Capital punishment has been debated for years whether it is a useful and necessary …show more content…
It is a deterrent for crimes, and can play as a plea-bargaining tactic. The threat of being sentenced to death can play a role in the mind of a potential criminal. Knowing that the result of doing a crime could be a death sentence will deter some acts of evil from occurring. While it is difficult to produce empirical evidence that capital punishment does in fact deter people from committing crimes, there is empirical evidence for something else; Gun control. Yes, gun control and capital punishment are two separate issues, but both involve using lethal force. It is known that Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in America, yet is the murder capital of the nation. In areas where guns are encouraged, murder and crimes rates are lower. If capital punishment was to be banned or continues to be used less and less, then there will possibly be more severe crimes being committed. If the worst consequence for a crime is a life sentence, will that be enough to discourage criminals? A life sentence in many cases would not be a deterrent at all. For criminals that come from a rough life, prison could be an upgrade. In prison they would be fed and have no expenses, so it would not serve as a deterrent in the …show more content…
First, it helps to inform our understanding of how sentencing law influences plea bargaining. START Given the centrality of pleas for the disposition of criminal cases, studying how sentencing structure impacts the incentives of prosecutors and defendants in plea negotiations is important to our understanding of the criminal justice system. Second, the use of the death penalty as leverage in plea negotiations raises important legal and ethical issues. Defendants are typically required to waive important constitutional rights as a condition of the plea agreement. Many of these rights are considered crucial to the accurate determination of guilt and punishment at trial, so the absence of these protections may undermine our confidence in that determination. This may be of concern in the capital context because although defendants who plead guilty avoid the risk of execution, they still receive very lengthy sentences—typically life imprisonment. The threat of the death penalty has also induced innocent defendants to plead guilty (and even falsely implicate others) to avoid execution. Finally, the study of the plea-negotiation process in the capital context permits us to gain a better understanding of the financial and administrative costs of capital punishment to states and the federal government. Capital trials are extremely expensive, and they rarely reduce prison costs because of the