THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
                                  DOES IT WORK - IS IT FAIR?

        The most common justification given for capital punishment is that it is a
deterrent to murder.  But anyone who offers this rationale is making a gut level,
emotional response without stopping to confront and thoroughly think through the
issues.

        Many studies have attempted to link capital punishment and homicide rates.
They report overwhelming evidence that capital punishment has no effect on the
murder rates. There is no significant difference between the murder rates of States
with active capital punishment systems and those of demographically similar, non
capital punishment States.

        Outside the United States the vast majority of developed democratic countries
already have abolished the death penalty. Many boast murder rates significantly
lower than our own.

        For example; Canada abolished tbe death penalty for murder in 1976, yet
during the summer of 1990 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney pointed out in a speech
to the House of Commons that in the 10 years following abolition the homicide rate
in Canada reached a 15 year low.

        Internationally, the United Nations has concluded in a report for the Congress
on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, that “(d)espite much
more advanced research efforts mounted to determine the deterrent value of the
death penalty, no conclusive evidence has been obtained on its efficacy.”

        This, among other considerations, led the U.N. General Assembly to affirm
that member States, “in order to guarantee fully the right of life, provided for in
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” should seek to
progressively restrict “the number of offenses for which capital punishment may be
imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment in all
countries.”

        And many distinguished individuals also have taken a public stand against the
death penalty. For example; Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet human rights crusader,
made this point in a letter to Amnesty International 1977 Stockholm Conference on
the death penalty:

                   “I regard the death penalty as a savage and
                immoral institution which undermines the moral
                      and legal foundation of a society...
                    I reject the notion that the death penalty
                  has any essential deterrent effect on potential
                  offenders. I am convinced that the contrary
                     is true, that savagery begets savagery.”

        Still, regardless of what the studies show and what knowledgeable people say,
many continue to insist that a system of “kill and be killed” is a deterrent. But they
assume that a murderer thinks as they do, clearly a mistaken assumption.

                        HOT AND COLD MURDER

        There are basically two types of murder: premeditated and emotional. In a
premeditated murder the culprit either doesn't expect to get caught or, much rarer,
doesn't care if he is. He expects to get away with the deed because of good
planning and/or lack of evidence. Or he doesn't care if he's caught because he feels
so strongly about his actions that he's prepared to face the consequences. There can
be no deterrent value in a punishment that one doesn't expect to receive or doesn't
care about.

        In a spontaneous, emotional murder, logic doesn't even come into play. One
doesn't think of being caught, nor does one consider the consequences of one's
actions. Emotion clouds the thought process; the individual is not acting on
something, but rather reacting to something. Emotions diminish the capacity for
reason, and in the heat of the moment the capital punishment factor becomes a non
factor. Fear of death, in itself, will not prevent this type of crime.

        Politicians may leap at the deterrence argument, because it sounds tough on
crime, but it actually detracts from the real work of developing genuine programs
for crime prevention and control.  As much, the death penalty becomes the perfect
political and herring - a program that sounds effective and creates a false sense of
security, but in reality saps our resources.

        There are acceptable alternatives to capital punishment that are more in line
with the values of our supposedly enlightened and humanistic society.

The text is incomplete - The remainder was DELETED by NBCi in April 2001

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