Capital punishment attracts strong and opposing moral positions: execution by the state under any condition is wrong versus execution as just retribution for heinous killing. In this book, the author rejects these moral arguments as a basis for determining the social value of the death penalty and considers the issue scientifically by determining whether capital punishment deters willful killing. Using evidence from legal history, the impairment / abolishment of the death penalty between 1968 and 1976 and the right of states to adopt or abolish the death penalty, this book examines the...