Oggi il New York Times dedica un'intera pagina della quarta sezione (Week in Review) al tema della pena di morte. Ne riporto qui alcuni stralci.

THE RAGE TO KILL

THOSE WHO KILL

Sentiment in favor of capital punishment is sweeping the land. This week five executions are scheduled - three in Texas, one in Missouri and one in Indiana - meaning that if there are no last-minute stays (always a possibility) the nation will pass yet another milestone in the modern era of the death penalty. Since the Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions in 1976, in no calendar week have more than four executions taken place.

With states like New York moving to bring back the death penalty and moves afoot to streamline the judicial process so the condemned can no longer drag out their appeals, it seems an appropriate time to ask, once again: Will all this killing do any good? Will it deter crime? Is it cost effective? Or are we simply talking about retribution here - real Old Testament stuff?

The data presented on Page 3 are intended to provide some talking points for the debate.

Comparing state homicide rates released by the F.B.I. this weekend with state-by-state death penalty numbers certainly doesn't prove the case for deterrence. In states with large numbers of executions, murder rates remain persistently high.

Of course, the data don't necessarily disprove the case either, since a complex web of social, economic and demographic factors drive murder rates.

The numbers also provide an intriguing hint that the resurgent faith in executions may be more ambiguos than it seems. In the 18 years since they resumed, 254 have been put to death - a tiny fraction of those convicted of murder and less than a tenth of the 2,948 currently condemned to die.

Death penalty does deter murder 57%

Death penalty does not deter murder 40%

Percentage of New York State registered voters who think that the death penalty deters criminals from committing murder. From a Quinnipiac College poll of 651 people interviewed by telephone Sept. 19 through 25.

KILLING, LEGAL AND OTHERWISE, AROUND THE U.S.

The popular notion that executions are a deterrent to murder appears to be as strong as ever. In New York, where Governor-elect George E. Pataki has vowed to bring back the death penalty, 57 percent of the respondents to an opinion poo before his election said they thought the death penalty would deter other criminals from killing.

The statistics presented below - using state homicide rates issued this weekend by the F.B.I. that cover the modern period of the death penalty - lend little support to this view. Take a look at the record-high murder rate for Louisiana, one of the most active states in what executions foes call the Southern "death belt".

Such numbers can be unambiguously informative, like some of those gathered by Watt Espy, director of the Capital Punishment Research Project in Headland, Ala. A search of his data base last week yelded numbers for this century that belie the perception of execution as a largely Southern phenomenon. It's something to keep in mind as the hiatus in executions forced by the Supreme Court in the 1970's fades in memory and older historical patterns re-emerge.

In New York, artifacts of such history rest dormant for now at the corrections department's Albany Training Academy and at its Green Haven prison in Dutchess County. The state's two remaining electric chairs are housed at those sites (the former was used at the Clinton prison, the latter at Sing Sing, while a third was destroyed in a 1929 fire at the Auburn prison) and they stand available if needed after the Legislature's anticipated passage of a death penalty bill by next November.

As it and other state assemblies move on capital punishment, an issue certain to arise is cost. Death penalty opponents and academics have issued numerous studies - one is recounted below - disputing the idea that executions can save a state money.

Richard F. Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says that from the outset, "Death Penalty cases are much more expensive than other criminal cases and cost more than inprisonment for life with no possibility of parole".

"Complex pre-trial motions, lengthy jury selections, and expenses for expert witnesses are all likely to add to the costs in death penalty cases," he says. "The irreversibility of the death sentence requires courts to follow heightened due process in the preparation and course of the trial".

If is this "heightened due process" that is fueling frustrations and prompting execution advocates to clamor for streamlined appeals, Many of them concede that at the core their argument rests on the time-honored tradition of just retribution for heinous crimes.

THE PRICE OF A DEATH PENALTY SENTENCE

Duke University researchers followed 77 murder cases in North Carolina in 1991 and 1992. Of the cases studied, 58 were capital trials, and 32 of those cases had two phases of trial, one to determine guilt and one for the sentence. A total of 94 people were tried in death penalty cases in North Carolina in 1991 and 1992, and 29 were sentenced to death.

$166.00: the average cost to try a noncapital murder case and keep a convicted criminal in prison for 20 years.

$329.00: the average cost to try, convict and execute a murderer. In North Carolina, an indigent defendant in a capital trial has the right to two lawyers instead of one. More expert witnesses are required. More legal briefs are filed. After conviction, there are nine steps in the appeals process, and some can be repeated.