The illusory death penalty: Why America's death penalty process fails to support the economic theories of criminal sanctions and deterrence

The central tenet of the economic approach to criminal law is deterrence. T his approach provides a useful tool to analyze the theoretical justificatio ns of capital punishment. From an economic view, the death penalty is a log ical extension of the criminal justice system's primary goal of deterrence and is arguably necessary to solve inherent deterrence problems such as mar ginal deterrence and discounting. Nevertheless, current empirical research on capital punishment in America has shown that, in practice, capital punis hment provides. at best, very little deterrence to serious crimes. This Not e discusses a few of the possible reasons why America's death penalty proce ss yields so little deterrence to crime in comparison to its theoretical le vel of deterrence. The Note argues that the great delay between conviction and actual execution defeats any theoretical deterrent effect of capital pu nishment. The Note concludes by suggesting a few ways in which America coul d reform its death penalty process to serve as a greater deterrent. includi ng the possibility that the most efficient solution may be to abolish the d eath penalty.