prison staff safe. Rather than institute an extremely expensive system to target the one-quarter of one percent of lifers who commit murder in prison, resources could be better spent on prison infrastructure and capacity to promote the safety of correctional workers. In any case, the severe remedy of long-term solitary confinement is available (and currently being used with Lemuel Smith) to both incapacitate and punish inmates who murder correctional staff.
False Claim # 5: Each execution prevents between 3 and 18 homicides. These studies rely on the methods of econometrics. Claims of this kind go back to the 1970’s and have been consistently cited by death penalty supporters on the floor of the New York State Senate. In an AP article on June 11, 2007, Robert Tanner quotes Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, who has done some of the research: “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.” Mocan claims to have shown that every execution prevents 18 homicides.
The Real Story: The results of the studies cited by death penalty supporters fly in the face of easily observable and confirmable data showing that homicide rates are markedly higher in states and regions with the death penalty than in those without it. Respected scholars who have examined the studies and the methods used do not give credence to the results.
John J. Donohue of Yale Law School and Justin Wolfers of the University of Pennsylvania examined the studies, concluding that estimates claiming that the death penalty saves numerous lives “are simply not credible.&rdquoo; In fact, the authors state that using the same data and proper methodology could lead to the exact opposite conclusion: that is, that the death penalty actually increases the number of murders.
.Robert Weisberg, a professor at Stanford University’s School of Law, has examined these studies, as well as other social science research regarding capital punishment in the U.S. In “The Death Penalty Meets Social Science: Deterrence and Jury Behavior Under New Scrutiny,” Weisberg notes that many of the new studies claiming to find that the death penalty deters murder have been legitimately criticized for omitting key variables and for not addressing the potential distorting effect of one high-executing state, Texas.
Professor Jeffrey Fagan, of Columbia Law School, testified before the New York State Assembly that the studies are fraught with technical and conceptual errors, including inappropriate methods of statistical analysis, failures to consider all relevant factors that drive murder rates, missing data on key variables in key states, weak to non-existent tests of concurrent effects of incarceration, and other deficiencies.
Professor Richard Berk of the UCLA Department of Statistics has identified significant statistical problems with the data analysis used to support these studies. In “New Claims about Executions and General Deterrence: Deja Vu All Over Again?” he determined that a very significant problem, occurring when a very small and atypical fraction of the available data dominates the statistical results of a study, pervades the deterrence studies. His investigation found that in many instances the number of executions by state and year is the key explanatory variable used by researchers, despite the fact that many states in most years execute no one and few states in particular years execute more than five individuals. These values represent about 1% of the available observations that could have been used by researchers who have concluded that capital punishment is a deterrent. In Professor Berk’s study, a re-analysis of the existing data shows that claims of deterrence are a statistical artifact of this anomalous 1%.
Steven Levitt, co-author of “Freakonomics,” winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, as the most influential economist in America under the age of 40, The Alvin H. Baum Professor in Economics, University of Chicago, Ph.D, has written
“. . . if you do back-of-the-envelope calculations, it becomes clear that no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty, since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention. As such, economists who argue that the death penalty works are put in the uncomfortable position of having to argue that criminals are irrationally overreacting when they are deterred by it.”
The bottom line: There is no reason to believe the death penalty is a deterrent.
The bottom line: No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent.
For source information contact New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty (NYADP), 40 N. Main Av, Albany, NY 12203
518-453-6797, info@nyadp.org.
NYADP/