National Seminar on Capital Punishment in Thailand

National Seminar on Capital Punishment in Thailand

On 3^rd and 4^th July seminar on the death penalty was organized by the Union for Civil Liberty under the auspices of the National Human Rights Committee. Those attending were largely representatives of Government ministries with an interest in legal affairs, such as the Ministry of Justice, the Corrections Department, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Diplomats, academics, students of human rights, and human rights activists also took part. The International Federation of Human Rights and Amnesty International were represented showing the importance given to the seminar on an international scale. A total of 115 persons registered their attendance.

The seminar covered a wide range of issues related to the death penalty in Thailand. A full report is being prepared for distribution and will be available on this site. In this preliminary news item some highlights of the meeting are indicated.

Key Note Speaker

The key speaker at the seminar was Professor William Schabas, a recognised world authority on the death penalty. On the first day he spoke of the inevitability that the death penalty will be abolished world wide, as have the institutions of slavery and judicial torture in the past. He based his assertion on the astonishingly rapid rate at which countries are declaring themselves in favour of abolition. Only a minority of countries persist in practicing the death penalty and they find themselves increasingly at a disadvantage in cooperation on criminal extradition with abolitionist countries. The most striking block of countries rejecting capital punishment are the countries of the Council of Europe and the European Union where rejection is a condition of membership. Professor Schabas has calculated that by comparing the number of retentionist countries with the rate of conversion to abolition, we can expect to see a world free of the death penalty in at most another 24 years. He pointed out that such an outcome was clearly in the minds of those who drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights who in Article 3 affirmed, without reservation, the right to life of all persons.
Professor Schabas enumerated the reasons in favour of the death penalty, the fear of wrongful conviction, the ineffectiveness of the death penalty in controlling crime, the victimisation in practice of the poor and disadvantaged who cannot afford expensive legal representation, and others. But he based his belief on the unacceptability of the death penalty, above all on the affront to human dignity which it implies.

On the second day of the seminar he laid out the principles of alternative punishment to the death penalty, which, simply stated, consists in life imprisonment. Life imprisonment can have different meanings allowing for parole or excluding it, but he declared himself ready to accept any preliminary meaning of the term in return for the willingness of governments to move towards abolition. The question of the meaning and practice of life imprisonment can be evolved over time. The practice in some states of interpreting life imprisonment as extending to the natural death of the condemned leads to a meaningless geriatric detention of people no longer capable of offending or even realising where they are and why they are there!

Philippine Experience

Another highlight of the seminar was a session on the recent Philippine experience of abolition. Speakers included His Excellency Antonio Rodriguez, the Philippine Ambassador to Thailand, and Attorney Theodore O. Te who had played a large part in fighting for abolition. The detail of the debate to abolish the death penalty, over a period of 12 years illustrated the complexity of issues involved. Lobbying had to be continuous and focused. An interesting aspect was the involvement of condemned prisoners themselves and their families, simple people who achieved a sophisticated level of appeal. Another aspect was the preparation and submission of case studies illustrating defects in death penalty legislation and practice. The example of the Philippines was frequently referred to throughout the seminar.

Viewpoint of Political Parties

A presentation by representatives of three main political parties was illustrative of the general lack of appreciation in Thailand for the world wide debate on abolition. The representatives agreed that a decision for abolition could be made at administrative government level without the need for changes to the Constitution. It was felt that time was needed for Thailand to adjust to the circumstances of abolition. The representative of one Party specifically claimed that the death penalty was necessary in Thailand for the defence of the revered institution of the Monarchy. A comment from the audience suggested that the UK, Norway, and Cambodia appeared capable of being both monarchies and abolitionist.

Case Studies

The second day of the Seminar began with the presentation of case studies describing the legal procedures of several prisoners whose sentence of capital punishment remained after all stages of court hearing were exhausted. The cases were of accused whose poverty made them dependent on legal aid. The most striking aspect was that after the passing of death sentence by the court of first instance, their legal submissions to the Appeals and Supreme Courts were prepared not by a lawyer but by a fellow prisoner supposedly skilled in such matters. The lack of professional participation in what should have been the most important part of the legal process is chilling.

