What the Death Penalty Deters

Jeff Gamso has an interesting post today about what may be the most common use of the death penalty:

And there’s Jared Lee Loughner who might have been found insane rather than guilty of murder and locked away for the rest of his life after a trial rather than quickly pleading guilty and getting locked away for the rest of his life if..Arizona…didn’t have a death penalty.

See, it’s not about actually killing people.  The important part of the death penalty is the threat.

Not because it deters murderers. But because it deters trials.

In some ways, that’s one of the most devastating attacks on the death penalty I’ve ever read — that it’s a way to frighten the accused into waiving the right to a trial. Instead of the death penalty being some form of ultimate justice, it’s just another way for the state to crush people beneath it’s boot.

Read the whole thing.