The Death Penalty And The Single Strongest Argument In Favor Of Capital Punishment

This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by Aaron Jantzen.

The “mad dog” argument. A “mad dog” is a dog that is infected with rabies. It will never recover, it will never be a nice dog again, and it wants desperately to bite everyone in sight, thus giving them rabies as well.

Applied to humans, we have individuals such as Charles Manson who have unquestionably killed innocent people at every opportunity, and encouraged others to join him in killing. He organized a killing spree that left 7 people dead, including the actress Sharon Tate. There is absolutely no doubt about his guilt, nor has he denied it.

Manson was convicted of conspiracy to commit murders and given 9 concurrent life terms. But under California’s laws, Manson is imprisoned for life and can’t be executed. Is his incarceration equivalent to the death penalty? The answer is an unequivocal NO. If he had been executed upon conviction in 1971, he would be gone, dead, maybe even at least partially forgotten. But the USA has paid a huge price for letting him live, including almost losing a President of the United States as a result. Despite being in prison, Manson convinced his follower Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme to take a gun and shoot and assassinate the President of the United States, Gerald Ford. She did as he instructed, and the president would have died then and there, except that the gun misfired.

The government of California knew Manson was a “mad dog.” They knew that he would continue to present a clear and present danger to the citizens and leadership of the United States as long as he could still draw a breath. But they have elected to keep him alive, allowing him to commit more mayhem, more crimes, and infect more minds as long as he continues to live. And the citizens of California have been forced to pay for many parole hearings since then, and appear as witnesses, forced to relive the horrors, in order to ensure he is not released.