The controversy over the Parkland shooter’s life sentence, as opposed to death, should stimulate renewed analysis of whether the death sentence has a place in modern society. Nikolas Cruz’s defense was that he was mentally ill from pregnancy drug/alcohol abuse. The juror who held out (the death penalty currently must be unanimous in Florida) was swayed by this argument, i.e., he was crazy so it wasn’t his fault. The families of the dead children were furious over the sentence.
Particularly in mass shootings, a mentally ill defense should be no defense. Of course mass shooters are crazy. Both sides should stipulate to it in the trial. The trial should simply be about two considerations – did he/she do it, and is he/she a continuing menace. If the answer is “yes” to both, then the consideration is life or death. (Actually, even if the answer is “yes” to the former and “no” to the latter, as unusual as that might be, the consideration should still be life or death.)
Although humans have an incredible capacity to adapt to miserable conditions, a life sentence seems more of a punishment than death. Cruz faces probably 60 years in prison with all the bad things that such an experience implies. Conversely, a death sentence is fast then over. Given that we all die, whatever that horrible experience would be for Cruz, it would certainly come eventually so speeding it up doesn’t change the experience, just the timing.
Arguments for a death sentence are several: 1) less expensive for society; 2) vengeance (we often hate to admit this); and 3) an example to others who are contemplating mass murder. The last argument is the most important. Although most mass shooters probably intend suicide, would those that don’t be deterred by knowing they are headed for a death sentence? The second argument, vengeance, is mostly emotional – closure, getting what they deserve, my child is dead/why should you live, etc. – but modern society’s laws should be based on rationalism, not emotion (historical societies allowed much more emotion and, today, we often call them barbaric). The cost argument, although true, may not be valid due to the relatively low number of such punishments in the grand scheme of society’s costs (e.g., compare the sum of all life sentence costs to something like climate change costs).
There are two primary arguments against the death sentence – wrong conviction, and morality. These are tough arguments. Clearly, a death sentence to a wrongly convicted person is horrible (it happened often during Jim Crow; is there something to be learned from that?) and wrong. To consider this further, ask how confident are we in the system that leads to convictions? Wrong convictions do indeed happen as evidenced by more frequent than ever, albeit still infrequent, DNA testing. So, knowing that a conviction could be wrong but with odds mostly against it, should we still condemn someone to death? For the believers among us, who goes to Hell in such a case? This is all leading to the second argument – morality. Perhaps the greatest moral paradox of the death sentence is the justification that it is ok to kill someone if they, too, have killed. Should killing be off limits, always? What does the exception of death sentence killing do to our collective consciousness of the First Commandment?
Weighing all of these considerations, I think the death sentence wins out if it serves as a deterrent. If one mass murderer is deterred, thus saving perhaps dozens of lives, being wrong once in a while still results in less death. And less death is morally better than more. The death sentence for other than mass murder is a different issue, however.