Does the death penalty protect lives and public safety? 

Two classic arguments are used to support capital punishment: retribution and deterrence. Retribution demands justice, but we must admit that this simple scale of justice is unbalanced today. 

Taking “life for life” assumes we can balance the scales of justice fairly; but many studies show that racism and economic inequality tip the scales of justice against racial minorities and poor persons. 

Skin color and money to hire an attorney have a lot to do with who will face a death sentence.

A study of Virginia’s death penalty published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported these troubling findings: 

• Black offenders convicted of robbery-murders or rape-murders are four times more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim is white. 

•  Ninety-seven percent of those sentenced to death in our state are too poor to afford their own attorney. 

• Court-appointed attorneys are six times more likely than other attorneys to be subject to disciplinary actions by the bar. 

Deterrence is a powerful but misinformed argument for capital punishment. The evidence simply does not support the “common-sense” perception that capital punishment deters murders. Virginia set a record for the number of executions since reinstatement of the death penalty, yet its murder rate remains essentially unchanged. 

In fact, murder rates are actually lower in states without capital punishment. According to FBI data, the murder rate for neighboring West Virginia, which has no death penalty, was 4.1 per 100,000 residents, compared to Virginia’s rate of 7.2 per 100,000.

Nationwide, the average murder rate for states with a death penalty was 6.6 per 100,000, while in states without capital punishment, the rate averaged only 3.5. 

Of course, enforcing the death penalty ensures that a convicted murderer will not kill again; but with the abolition of parole, a life sentence does the same thing. A life sentence protects public safety without taking a life; a resolution that is favored by most Virginians.

Polls show that a majority of Virginians favor a life sentence over capital punishment, especially when the convicted person is required to make restitution to the victim’s family. 

Life in prison has the moral advantage of being reversible; an execution is not. Does the Commonwealth want to risk the horror of executing innocent people?

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, Virginia governors have stopped four executions due to significant doubts about the guilt of the convicted parties. Nationally, 82 former death row inmates have been released. 

We all know that the murder rate is driven by many social factors that contribute to violent crime, including the easy availability of firearms, our immoral glorification of violence as a solution to problems, and the desperation of poverty and addiction.

Most murders occur in stressful situations or in moments of passion in which individuals are not weighing the long-term consequences of their actions. 

Imposition of the death penalty fails many moral tests. Its use is discriminatory; its ability to protect human life through deterrence is illusory; and its message that violence is the solution, not the problem, is misguided. 

Ultimately, the moral debate over the death penalty is a question of what kind of society we want for our children and our children’s children. Do we want to build a society that respects people and rejects violence? 

The father of a murder victim captured the core of the moral argument against the death penalty: “The old way called for an ‘eye for an eye,'” he said. “But our faith gave us the courage to embrace what is new, to celebrate the sanctity of all life; our son’s and the person’s responsible for his death.” 

The experience of other countries demonstrates that there are better ways to promote public safety and protect lives. The United States stands virtually alone among industrialized nations in its use of the death penalty.

Ironically, despite our increasingly frequent use of the death sentence, we have the highest murder rate by far. 

Abolition of the death penalty would send a powerful moral message. Together with efforts to address the root causes of violence and to require restitution from criminals, it would help break the cycle of violence and protect lives – a moral “bottom line” that we can all support. 

Colecchi is director of the Office of Justice and Peace.