Prison Conditions

In the final session Dr. Waemahadee Waedao, member of the Senate, discussed prison conditions in the light of his own recent imprisonment in the South of Thailand. He discussed the general conditions of his imprisonment which were in direct conflict with the rights of a prisoner who had not been sentenced. He cited details of clothing, food, and medical care, as well overcrowding in the prison which grossly contravened his rights. He did not appear to be reassured by an assertion by a representative of the Corrections department that much was being done to improve the situation. Other speakers condemned as unacceptable the current practice of perpetual shackling of all male death row prisoners.

Conclusion

The above are brief indications of striking issues discussed during the Seminar. The content of other talks and sessions, and of points raised by the audience are also of great interest and will be made available in book form.

Indonesia: Thai Woman to be Executed

While Indonesia is not a signatory to the Convention on Civil and Political Rights which might strengthen the case for an appeal against the death sentence reported below, the right to life enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to life..." is being increasingly appealed to as the basis for a rejection of all applications of the death penalty. Experience has also shown that women involved in drug trafficking are often doing so at the instigation of a male accomplice with implications for reduced culpability.
We appeal for clemency in the following case and urge readers to email this item to their local Indonesian representative as a gesture of appeal.

The email address of the Thai embassy in Bangkok is: kukbkk@ksc11.th.com

INDONESIA :A Thai woman will be executed for drug trafficking after her appeal was turned down, an Indonesian government official said yesterday.

Boonyong Kaosa-art is among 16 people, including 10 foreigners, on death row for drug trafficking. Seven of the convicted are Nigerians, one is Nepalese and one is from Malawi. The rest are Indonesians.

Ms Boonyong, 48, was arrested in 2002 at the airport in Jakarta with 400gm of heroin capsules in her stomach.

The courts passed the death sentence in 2003 and the Thai government appealed for a reduced penalty in 2004.

Indonesia's National Anti-Drugs Agency has called for authorities to speed up the executions of the traffickers

Bangkok Post 29^th June

Philippines, Abolition Welcome but Profound Concern Continues

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA)

Open Letter
To Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo,
President of the Philippines

Paris, Manila, 27 June 2006

Your Excellency,

The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and its member
organization the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA)
take this opportunity to warmly welcome your decision of 24 June 2006,
on the eve of your trip to Europe and the Vatican, to sign into law the
legislation passed by the Philippines Congress, providing for the
abolition of the death penalty. The abolition of this cruel, inhumane
and irreversible punishment is a highly significant step. On this
momentous occasion, FIDH and PAHRA call upon you to mark a new
commitment to the absolute and unequivocal respect of the most
fundamental human right, the right to life.
FIDH and PAHRA express profound concern over reports of escalating human
rights violations in the Philippines, including extrajudicial
executions, arbitrary detentions and torture. Reports of extra-judicial
killings in the Philippines are received by our organisations with
alarming regularity. There is a growing pattern of politically
motivated killings, reported across a number of provinces nationwide.
Witnesses have reported victims being shot dead by unidentified men,
suspected of links with the military, police, and other security forces.
The principal targets of the shootings are human rights defenders,
journalists, lawyers, community leaders, and union workers who speak out
against the authorities. Groups and individuals identified with the
opposition are increasingly at risk. Over the past year dozens of
activists identified with opposition groups have been killed.

In the face of these violations, the authorities of the Philippines have
consistently failed to carry out effective investigations into these
crimes and to bring to justice those responsible. This climate of
impunity further fuels human rights violations.

It is the duty of the state to protect its citizens and to take action
to ensure respect for human rights, whoever is responsible for the
violations. The Philippines must abide by its obligations under
international agreements to which it is a party, notably the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which
recognises, under article 6, the inherent right of every human being to
life and provides that, " this right shall be protected by law. No one
shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life". Under articles 2 and 26 of
the ICCPR, all persons are entitled to the protection of the right to
life without distinction or discrimination of any kind, and all persons
must be guaranteed equal and effective access to remedies for the
violation of this right. Furthermore, article 4 of the ICCPR provides
that the right to life is absolute and that exceptional circumstances
such as internal political instability or any other public emergency
cannot be invoked to justify derogation.

FIDH and PAHRA urgently call upon the authorities of the Philippines to
fulfil the obligation to protect the right to life by conducting prompt,
thorough and impartial investigations into all extra-judicial killings,
to identify and bring to justice those responsible before independent
and impartial tribunals. Our organisations call upon you as President
to send a clear and strong message that these unlawful killings will not
be tolerated under any circumstances.

