The Patriot Post® · The Death Penalty, Revisited

Jonah Goldberg: “There are capital offenses for crimes other than murder because the integrity and effectiveness of the armed forces is a priority. We are not a martial society, but I could make a similar argument about police officers who murder and lie about it. Faith in the fairness of the justice system is simply indispensable to a democracy and social peace. Lack of such faith may be why [Walter] Scott ran from Officer [Michael] Slager. If so, his mistrust was tragically well-placed. … People claim, usually tautologically, that retribution is illegitimate because revenge is illegitimate. Maybe that’s true. But it seems to me that what some people call revenge many others see plainly as justice. Deterrence is often a distraction. Capital punishment clearly doesn’t deter every murderer, but does it deter any would-be murder? It seems obvious it must. Deterrence is a red herring because the function of the death penalty isn’t simply to scare a would-be murderer with the corpse of a convicted one; it is also to inform an entire society about what we take seriously.”