Changing Attitudes Towards the Death Penalty

Hungary's Renewed Support for Capital Punishment

Zoltan J. Toth

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030475574
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Criminologie

This book explores the pros and cons of the death penalty and the history of capital punishment. In this context, it puts a special emphasis on the situation in Hungary, where, amongst its neighbors, in recent years the demand for the reestablishment of the death penalty has received the strongest political support from many pro-government politicians. Toth presents tendencies toward abolition of the death penalty and analyzes the arguments by which the death penalty can, in principle, be criticized or even defended. The book presents the main issues of the death penalty, arguments of both abolitionists and retentionists, and reviews the modern history of this sanction. It does not seek to convince the reader of the correctness or wrongness of the death penalty, but it presents both sides of the argument and their standpoints, and leaves the reader to decide. It encourages informed debate and discussion.

Part I

Death Penalty Debates in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century: Pros and Cons

Regarding the death penalty, numerous books, articles, and essays were issued as part of the criminological and criminal law literature over the recent decades. However, almost all of these have a common feature i.e., studying only one side of the issue and attempting to disseminate propaganda for or against the death penalty, in line with specific purposes. But only a few papers exist that explain the arguments of both sides with objectivity, allowing the reader to take a stand. This part of the present book was written with the intent to fill that void and to demonstrate, as exhaustively as possible, the respective arguments (both pros and cons) that often appear in debates. Sometimes the opposing arguments are displayed in dialogues, other times the various approaches are merely outlined, while the reader can decide on the righteousness thereof.

© The Author(s) 2020

Z. J. TothChanging Attitudes Towards the Death Penaltyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47557-4_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Zoltan J. Toth¹

(1)

Department of Legal History and Jurisprudence, Károli Gáspár University, Budapest, Hungary

Zoltan J. Toth

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

TopicalityPros and cons

End Abstract

Although the death penalty was abolished in the majority of European countries by 2018, the debates concerning capital punishment continue to arise. Currently, the death penalty is only applied in Belarus although Russia still has this sanction in theory (no execution has taken place in the last fifteen years) so it can be considered a so-called de facto abolitionist state. In many European countries, leading politicians argue or have recently argued in favor of reinstatement of the death penalty. Among them, there are not only leaders of extremist parties (such as Ján Slota, former president of the Slovakian SNS¹ in 2010 or Jean-Marie Le Pen, former president of the French FN² and his daughter Marine Le Pen, former vice president, currently president of the party, in 2007), but moderate (mainly conservative) politicians, as well. Similarly, Lech Kaczyński, Poland’s deceased president, urged a European debate regarding the reintroduction of capital punishment in 2006. His twin brother Jarosław Kaczyński, former prime minister and currently president of the leading opposition party, the PiS,³ also announced at the end of 2011 that one of the objectives of his party was also to reinstate the death penalty. Daniel Lipšic, former Slovakian Minister of Justice, raised the issue at the beginning of 2008. John Arthur Stevens, former head of the Metropolitan Police Service (better known as Scotland Yard) in England, after the murder of a policewoman in 2005, declared that although he was previously against capital punishment, death is the only acceptable response to brutal murder. All these persons were in favor of the death penalty partly for moral reasons and partly for practical considerations, believing that capital punishment has a deterrent effect and would serve to actually decrease the number of murder cases.

As to the controversy over capital punishment, two fundamental types of disputes—along with two kinds of reasonings supporting them—that center on the appropriateness or applicability of the death penalty can be differentiated. There exist on the one hand, philosophical or moral, and on the other hand, pragmatic (empirical and logical) reasons. Pragmatic arguments are characterized by impartiality and objectivity resting on solid, empirical, and at least partly supervisable grounds. As opposed to this, moral arguments are not formed on the basis of such requirements, therefore, they cannot be regarded as par excellence rational arguments by nature. Ethical viewpoints rest on profound beliefs that one accepts as axioms, in other words, one has a particular opinion of something without backing it up logically either by means of listing supporting evidence or refuting its counterarguments. The essence of morality lies in its status as the innermost, unquestionable, and indisputable, hence, undeniable (that is, immune to refutal) part of the human psyche, which is best described by the word “belief”⁴ and nothing can dissuade those who “believe” from their own presuppositions and convictions.⁵ Hence, if someone “believes” that the ultimate moral principle is to rid society of the “evil,” that is, of those people who are dangerous and purposefully trespass, posing a threat to their fellow, law-abiding citizens and that the only proper way to do that is for such a trespasser to receive punishment in the same form as they have offended because there is no treatment more just than that, then this person will claim with a solid moral conviction that the death penalty is an appropriate form of punishment. At the same time, those on the opposite viewpoint who think that no human has the right to make judgments over other humans and that life is so sacred and invaluable that it is forbidden to take it away in an “ethical” society even from those people who deliberately took away others’ life out of their own immorality, will emphasize the legitimacy of their own beliefs with the same vehemence. The debate between everyday people—and also between professionals with their points elaborated in a more sophisticated argumentation—on capital punishment rests on such moral grounds. As a consequence of this, it results in the mutual, conscious ignorance of the other party’s reasoning and a shift from the point under discussion to personal disagreements, rendering the studies dealing with the death penalty as weapons of a philosophical jihad rather than inferences based on rational research. Since moral arguments as enunciations of beliefs cannot be studied rationally, that is—to put it more simply—they do not meet the criterion of scientificity,⁶ I will not discuss the pure forms of the arguments raised in connection with the death penalty⁷ in this paper. (The criterion of scientificity—in contradiction with its older conception—is not verifiability but, instead, falsifiability. It follows from this that an assertion cannot be regarded as a scientific statement if it does not—not even in theory—leave any room for proving its falseness, therefore, moral arguments do not constitute any part of science—just like any other declaration or conviction formed on beliefs.)

