Technorati Tags: supermax, zacarias+moussaoui Earlier this week Zacarias Moussaoui, as we all know, was given a life jail term for his role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks: having prepared to participate and failed to alert the authorities while detained…

just asking.

You mean, why don’t they just starve themselves to death like normal people? Or maybe set fire to themselves?

De gustibus….

This is rather unshocking considering how rarely the death penalty is employed. Perhaps we need to use it more for greater effect? ;)

Suicide Bomber A: “I’m just going to strap these explosives to myself and go kill a busload of innocent people”

Bomber B: “But if they catch you they’ll kill you!”

Bomber A “Which bit of suicide bomber is confusing you?”

It does highlight one of the few questions on which I think everybody is agreed: “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”

From the summary: “We find that the existing evidence for deterrence is surprisingly fragile, and even small changes in specifications yield dramatically different results. Our key insight is that the death penalty—at least as it has been implemented in the United States since Gregg ended the moratorium on executions—is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly, have caused or deterred cannot be reliably disentangled from the large year-to year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. Our estimates suggest not just “reasonable doubt” about whether there is any deterrent effect of the death penalty, but profound uncertainty. We are confident that the effects are not large, but we remain unsure even of whether they are positive or negative. The difficulty is not just one of statistical significance: whether one measures positive or negative effects of the death penalty is extremely sensitive to very small changes in econometric specifications. Moreover, we are pessimistic that existing data can resolve this uncertainty.”

Addtionally, naturally all the studies are confined to the US - none examine the effect on murder rates when the death penalty is abolished in a country, for example the UK. Addtionally, they all reference motive whihc I think it is fair to say is entirely different where Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is involved.

Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd, “Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Post-moratorium Panel Data”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=386300

Rubin mentions related studies here:

http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1745&wit_id=4991

Including this critique:

John J. Donohue and Justin Wolfers, “Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate” (pdf)
http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1150&context=berkeley_law_econ

(hyperlinks appeared fubar in preview, so i typed out the urls.)

and, I understand, at least one of them actually did blow up an airplane with passengers, not just thought it would be a cool thing to do.

There are a fair few Central American and Caribbean murderers enjoying the Florida sun right now, too. Makes me feel all warm inside.

As for this, a cynic would argue that having Z.M. jailed for life makes it easier to ‘justify’ the military detention of both confessed plotters and unconnected random pickups to the bloodthirsty crowd.

As for French intentions and law upon successful extradition, the “Rainbow Warrior” incident for example (in which France pre-released the killers despite their specific agreement with the NZ government) doesn’t make me feel wonderful about the whole thing.

For a crime of this severity, 30 years before being reexamined by a parole commission. Not a guess. Why do you ask? Are you aware of the general severity of the French penal system or are you just taking a cheap shot at the French without having the faintest clue what you are talking about?