One of the prime reasons I've been opposed to capital punishment -- at least under the current system -- was the possibility that an innocent person could be executed. However, as I have been so often in the past, I am reminded that opposite each risk is an alternative risk: there is also a danger that, if capital punishment deters murder, not executing a murderer will result in more innocent lives being lost.

So in order to determine the best social policy, by Tim's way of thinking, we have to weigh risks: "How many innocent people die under policy X? How many innocents die under policy Y?" Then we choose the lesser of the two evils.

Sadly, as I am reflexively still a leftist in many areas, this hadn't occurred to me, regarding this specific topic, until just tonight.

Over at the newish Becker-Posner blog, Posner argues risk of death by capital punishment is exceeding small -- much smaller than I had imagined. If he is right, then has two significant consequences for yours truly.

First, this would fairly well decimate my own best argument against capital punishment. If it is also correct to that each executed murderer prevents about 18 more murders, then the benefits of capital punishment -- even under our currently oh-so-flawed system -- far outweight the risks, and we should perhaps increase the number of executions in order to save innocent lives. (Again, I'm more than open to evidence to the contrary.)

Second, if this is true, then I would be yet again astonished that the bible seems to have been there, all along, saying what is true before we had the hard statistical evidence to evaluate it. When it comes to these kind of things, I often take a bit of agnostic view: though I don't know why. I've been a bit of a doubting Thomas in certain areas. But Jesus, though it said it was better not to doubt, entertained Thomas's concerns, and allowed him to put his hands on his wounds, to see them for himself. I'm glad he does the same for me, but I'm sure there was some reason this was unnecessary, and, had I been smarter, should have clearly seen this, and other now-"obvious" things, long ago.