Ernest van den Haag

About the author: Ernest van den Haag is the retired John M. Olin Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy at Fordham University in New York City.

A study of the effects of executions on the murder rate has concluded that every execution of a murderer deters, on average, eighteen murders that would have occurred without it. The same study has also concluded that a small (1 percent) increase in murder convictions would deter 105 murders. Researchers have not yet proven conclusively that capital punishment either is or is not a more effective deterrent than life imprisonment. But even if an execution has only a small chance of deterring future murders, the murderer should be executed because he has, through his crime, forfeited his life. Capital punishment satisfies justice, and the fact that...