Physician Participation in Capital Punishment

Physician participation in executions, the morality of capital punishment, and the practical implications of their relationship.

Evidence that some executed prisoners suffered excruciating pain has reinvigorated the ethical debate about physician participation in executions. In widely publicized litigation, death row inmates argue that participation of anesthesiologists in their execution is constitutionally required to minimize the risk of unnecessary suffering. For many years, commentators supported the ethical ban on ...

Euthanasia, Capital Punishment, Murder

Homicide and Capital Punishment

Punishment Schedules for Capital Flight

W HAT are appropriate penalties to discourage capital flight? Economic punishments can serve as effective deterrents for economic crimes but the penalties themselves are often costly to impose and enforce. Good public policy must take these costs into account in addition to the effectiveness of punishment schemes. In order to construct a deterrent to economically motivated behaviour, the enviro...

Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder?

Ethical, philosophical and religious values are central to the continuing controversy over capital punishment. Nevertheless, factual evidence can and should inform policy making. The evidence for capital punishment as an uniquely effective deterrent to murder is especially important, since deterrence is the only major pragmatic argument on the pro-death penalty side.1 The purpose of this paper ...