The Death Penalty in America: A Fading Practice?

Speaker Professor David Oshinsky

On September 19th, historian David Oshinsky spoke on the history of capital punishment in the U.S. at this second installment of the University Lecture Series. Right away, the talk was off to a good start with the free Amy’s Ice Cream and t-shirt:


This talk was slightly smaller than the Troop 1500 lecture, and I arrived early so was able to get a prime spot a few seats away from Oshinskey. I also enjoyed the open microphone at the end when students could ask questions. I am personally against the death penalty, but I liked how Oshinskey presented both sides of the argument. And, to begin, he qualified his entire speech by stating the inaccuracy of opinion polls—that the results depend on how the questions are asked (for example, “yes” vs. “yes, instead of jail”). I felt that Oshinskey’s spoke, therefore, in an informative and relatively unbiased manner. Some interesting facts and points I gathered include:

With Austin as an exception, people in support of capital punishment are more old, southern, white, religious, and male. I find the fact that more people who call themselves religious are in support of the death penalty ironic because it seems that religion usually encourages protection of life as sacred.

The issue of capital punishment also hits close to home. Texas executes a third of all who receive the death penalty and a third of those executed come from Harris County (aka Houston), my home city. The model penal code calls for a two part trial: one to determine guilt and one to determine the penalty and punishment. Further, the United States is one of the few democracies to have capital punishment. Interestingly, however, the majority of both English and French citizens support the death penalty. Supporters of capital punishment point out that the criminals had free will. Opponents cite racism, discrimination, lack of deterrence, and innocent killing as reasons against capital punishment.

Oshinskey cited many statistics on how racism seems to be tied to who receives capital punishment. One of many include that most executions occur in states of the former confederacy- perhaps a result of the culture of exclusion. Few rich people receive the death penalty which points to under representation (for the un-rich) by poor and inexperienced attorneys. The death penalty also has been severely restricted: rapists, juveniles, and the mentally deficient cannot receive it.

There is also not much evidence that capital punishment deters criminals from committing a crime. However, interestingly, there is some correlation between the numbers of violent crimes that occur around the time that an execution takes place. In many instances the crime rate decreases which suggests that the execution scares criminals and deters crime. Yet in other cases the crime rate rises which suggests that the act of killing brutalizes humans and encourages violence. Further, inmates on death row sometimes kill the guards. Thus, the death penalty can lead to the loss of even more lives.

These problems with capital punishment can never completely be fixed. We can never insure that the innocent are not executed or that politicians won’t use it as a political tool or that racism is not a factor in giving the death penalty. However, one professor mentioned that perhaps the system of capital punishment will become so refined that only the truly dangerous people of our world will receive it.

The difference between retribution and revenge is a fine line. And, I believe capital punishment will still be an issue fifty years from now because it will not be outlawed anytime soon.

Evidence of my attendance