Originally published in Reno Gazette-Journal, November 9, 2017.
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The state of Nevada is set to execute Scott Dozier on Nov. 14 for the 2002 murder of Jeremiah Miller in Las Vegas. And for the first time since the 2006 execution of Daryl Mack, the debate on capital punishment in Nevada shifts from philosophical abstraction to stark reality.
For the moment, let’s ignore how they do it in other states and other countries. Pay no attention to the opinions of out-of-state politicians, national media pundits and global religious leaders. Nevada’s death penalty is for Nevadans to debate.
And in the opinion of the RGJ Editorial Board, the death penalty does not serve Nevada in any way.
Proponents have argued that the crime of first-degree murder deserves nothing less than the ultimate punishment, and that the existence of the death penalty deters violent crime and gives prosecutors another weapon in their arsenal to solicit plea bargains. Available evidence suggests those things are not true in this state.
Fear of the death penalty doesn’t deter violent crime.
The homicide rate hovered below 15 per 100,000 Nevadans in the mid-1970s, when the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled the death penalty to be unconstitutional. The rate spiked to 20 homicides per 100,000 residents in 1980, four years after the death penalty was reinstated. Similarly, the rate of violent crime in the state surged in the late ’70s and early ’80s despite the return of capital punishment.
Over the past 13 years, as states have begun to place moratoriums on the death penalty or abolish it altogether, Nevada — one of 31 states practicing capital punishment — has ranked in the top 10 for violent crime per capita every year since 2002, and in the top 5 every year since 2006. If potential criminals in Nevada have any apprehension about committing violent crime, it’s not reflected in the numbers.
Prosecutors aren’t using the threat of the death penalty to encourage plea bargains.
The death penalty isn’t used strategically to avoid trials or elicit plea bargains — in fact, plea bargaining takes place about 14 percent less often when defendants potentially face the possibility of capital punishment, according to a death penalty performance audit commissioned by the 2013 Nevada Legislature.
In fact, the bureau directly asked the district attorneys’ offices in Washoe and Clark counties if the death penalty was used as a bargaining tool. Both offices said no; Clark County DA Steve Wolfson said the practice would be “unethical.”
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