Unfortunately, no. I know a few data points—119 executions in Texas during the Bush regime, none during the Furman period of 1972-76, but not much more.

To be honest, I didn’t look too hard. I don’t have the sociological chops to answer questions about things like lag between cause and effect, so I didn’t think I’d be able to make use of it to add more light than heat.

Do you have a link to excutuion data?

Wouldn’t that rule out punishment altogether? The reason and actor are as important as the nature of action. If not, what separates fines and taxes from theft, imprisonment from kidnapping, etc.”

The reason and actor and legal sanction matter, but torture and torture and rape is rape. You can’t torture or rape to incapacitate or in self-defense or to pay for shared social services. It’s pain for the sake of pain.

Okay, murder rate in Texas, 1972 to 1976
12.4,12.8,13.7,13.4,12.2

1977 to 1981
13.3,14.2,16.7,16.9,16.6

From 1995 on, when Dubya cranked it up to 11, the numbers were lower:
9.0,7.7,6.8,6.8,6.1,5.9

Sadly, each of these years, W-less New York suffered under these crushing rates:
8.5,7.4,6.0,5.1,5.0,5.0

Throughout the other periods I’ve shown, NY has had generally lower murder rates.1 When Texas wasn’t killing anybody, NY was lower. When Texas was half-heartedly frying a few, NY had a lower rate. When Texas was enthusiastically needling people, its Governor cackling all the while, NY still had a lower murder rate. Maybe it’s something in the water, but it sure doesn’t seem to have anything to do with how many people Texas has snuffed.

Face it, the Texas Death Machine is the criminological answer to the magnetic copper anti-arthritis bracelet.

1. I think, but did not take the time to compare year-by-year, that it is actually lower eand every year, but I do not assert so. Check for yourself at http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm if you like. Links to other states can be found at bottom.

Isn’t that why you compare murder rates over time? And isn’t there a period where the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty to help out as a pseudo-control?

“you can’t commit the same act you’re supposedly condemning. You don’t condemn torture by torturing, rape by raping, or killing the innocent by killing the innocent.”

Wouldn’t that rule out punishment altogether? The reason and actor are as important as the nature of action. If not, what separates fines and taxes from theft, imprisonment from kidnapping, etc.

On a somewhat related point, I wonder if the death penality itself is even the main source of violence in the law-enforcement process. I’d guess that the probability of being shot by the police in the process of committing a crime seems much higher than the probability of being formally executed by the state – see here to get a quick look at the relative numbers.

No, but you’d think that if the death sentence were all that effective a deterrent, Texas would have a much lower murder rate than New York, since it has the death machine cranked up to 11. Instead, New York pegged a 5.0, and Texas, 5.9.

An argument that boils down to, effectively, “imagine how much worse my cancer would be if I weren’t taking all this Laetrile,” is a pretty weak one.

Do you believe that everywhere in the world has the same murder rate if you factor out the detterent effect of capital punishment? Everywhere in the US?

I will not accept any paper or study on the deterent impact of the death penalty that does not explain why Texas has such a high murder rate and excution rate. If you believe the death penalty had a detertent impact you have to explain why it does not work in Texas.

I would say the same thing is going on with confusing justified retribution & vengeance.

And, actually, with confusing euthanasia & assisted suicide with the right to refuse medical treatment.