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Especially in the USA it is self-evident that the death penalty cannot qualify as a deterrent simply because the murder rate keeps rising.

Rather it is evident that the state of the judiciary with its plea bargaining and the fact that in the USA there can be many years of incarceration with multiple appeals acts as a softening of any deterrence.

We all know that there are many types of homicide but I presume that the death penalty is really designed for those murders that are planned and premeditated or are carried out in the commission of another illegal activity.

In the UK the death penalty had a maximum of three weeks from the handing out of the sentence to the execution.

Here it did act as a real acknowledge in that the percentage of homicides warranting the death penalty was very low in number compared with the USA and, more importantly, that percentage was static over many decades.

Whilst I deterrence that there were a few miscarriages of justice, my advice to the USA is to decide to keep the death penalty or get rid of it.

If kept, then the sentence must be sure and swift - only then will the deterrance factor kick in.

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