The United States of America have just voted in a man who is an accessory to murder. Scary, but true. It's estimated that around 25% of all people executed in the USA are innocent, or at least the case against them isn't strong enough to kill them for it. So George W, as Governor of Texas and partly responsible for executions, has surely been responsible for the wrong execution of at least one person. Which in itself is not frightening. What's frightening is that he clearly doesn't give a shit.

Pro-Capital Punishment people will tell you the reason their should be executions is that they're a deterrent. Therefore, presumably people only commit crimes like murder, because they think they'll get off lightly with life imprisonment, while if they thought they might get executed, they'd think again.

Er. No. There're three basic reasons why people commit serious crimes like murder. First is the archetypal 'crime of passion', committed out of jealously or whatever. People only commit these crimes in the heat of the moment, not thinking about the consequences. Fear of punishment doesn't enter into it. Second, there's personal gain, robbery and so on. Well, if you're in a position where you're willing to kill someone for a few dollars, obviously you're not thinking ahead, and the fear of punishment is not going to do much. Then there's outright bloody insanity. It goes without saying that if you're mad, you're not necessarily weighing up all the eventualities of your life. But the overwhelming point is that when anyone commits a murder, they don't think they're going to get caught. They don't think about whether they will get caught, but rather of ways to avoid detection.

But even if it would seem some people might think twice about murder, with a death penalty over their head, this doesn't seem to be the case. By George W's reasoning, in states where the death penalty is in existence, there would be a noticeable difference in the murder rate, i.e.. it would be visibly lower. Hmm. It isn't. So. Not working then, George W? Actually, I suspect Georgie boy probably thinks they just aren't killing enough 'criminals'.

If Capital Punishment was completely flawless, and we could be certain that every man killed was undeniably guilty, then maybe there would be a place for it in society. But you can't have a system like that, where there's no chance of going back, one someone is already dead. So, duh, don't do it. It's stupid. You can't just kill the fuckers, when you can never be sure who the fuckers are.
 
 

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