In writing against the death penalty in Deadly Decisions, Mr. Khavari twists the Constitution, makes unwarranted assumptions about the psychology of murderers, and ignores the deterrent effect of the death penalty.
Mr. Khavari argues that the death penalty is a "cruel and unusual" punishment, which is prohibited by our Constitution. He reasons that it is cruel because it is physically painful. Here Mr. Khavari construes "cruel" in a way that would render immoral any type of punishment for criminals whatsoever. For if the infliction of physical pain is cruel, then the infliction of psychological pain is cruel, and so the prison system itself must be cruel. In fact, Mr. Khavari's use of "cruel" implies that trials themselves are cruel! How embarrassing, how stressful, how defeating of self-esteem must a trial be!
Mr. Khavari goes on to argue that "it is absurd to think that a mentally deranged or impassioned person would stop in the middle of his crime to consider whether or not it would result in his eventual execution." Well, this might be true. But how can we know that all murderers are deranged while committing crimes? The empirical evidence Mr. Khavari would need to make his claim is simply nonexistent.
In fact, there is substantial evidence against his claim. First, about one percent of women and four percent of men are believed to be sociopaths, lacking any conscience. Second, there is now a tremendous body of academic work dating back to the 1970s suggesting that the death penalty does indeed deter murder. David B. Muhlhausen at the Heritage Foundation cites a recent example: "using a panel data set of over 3,000 counties from 1977 to 1996, Professors Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul R. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University found that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders."
The death penalty saves lives, enough lives to outweigh the consequences of the rare, but always tragic, accidental execution that Mr. Khavari is most concerned about.
On a side note, Mr. Khavari also seems to think that the death penalty gets in the way of establishing a criminal justice system that reduces "recidivism." I assure you, Mr. Khavari, that the death penalty is quite conducive to the reduction of recidivism.
Reece Aaron Epstein\nCLAS III
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