On the occasion of your trip to Europe and the Vatican and as the
President of an elected member state of the newly established United
Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), FIDH and PAHRA call upon you to
ensure the implementation of the extensive undertakings made to the
international community, on the occasion of the election of the
Philippines to the HRC, to ensure the protection and promotion of human
rights.

Yours sincerely,

Renato G. Mabunga
Secretary-General
PAHRA
Sidiki Kaba
President
FIDH

Seminar on Death Penalty

สัมนาระดับชาติ เรื่อง การลงโทษประหารชีวิตในประเทศไทย

วันที่ ๓ - ๔ กรกฎาคม ๒๕๔๙ เวลา ๐๘.๓๐ - ๑๖.๓๐ น.
จัดโดย

คณะกรรมการสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติ และสมาคมสิทธิเสรีภาพของประชาชน(สสส.)

ณ ห้องประชุม ๕๐๑ สำนักงานคณะกรรมการสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติ

Abolition of Death Penalty in Philippines

Abolition of Death Penalty in Philippines, an Example for Thailand
On 6 June, both the Philippine Senate and the House of Representatives voted to repeal death penalty legislation. Philippines now joins the worldwide trend toward abolition of the death penalty and is the 125th nation to become abolitionist in law or practice.
In 1987 the Philippines set an historic precedent by becoming the first Asian country in modern times to abolish the death penalty for all crimes. However, the death penalty was reintroduced in late 1993 for 46 different offences. The death penalty was reinstated, not because it was a just punishment but because it was a high profile and desperate remedy to quench public anger at the rising tide of unchecked crime. Executions resumed in 1999 until former President Estrada in 2000 announced a moratorium on executions, which President Arroyo has continued, in practice, throughout her presidency.
On 15 April 2006 President Arroyo commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment in what is believed to be the largest ever commutation of death sentences in modern times. Four days later, President Arroyo marked as urgent, legislation to repeal the death penalty.

House of Representatives
By a vote of 119-20, the House of Representatives approved on a third and final reading Tuesday night, 6th June, the measure abolishing the death penalty in the country.
Speaker Jose de Venecia, who presided as the final vote was taken said the measure is a step that restores the sanctity of human life in the way the country dispenses justice. “We have taken this courageous decision because we believe in the sanctity of human life and in the value of justice not as an act of retribution. This is the mark of a higher civilization.”
“The penalty of life imprisonment is just as harsh as the death penalty,” said Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar, who was a member of the 9th Congress that had approved the death penalty.

The Senate
Sixteen senators voted for the abolition and one abstained.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said that the Death Penalty Law has no place in a Christian nation like the Philippines.Senator Sergio Osmena III stressed that the Death Penalty Law proved that it was not a successful deterrent against heinous crimes.Earlier, in a co-sponsorship speech on the abolition of the death penalty, Senator Richard J. Gordon, chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments, Revision of Codes and Laws, declared that he supports “the abolition of the death penalty at the present time,” but does so rather” haltingly and hesitatingly” and voted “to abolish the death penalty albeit temporarily.”Gordon, himself a victim of grievous crimes when his father was assassinated and his niece brutally killed, stated that he is doing so “not just to be merciful but to be just”. ”It is so easy to kill a person to bring him to justice, but the lifetime suffering of a nation when it finds out that it has made a mistake is indelible,” he added.

Reasons behind abolition
The bill gave weight to the argument that death penalty is “not a deterrent to crime” and that “judicial error” is a possibility in all justice systems. It cited several other reasons for abolishing the death penalty, among them the following:
· death penalty is retributive justice, therefore vengeful and barbaric;
· it is the ultimate cruel and inhuman punishment;
· it is irrevocable;
· it shuts out rehabilitative justice;
· it raises the likelihood of criminals becoming more violent for fear of being convicted by death sentence; and
· it is anti-poor
The measure’s proponents also argued the Philippines is violating international treaties, covenants and policies by “mere implementation” of the death penalty.The death penalty abolition affirms what the government is already practicing since President Arroyo’s administration has not carried out a single execution.

