Is the Death Penalty in the USA Effective or Ineffective?

[naima]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/should-a-man-with-an-iq-of-70-be-on-death-row-8503801.html

He is no more breathing
I read a list of countries sorted by number of death sentence:
China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, USA.

Any comment?

 

[russ_watters]

This is a difficult case mainly because his IQ is apparently exactly on the necessarily grey dividing line for determining mental disability. But given that you listed several countries that utilize it, I suspect your main issue is with the death penalty itself. I support it.

 

[Evo]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/should-a-man-with-an-iq-of-70-be-on-death-row-8503801.html

He is no more breathing
I read a list of countries sorted by number of death sentence:
China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, USA.

Any comment?

Please state what you wish to discuss.

The article states that he has the death penalty due to this crime

he bludgeoned his prison cellmate to death with a board studded with nails

Did he make this board? He's killed twice, and killing a cellmate means that if he doesn't get the death penalty, he would spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement as he is unsafe and cannot be with others. Is this what you want? And in the future, please do not just post a link to an article and ask "what do you think", that's not acceptable.

 

[WWGD]

And it may make more sense to compare the number of death sentences per , say, 100,000 and not just the sheer number. Obvious problems with death sentence:
1)Irreversibility 2) It is difficult to know how good of a deterrent it is. But I have to admit that if I were given a life sentence, I would prefer death to it.

 

[naima]

My question is about death sentence.
Please, Evo, tell me if a question about it is acceptable.
I live in Europe where it disappeared. I think that USA is accustomed to violence.
Here gansters and terrorists have kalashnikovs but citizens have not.
I believe that it must be difficult for you to look at the american society from outside.
America and USSR delivered us from nazism . We thank you but accept that things must evolve

 

[Czcibor]

And it may make more sense to compare the number of death sentences per , say, 100,000 and not just the sheer number. Obvious problems with death sentence:
1)Irreversibility 2) It is difficult to know how good of a deterrent it is. But I have to admit that if I were given a life sentence, I would prefer death to it.

2

From practical reasons:
-in the USA in 2013 there are over 159 000 people serving life sentence
http://www.sentencingproject.org/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1636&id=107

-in 2013 there were 39 executions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country#Americas

If someone is not deterred by reasonable chance of life sentence, should he be afraid of hypothetical chance of death penalty after a decade in prison? Especially that now, with al those moratoria and lenghty appeal procedures, he may hope that before he is being put on death row (where execution rate is around 2% per year) this punishment may be already abolished?

Of course that can be also interpreted that system was (purposefully?) turned out ineffective and now its being used as argument that this punishment is ineffective as such.