The problem is that this value is almost impossible to quantify. There’s no way to examine the counterfactual and determine whether a defendant who agrees to LWOP to avoid the death penalty would have been a continued criminal risk had he started at LWOP and bargained down to twenty years. But I’ll bet there’s a significant value in keeping them locked up. Then, the value of their testimony to avoid death must also be great but hard to measure. What’s the value to society of having a particular kingpin off the streets, or the value of closure of having a missing child found?

I don’t think the LA TImes has begun to capture the true economic value of the death penalty. But you know what? The whole argument’s a red herring. The purpose of the death penalty is ultimately retribution and punishment. Deterrence is a secondary benefit.

(Sorry if this is a double post–it didn’t go up last time.)

Really? Part of the reason for that is that there appears to be a very high suicide rate. Over 20% of the deaths on Death Row have been from suicide. That’s a lot.

If more than 20% of the 640 remaining Death Row inmates chose to “take responsibility” for their crimes in a similar fashion, that would be well over 100 suicides. I’d rather see them executed in due course than commit suicide. But — keeping in mind that we’re talking about the worst cold-blooded killers society has — I’d rather see them commit suicide than die of natural causes.

We could do better, but I’m surprised we’re doing as well as we are.

So: 53 cold-blooded murderers have died on California’s Death Row since 1978. A bare majority (28) died “naturally,” while 25 died from execution, suicide, or from apparent murders. That doesn’t sound so bad to me.

It sounds horrible to me, though not for a reason the Pyongyang Times of Los Angeles is likely to care about. I find the fact that a death row inmate is slightly more likely to kill himself than be killed by the state, and twice as likely to die of natural causes, downright obscene.