The Philippine debate on the Death Penalty shows a remarkably clear discernment of the moral and practical issues involved. The rejection of the motive of retributive justice is rightly placed at the head of the list of motivation. The ancient appeal for retribution in the saying: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is rejected as vengeful and barbaric. This is at the heart of the matter and it is not a matter of logic but of an informed moral sense. The Philippines has gone through a fine analysis of the balance between killing and being killed in retribution, to come to the realization that they are not equal. The appropriate balance to killing is indeed punishment, but a punishment which allows for repentance, reform, and rehabilitation. We are not God, we did not create life, and having the power to take life away does not give us the right to do so.
The objection of the Philippine lawmakers that the death penalty is irrevocable refers to wrongful convictions:
Of the 1205 inmates on the Philippines’ “death row”, many have been wrongfully convicted according to human rights groups representing some of them. Only 230 of these convictions have been affirmed by the Supreme Court. One study citing a decision of the Supreme Court in July 2003 showed that the lower regional trial courts had close to a 72 per cent wrong conviction rate. In reviewing 907 death penalty cases, the Court admitted that 26 were dismissed, 555 modified, 65 acquitted, and 31 remanded. This underlines just how flawed is the system of justice in the Philippines.Most death penalty sentences are unsafe and those convicted are overwhelming the poor and unable to hire a lawyer. The public defender, no matter how dedicated, is inexperienced, under trained, has no resources or help to investigate the circumstances and uncover evidence that would exonerate his client and expose lies. Convictions are handed down despite the preponderance of reasonable doubt. The rich have the best of lawyers, power and influence, bribe officials and police, and scare off witnesses. They almost never get convicted.
The Philippines is very aware of problems raised by the commutation of execution to life imprisonment:
Arroyo urged religious leaders to help the government in the moral and spiritual transformation of convicts, particularly those serving maximum jail terms, who could not be given parole.The government will work on improving the country’s jail facilities to create an environment that is more conducive to the prisoners’ rehabilitation and reformation, she said.

Instead of death, the penalty is downgraded to life imprisonment without parole, under the Senate version.
Arroyo explained that convicts in the death row will be commuted to reclusion perpetua but they can still get the President’s pardon.
The farsightedness of Arroyo in leaving open a gate of hope to those condemned to permanent imprisonment is truly visionary. In a striking development, French prisoners whose death sentences had been commuted to perpetual imprisonment recently pleaded for execution to be restored as a better alternative to endless jail sentence. Human beings cannot live without hope and the humanity of the Philippine legislation shows remarkable understanding.
The acknowledgment of a Christian inspiration to the abolition is noteworthy. All religions claim to be inspired by the concept of mercy. Would that the nations of Asia learn a lesson from the heroic initiative of our neighbour country, finding a similar inspiration in their own religious traditions, to abrogate the hateful and barbaric practice of capital punishment.

Danthong Breen
Danthong Breen is president of the Union for Civil Liberty

Special to The Nation, Saturday 17th June

Iran Shows Mercy to Nazanin

IRAN. NAZANIN DEATH PENALTY OVERTURNED, NEW TRIAL TO BE HELD May 31, 2006: the Iranian Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Nazanin, overturning the death sentence handed down to her for having killed her attempted rapist, the 'Sharq' daily reported. Nazanin, who has been imprisoned for over a year, was sentenced to hang in January this year. She claimed self defence during her trial after she stabbed a man to death in March 2005. Nazanin, who was 17 at the time, had been out with her niece and their boyfriends on a road west of Tehran when two men started harassing them and then tried to rape them after the boyfriends had run away. "I committed murder to defend myself and my niece, ...
See post below on campaign to save Nazanin

Death Penalty Thailand: Lethal Injection Faulty

LETHAL INJECTION: Inmate on Gurney Tells Guards "It's not working."

On May 2, 2006, the execution of Joseph Clark in Ohio was delayed 90 minutes because the execution team was unable to find a suitable vein to deliver the lethal chemicals. After the team tried repeatedly to find a vein, Clark called out, "It's not working, it's not working." The guards closed the curtains to block witnesses from viewing the execution chamber. Witnesses then heard Clark moaning and groaning from behind the curtain. The curtain later reopened after the execution team managed to find a vein in Clark's left arm and he was put to death. Clark's execution proceeded despite the issuance of a stay based on a lethal injection challenge a few days earlier in another Ohio case by a federal court.

Death Penalty Thailand: Call for Abolition

Nation, 13^th May 2006

Time is ripe to abolish capital punishment in the Kingdom

This is a celebratory year for Thailand, and it would be a momentous achievement to crown the across-the-board progress we've achieved over the past 60 years if we were to renounce capital punishment. I realise many people, perhaps even the majority, would initially object, fearing the worst.

