> With its formal finding of a wrongful execution, the case became exhibit No. 1 in what has emerged as a key argument against the death penalty—that sometimes,

> With its formal finding of a wrongful execution, the case became exhibit No. 1 in what has emerged as a key argument against the death penalty—that sometimes, we misfire. Years ago I read a column by the late, great Auberon Waugh that convinced me that this argument, though well-intentioned, is at best ancillary and at worst wrong-headed: > [J]udicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish; it can only add a second atrocity to the original one. > [A] few innocent men and women will always suffer, but I do not think that has ever been a very serious objection to the principle of capital punishment. Innocent men and women are just as likely to fall down a manhole which has been left uncovered. There is almost no end to the list of unpleasant things which can happen to an innocent man or woman ... but blame must attach to the negligent man-hole coverer, balcony builder, to the stupid or cruel judge rather than to the manhole principle, the balcony system, the idea of the death penalty. > The main objection to killing people as a punishment is not, as I say, that innocent people will be killed. It is that killing people is wrong.... So long as one sees killing as wrong there is no need to waste time with the deterrent argument, since it would be nonsense to try to prevent a theoretical evil in the future by perpetrating an actual one in the present. -- http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/17th-june-1978/6/another-voice http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/17th-june-1978/6/anot...