The empirical points of discussion concerning the death penalty, however, are also able to polarize people’s various standpoints to an extreme. This is equally true for the issue of the deterrent effect, the possibility of wrongful convictions, the matter of humanity or inhumanity of the individual methods of execution applied nowadays, the existing or non-existing discrimination in the judicial process, or even for the financial aspects as well.

The practical arguments concerned with the applicability or non-applicability of capital punishment need to be divided into two distinct categories: relevant and non-relevant arguments. While the former either in themselves or through their relationship with one another may be used to prove the standpoint of retention or that of abolition, the latter—regardless of what the truth is about them—cannot even in theory serve as a rationale for taking a position in the discussion of the death penalty’s acceptability. This latter category includes (among many other reasons of secondary importance) arguments pertaining to par excellence economic (i.e., pecuniary) aspects or arguments in connection with the public’s support and since these attributes are by nature defined or influenced by a particular legal system, one can only make inferences about the state of the actual legal system in question, but not about capital punishment as such. It follows from this that the arguments dealing with these issues are only valid as long as the circumstances from which they sprang up persist and as soon as a change occurs in the legal situation, they lapse. Results obtained from the debates associated with the above-specified viewpoints cannot be perceived as conclusive arguments with regards to the theoretical discussion of the death penalty also because they only take into consideration marginal aspects thereof instead of the crucial questions that should be raised. Accordingly, this part deals primarily with these crucial questions concentrating, principally but not exclusively, on the Hungarian scene.

Footnotes

1

Slovenská národná strana (Slovak National Party).

2

Front national (National Front).

3

Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice).

4

The word “belief” is not used to mean or refer to faith here, it stands as a synonym for any aprioristic point of view.

5

As a result, moral conviction as belief is irrational, which simply means that, as far as its genesis is concerned, it is not a consequence of something but it depends on an aprioristic choice of values (that is, there is no rational reason or logical verification behind it).

6

The criterion of scientificity—in contradiction with its older conception—is not verifiability but, instead, falsifiability. It follows from this that an assertion cannot be regarded as a scientific statement if it does not—not even in theory—leave any room for proving (unavoidably only temporarily, owing to the current perception of scientificity) its falseness (in the presence of appropriate conditions), therefore, moral arguments do not constitute any part of science (just like any other declaration or conviction formed on beliefs).

7

Clearly, many rational arguments build on a more or less moral base. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily entail that these are “moral” arguments, so it should come as no surprise if moral elements do occur in some or even in most of the upcoming examples that are to be analyzed without one having the obligation to call their rational/empirical nature into question because of this.

© The Author(s) 2020

Z. J. TothChanging Attitudes Towards the Death Penaltyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47557-4_2

Begin Abstract

2. The Deterrent Effect: From An a priori Logic

Zoltan J. Toth¹

(1)

Department of Legal History and Jurisprudence, Károli Gáspár University, Budapest, Hungary

Zoltan J. Toth

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

Deterrent effectMurder typesCrimes of passionPremeditation

End Abstract

As for the a priori logic, there are two points of view competing with each other. The so-called retentionists or revivalists, namely, the advocates of capital punishment, deem that the more severe a penalty is (imposed on a perpetrator), the greater the fear of the consequences of a crime will be. They argue like this: “I don’t want to be fined 100 dollars. I even less want to be fined 1000 dollars, even less punished with one year prison, even less with prison for life and least of all to be sentenced to death.” For instance, according to Alexander Deak, capital punishment has a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment, since it is final and irrevocable and there is no possibility of escape. Then again, life imprisonment holds some hope (although very small) for freedom, either by means of escaping from prison or hoping for pardon from the President. Deak does believe that the threat of irrevocable death is in fact more dreadful than “normal” life imprisonment that does not last forever (only twenty or thirty years) or actual life imprisonment, which might not last a lifetime (due to the possibility of escape from prison or pardon). As he puts it: “I believe the view that a real criminal would not be deterred by capital punishment is not correct. On this basis, the entire Criminal Code should be repealed, as a notorious thief or fraud would not be deterred by punishment.”¹ Furthermore: “In my opinion a person who virtually ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Back Matter