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36 U. Fla. L. Rev. 177 (1984)
Administering Capital Punishment

handle is hein.journals/uflr36 and id is 179 raw text is: University of Florida Law Review
VOLUME XXXVI                    SPRING 1984                 NUMBER 2
DUNWODY DISTINGUISHED
LECTURE IN LAW
ADMINISTERING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
JOHN KAPLAN*
I. INTRODUCTION ......................................... 177
II. MERIT PAY FOR TEACHERS ............................. 178
III. THE PROBLEMS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ............... 179
A.   Execution as Just Another Death ............... 181
B.   The Meaning of Innocence ..................... 186
C.   Avoidance of Arbitrariness ..................... 188
D.   The Appellate Process: Delaying the Moment of
Reckoning   ....................................     190
IV .  CONCLUSION  .........................................    191
I. INTRODUCTION
People in favor of capital punishment advocate the institution for
one or more of the following reasons: they believe the threat of capi-
tal punishment will deter murder better than the threat of life im-
prisonment; capital punishment is justified because it undeniably
prevents further crimes by those executed-in other words, it is a
perfect means of incapacitation; capital punishment is just because
all, or at least particular subcategories of, murderers deserve the
death penalty; and capital punishment saves the state money by exe-
cuting murderers rather than imprisoning them for the rest of their
lives.
Opponents of capital punishment attack each of these reasons.
*Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law, Stanford Law School. A.B., 1951, LL.B., 1954,
Harvard University.
This is the third in a series of papers on capital punishment, which the author hopes will
eventually be integrated into a book on the topic. The first article appeared in the 1983 Univer-
sity of Illinois Law Review 555, on the utilitarian and moral case for capital punishment. The
second article appeared in 11 Florida State University Law Review 369 (1983), on evidentiary
aspects of capital punishment litigation. This paper is on the problems of administering capital
punishment.

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