I wrote a letter that appeared in the August 23, 2002, Times of London in response to an article by "The Thunderer" (Neil Clark) which appeared the day before. I sent the letter by email in the morning and by late in day I had an email back saying that it was being considered for publication. I called and agreed to his editing. The edited letter and theoriginal are shown below. Text that was deleted is shown in light blue . Replacement text in light purple .

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Congratulations to the Thunderer for having the courage to break free from political correctness with regard to the death penalty. Every point that was made I fully subscribe to. I would like to add a few more.

All of the opponents of the death penalty that I have met or heard [spoken to] eventually come out with a strange logical fallacy: they say it doesn't work , they say, because we countries that implement it still have murders. This is so silly that it is strange they aren't embarrassed to make this point. By the same logic, we shouldn't have penalties for robbery, drink-driving, etc. and so on, because they don't "work" — we still have robberies , and road deaths caused by drunkenness , etc.

This argument is meant to support the contention that the death penalty doesn't act as a deterrent. The real test of a such an argument is not how many murders there are, for the number depends on many factors, including cultural and economic ones, but by interviewing ourselves and actual murderers. Just as we know that demand falls with rising price, such interviews make clear that some are deterred by the higher penalty, even if others are not.

Is the death penalty barbaric? Thunderer Neil Clark (August 21) made the correct point that for many it can be more kind than years of incarceration. In that regard, opponents of the death penalty who delay by years executions of the guilty, even the confessed guilty, bring misery because of their own ideology. Just Only last month the American Senator Bob Kerry was interviewed on television and . He made it clear that he was an opponent of the death penalty and simultaneously felt it was more cruel to impose a true, unbreakable, for-life sentence.

In my opinion, in all many of these arguments there is an unwarranted, often implicit, over regard for the sanctity of human life. In fact, society encourages voluntary risk of life from firemen, police, heroes, etc. the Armed Forces, and so on, knowing that the deaths that sometimes result are the unfortunate concomitant of a system that overall is of in great benefit to society. When the need is great enough, it even requires the risk; such is the case in time of war.

T hus, bluntly, t here is a cost-benefit analysis to be made over what level of benefits society may get from a system which from time to time executes the wrong person. In my opinion the mistakes are so few and the benefits so high, that again, the death penalty is warranted.

Finally, consider EU coercion over this matter. Here again the centralisers meddle where they shouldn't. Today any applicant for admission to the EU must abolish the death penalty. I spent most of April and May in Turkey where there was continuous discussion of whether Turkey should end its death penalty in order to advance its case for admission. Why should this be? In fact, if as Thunderer reports, 81% or more of Britons favor the death penalty it would be difficult to reintroduce under EU agreements. But, supposing it were, and a majority of current EU members followed suit, could the EU then require members and applicants to have a death penalty?

Gerald Chandler , Darlington
 
 

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Here is the letter as printed:

All of the opponents of the death penalty that I have spoken to eventually come out with a logical fallacy: they say it doesn't work because countries that implement it still have murders. By the same logic, we shouldn't have penalties for robbery, drink-driving, and so on, because they don't "work" -- we still have robberies and road deaths caused by drunkenness

Is the death penalty barbaric? Neil Clark (August 21) made the correct point that for many it can be more kind than years of incarceration. In that regard, opponents of the death penalty who delay by years executions of the guilty, even the confessed guilty, bring misery because of their own ideology. Only last month the American Senator Bob Kerry was interviewed on television. He made it clear that he was an opponent of the death penalty and simultaneously felt it was more cruel to impose a true, unbreakable, for-life sentence.

In many of these arguments there is an unwarranted, often implicit, over regard for the sanctity of human life. In fact, society encourages voluntary risk of life from firemen, police,  the Armed Forces, and so on, knowing that deaths sometimes result in great benefit to society.

There is a cost-benefit analysis to be made over what level of benefits society may get from a system which from time to time executes the wrong person. In my opinion the mistakes are so few and the benefits so high, that again, the death penalty is warranted.

Gerald Chandler, Darlington
August 23, 2002