is an effective deterrent, it is morally and legally just, and the chance of wrongful death is virtually zero.The most obvious and convincing advantage of capital punishment for murderers is its deterrence factor(McCuen 54.) Opponents of the death penalty would like everyone to believe that the death penalty does not prevent murders. However, with six percent of all murders being committed by repeat offenders, the death penalty would be an obvious deterrent since the murderers would have been killed before their chance to commit murder a second time. In Georgia, out of a sample of 164 murderers, eight of them committed murders after their prison release (Winters 78.) One out of every twenty murderers released in Oregon were found to kill within five years of release (Winters 78.) These examples are clear evidence that if the death penalty was applied as it was meant to be, it could save six percent of all murders. That would save just under 1,400 lives annually since there are over twenty-two thousand murders every year (Gottfried 23.) Capital punishment opponents also argue that states without the death penalty that adjoin states with the death penalty have crime rates that are just as low (McCuen 45.) However, this is circumstantial and it must be considered that a state with the death penalty has the death penalty for a reason, and that its crime level could be higher without it. Murders that require planning and forethought are also affected by the death penalty. In a study of collected files of the Los Angeles Police conducted by Justice McComb of California, it was found that fourteen defendants said the possibility of the death penalty was what kept them from taking a human life (Cassell, 66). The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the argument that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder and its proper enforcement could save many innocent lives every year. The death penalty is morally and legally just and serv...
