"Anger is the passion that recognizes and cares about justice,"
says political scientist Walter Berns. Anger protects the community
"by demanding punishment for its enemies," and this frightening
rationale is the basis for Berns' endorsement of capital
punishment. He says he was inspired by Simon Wiesenthal who spent
his life hunting Nazis "to pay them back." In other words, Berns is
advocating a system of justice based on retribution. His study is
confusing, hard to follow, and filled with both unexplained and
contradictory statements: "Opposition to capital punishment was
born of liberalism," he says, never defining "liberalism" except to
say that it came out of the 17th century. He concludes that capital
punishment is probably no deterrent to crime, but says that prisons
are deterrents, and he labels rehabilitation programs as "pious
sentiment." Drawing heavily on religion - Jesus' warning to "whoso
shall offend one of those little ones which believe in me" is seen
as a veiled threat of death - Berns characterizes liberals as
"usually anti-Christian," concluding that those basing their
opposition on the Bible are actually moved by other considerations.
Lengthy quotations from scholarly works - particularly the work of
Cesare Beccari, an 18th-century opponent of capital punishment -
are just so much clutter, doing little to enhance Berns' argument.
It's the eye-for-an-eye mentality masquerading as philosophy.
(Kirkus Reviews)
This distinguished constitutional theorist takes a hard look at
current criminal law and the Supreme Court's most recent decisions
regarding the legality of capital punishment. Examining the penal
system, capital punishment, and punishment in general, he reviews
the continuing debate about the purpose of punishment for
deterrence, rehabilitation, or retribution. He points out that the
steady moderation of criminal law has not effected a corresponding
moderation in criminal ways or improved the conditions under which
men must live. He decries the "pious sentiment" of those who
maintain that criminals need to be rehabilitated. He concludes that
the real issue is not whether the death penalty deters crime, but
that in an imperfect universe, justice demands the death penalty.
Originally published by Basic Books in 1979.
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