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Homicide Moratorium?

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

The Los Angeles City Council debated a resolution declaring a 40-hour moratorium on murder, David Zahniser reports for the LA Times. Commenters at the Volokh Conspiracy discuss whether this was an April Fool's joke. Ultimately, the council "decided instead to use the upcoming anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination as an occasion for promoting peace." Of course, if they actually wanted to lower the homicide rate, they should call on the Legislature to enact reforms to actually enforce California's death penalty. As Paul Rubin of Emory University testified to Congress a couple of years ago, "The literature [on deterrence] is easy to summarize: almost all modern studies and all the refereed studies find a significant deterrent effect of capital punishment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on April 02, 2008 (boomark / email).