Experts oppose death penalty while most Americans favor it.

Executions

On June 18, 2010 double murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by a firing squad at the Utah State Prison near Salt Lake City. At the time 42% of Americans said they agree with capital punishment, but what about the experts?

And how do Americans feel about the death penalty five years after the execution of Gardner.What do criminologists say about the death penalty and whether it is a real deterrent?

Here is a bit of background on the Gardner case that reflects the delays and current status of capital punishment, specifically in Utah right now, but how it impacts decisions in other states and a national direction and attitude, according to attorneys who have been examining the death penalty trends.

Gardner spent nearly 25 years on death row after being convicted of murdering a lawyer during a court appearance regarding previous murder charges.

Gardner's lawyers had appealed his order of execution on the basis that the jury didn't receive adequate testimony on the effects of Gardner's abusive childhood. Two separate requests for a stay of execution were sent to Governor Gary Herbert and both were denied. Gardner's lawyers also submitted three appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, which were also denied.

Gardner was pronounced dead at 12:17 a.m. Friday morning, June 18, 2010, another notch on the State's belt, showing justice was served, at least according to many Americans.

The death penalty was federally reinstated in 1976 and each state has the authority to decide to allow capital punishment or not. There have been 1,217 executions nationwide since 1976 of which only three were executed by firing squad.

Utah is ranked 19th in executions per capita according to the Death Penalty Information Center in 2010. Executions in Texas and Virginia combined account for nearly half of all executions nationwide.

Gardner may be the last person executed by firing squad in Utah. In 2004, the state outlawed execution by firing squad and ruled that all executions would be by lethal injection. However, prisoners sentenced to death before 2004, like Gardner, would be allowed to choose between the two methods.

Many argue that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional.

What folks say who oppose the death penalty is that executing someone is usually more expensive than incarcerating them for life. In Maryland, death penalty cases cost three times more than cases where prosecutors do not seek the death penalty. Advocates against the death penalty argue that the excess funds spent on death penalty trials could be used on other forms of crime control and prevention.

A survey of expert criminologists by the Death Penalty Information Center showed that 88 percent reject the idea that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. The Center also polled police chiefs and found the death penalty was ranked last as an accurate way to reduce violent crime.

Also, citizens' doubts as to the accuracy of the justice system have grown in past years. Since 1973, 138 people had been released from death row with evidence of their innocence at the time Gardner was executed. That figure is around 10 percent of all persons executed since 1976. Given this striking error rate, some anti-death penalty advocates argue that capital punishment should be abolished to avoid killing a person who is innocent of the crimes for which he or she was convicted.

Nevertheless,  even though most people in the United States believed in a severe punishment with a full life term for murder, many people, at 41% of the American people according to a major poll, still support the death penalty regardless of the opinion of those involved in catching and prosecuting criminals.


While Pew Research reports the number of Americans supporting the death penalty has dropped, that was from the previous year; but it has increased since 2010 and stood at 55% in 2014.

Research offers voters the opportunity to know the science, including the social science.  But in spite of the fact, social scientists tell us capital punishment is not a deterrent; and that information has been repeated over a number of years, most Americans continue to support putting someone to death if he or she has committed a capital crime.