It is not surprising that Europe has taken the lead in banning capital punishment, the culmination of centuries of struggle for justice and equality that began with religious toleration and the Enlightenment and has led to present humane views.

But it wasn't that long ago that hundreds of crimes in England - even what are now petty ones, like stealing a loaf of bread - were capital offences. As protests were raised against this injustice, the idea of capital punishment meted out for many crimes became repellent. In a relatively brief period, Europe has reduced to zero the number of capital offences.

Thailand's experience has not been the same, of course. But we have succeeded in reducing capital punishment to only a few offences; I feel we can telescope the rest of the European experience without further delay and arrive at the same consensus.

As Buddhists from all around the world gather in Bangkok, it would be fitting if a voice among them were raised in support of this idea of compassion and reverence for life, which, after all, their founder espoused thousands of years ago.

Trirat Petchsingh

Nonthaburi

Death Penalty Thailand: Response to 'Morality of Capital Punishment'

The Nation: 7th May 2006

While The Nation is to be praised in raising the issue of capital punishment, which has great relevance to the Thai justice system, there are questions to be asked from a Thai perspective about opinions based on another culture. Capital punishment is rightly strongly debated within the US, but elements of that debate tend to dominate discussion elsewhere.
Gary Becker is a well known contributor to the debate and his usual stand is to discuss the economics of capital punishment. Well and good, for he is an economist. However, while retaining the core of his earlier arguments, he now writes under the banner of ‘morality’, and while economics is as remote from morality as physics or chemistry, we are still reminded that he is a Nobel Laureate in economics. Well, every man is entitled to his opinion, but it has little to do with morality. While rightly excluding ‘revenge and other possible motives’ he supports capital punishment only because he believes that it deters other murders. To contest this argument we would have to enter into the context of the US crime scene. Those more familiar with the practical aspects of crime in the US assert that, even in premeditated murder,
motivation does not depend on a balancing of the severity of capital punishment against the urge to kill. The belief of Becker is also contested by the results of a US research poll in 1995 which showed that the majority of police chiefs do not believe that the death penalty is an effective deterrent.
The views of Becker are opposed by other academics in the US who have access to related crime and judicial data. However, even at this distance from the scene, one can reject the non sequitur of Becker’s arguments: “Opponents of capital punishment frequently proclaim that the state has no moral right to take anyone’s life…. Yet that is absolutely the wrong conclusion for anyone who believes that capital punishment deters”.
“Absolutely”! And as far as moral argument goes, this is a mere repetition of the inadmissible principle that the end justifies the means.
But the most serious fault in Becker’s article follows his admission of worry about the risk of executing the innocent and his highly ingenuous statement that “there are very few, if any, documented cases of innocent people being killed”. If he cared to look he would have found documented cases. But it is true that there is little effort or resource to prove the innocence of those already executed. Instead, there is the declared innocence of 122 people waiting execution on death row. Becker excludes these people from his conclusion arguing that their exoneration mostly on DNA related evidence is a proof that the innocent escape execution. But how many others were not exonerated when the majority on death row do not have effective legal representation and when normal legal procedure leads inexorably to execution. And what of cases of conviction where there is no available DNA evidence? Of greater authority than Becker are the actions of Governor G. H. Ryan of Illinois who declared a moratorium on execution when he found that 13 of those on death row in his state were innocent; or the declaration of US District Judge Rakoff of New York that the federal death penalty is unconstitutional and violative of due process because it creates “an undue risk of executing innocent people”

Reflecting on the application of Becker’s ideas to Thailand we might propose that the danger of wrongful execution is certainly greater where confessions under torture are prevalent and where access to DNA evidence to exonerate the innocent is certainly extremely limited. Nevertheless, his affirmation that capital punishment should be limited to cases of murder is a worthy reminder that execution for drug crimes is not justifiable. Confident in the ‘enormous protection’ of the appeals process in the US he would also be appalled by the practice of extrajudicial execution. For the rest, the debate is best left to those who can and do counter Becker’s arguments on their local relevance.
Danthong Breen
Union for Civil Liberty
109 Suthisarnwinitchai Road
Samsennok, Huaykwang
Bangkok

Morality of Capital Punishment

Nation 6th May 2006

*The morality of capital punishment*

European governments are adamantly opposed to capital punishment - the European Union bans it outright - and some Europeans consider its use i the United States barbaric. Indeed, many European intellectuals argue that not just capital punishment, but also punishment in general, does not deter criminals.

But whereas Europeans, with crime rates well below American rates for the past half-century, could long afford to be relatively "soft" on most crimes, they have seen their crime rates increase sharply during the past 20 years. By contrast, American rates have fallen, in part because of greater use of punishment.

This includes capital punishment. I support executing some peopleconvicted of murder, because - and only because - I believe that it deters other murders. If I did not believe that, I would oppose capital punishment, because revenge and other possible motives should not be a basis for public policy.

Serious empirical research on capital punishment in the US began with a pioneering study by Isaac Ehrlich, published in 1975 in The American Economic Review. Some subsequent studies have sometimes found a much weaker deterrent effect, while others have found a much stronger effect. The available data are quite limited, however, so one should not base any conclusions solely on the econometric evidence. Of course, public policy on any punishment cannot wait until the evidence is perfect. But even with the limited quantitative evidence available, there are good reasons to believe that capital punishment deters. Most people, and murderers in particular, fear death, especially when it follows swiftly and with considerable certainty following the commission of a murder. As David Hume put it in discussing suicide: "No man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping. For such is our natural horror of death." Likewise, Arthur Schopenhauer believed: "As soon as the terrors of life reach a point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, a man will put an end to his life. But the terrors of death offer considerable resistance."

Opponents of capital punishment frequently proclaim that the state has no moral right to take anyone's life, including that of the most reprehensible murderer. Yet that is absolutely the wrong conclusion for anyone who believes that capital punishment deters. To see why, suppose that for each murderer executed (instead of, say, receiving life imprisonment), the number of murders is reduced by three, which is a much lower number than Ehrlich's and some other estimates of the deterrent effect. This implies that for each murderer not executed, three innocent victims would die. In fact, the government would indirectly be "taking" many lives if it did not use capital punishment.

Saving three innocent lives for every person executed seems like a very attractive trade-off, and even two lives saved per execution seems like a persuasive benefit-cost ratio for capital punishment. Admittedly, however, the argument in favour of capital punishment becomes less clear-cut as the number of lives saved per execution falls. But even ifonly one life were saved per execution, the trade-off might still be desirable if the life saved were much better than the life taken, which would usually be the case.

Many object to comparing the quality of the life spared and the life taken. Yet I do not see how to avoid such a comparison. Consider a career criminal who robs and kills a victim who led a decent life and left several children and a spouse behind. Suppose it would be possible to save the life of an innocent victim by executing such a criminal. To me, it is obvious that saving such a victim's life must count for more than taking the criminal's life. Obviously, not all cases are so unambiguous, but a comparison of the qualities of individual lives must be part of any reasonable social policy.

This helps explain why capital punishment should be used only for murders and not for lesser crimes. When the trade-off is between taking lives and, say, reducing property theft, the case for milder punishments is far stronger. Although severe assaults, including some gruesome rapes, may approach some murders in severity and conceivably call for capital punishment, I do not support its use in these cases.

A powerful argument for reserving capital punishment for murders is "marginal deterrence". If assault were punished with execution, perpetrators would have an incentive to kill their victims to avoid discovery (which is a major reason why the severity of punishments more generally should be matched to the severity of crimes).

One complication is that capital punishment may make a murderer fight harder to avoid being captured, which could lead to more deaths. But while marginal deterrence is important, I believe the resistance of murderers to being captured, possibly at the expense of their own lives,is really indirect evidence that criminals do fear capital punishment.

Of course, I worry about the risk of executing the innocent. My support for capital punishment would weaken greatly if the rate of killing innocent people were as large as that claimed by many. However, I believe that the appeals process in the US offers enormous protection, not so much against wrongful conviction as against wrongful execution, so that there are very few, if any, documented cases of innocent people being killed. And this process has been strengthened enormously with the development of DNA identification.

Again, the debate about capital punishment is essentially a debate about deterrence (which may be reduced by lengthy appeals). I can understand that some people are sceptical about the evidence, although I believe they are wrong about both that and the common sense of the issue. It is very disturbing to take someone's life, even a murderer's life; but sometimes, highly unpleasant actions are necessary to prevent even worse behaviour that takes the lives of innocent victims.

Gary Becker is a Nobel laureate in economics and professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago in Illinois.

Gary Becker