Dr. John Lott has a new op-ed piece at Townhall.
Some people support the death penalty to deliver justice, while others argue it deters future murders and saves lives. But a simple proof shows the death penalty deters more than life without parole: look at the choices murderers make when facing trial.
Time and again, mass murderers plead for life without parole to avoid execution. Without the threat of the death penalty, they would have no reason to negotiate.
This week, Bryan Kohberger, accused of brutally murdering four Idaho college students in 2022, became the latest to want life in prison over the death penalty—just weeks before his August trial.
Prominent killers frequently take similar plea deals. Patrick Crusius, who murdered 23 people in a racially motivated 2019 Walmart shooting in El Paso, accepted a plea deal in March 2025. James Holmes, who killed 12 and injured 70 in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting, pleaded guilty in 2015 to avoid execution.
Others who also struck plea deals to avoid the death penalty include:
— Jared Lee Loughner, who murdered six and injured 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (2011),
— Dylann Roof, who killed nine at a Charleston church (2015),
— Eric Rudolph, who bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics,
— Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland school shooter who killed 17, pleaded guilty in a successful attempt to avoid a death sentence.
— Francisco Oropeza, who murdered five neighbors in neighbors in San Jacinto County, Texas (2023).
Some killers, like Nidal Hasan (who killed 13 at Fort Hood in 2009), sought plea deals but couldn’t get them. Military law blocked Hasan’s deal.
While Democrats oppose the death penalty, Americans support it by a 3-to-2 margin. And their support would rise to more than 2-to-1 if death sentences were carried out on a more timely basis. Those with the lowest incomes—who often face the most crime—back it most strongly.
Critics argue that the death penalty is too expensive. But threatening it often reduces costs by prompting plea bargains. These plea deals avoid costly trials and appeals. As part of the plea agreement, the murderers agree not to appeal their conviction.
Today, 27 states permit the death penalty, but only 11 states and the federal government have carried out executions since 2020. Montana has not executed anyone since 2006 due to court rulings. Under President Trump, the federal government executed 13 people; under Biden, none.
These cases show that murderers fear death more than life in prison. But there is other research supporting its deterrent effect. Indeed, most peer-reviewed studies estimate that each execution prevents eightto eighteen murders. What is saving at least eight lives worth?
Some point to the National Research Council’s 2012 report that could reach a conclusion on the death penalty deterring crime, but they fail to acknowledge that the National Research Council virtually never comes to a conclusion on any topic except for claiming that more research is needed.
Some claim the death penalty is racially biased. But data suggests otherwise. From 1977 to 2011, whites made up 64.7% of executions despite committing only 47% of murders. In 2020, 64% of those executed were still white.
Concerns about executing the innocent are unfounded. Between 1989 and 2014, DNA evidence was available in about 12,000 murder cases. The Innocence Project identified 34 people wrongly convicted, 18 of whom were on death row—none were executed.
DNA exonerations remain extremely rare.
On his first day in office, President Trump signed a sweeping executive order reinstating the federal death penalty. He directed the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to ensure states had sufficient lethal injection drugs to carry out executions. Trump defended the order, stating: “Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes.”
The murderers’ own actions confirm Trump’s point—deterrence works.
That is quite a switch from Biden who recently commuted death sentences to life sentences for 37 of the 40 men who are on the federal government’s death row. Those spared included child killers and mass murderers, and many showed no remorse and horribly tortured their victims.
The death penalty saves lives and taxpayer dollars. When used strategically, it delivers justice, deters crime, and secures plea deals that spare victims’ families from prolonged trials.
John R. Lott, Jr., “Criminals Fear the Death Penalty More Than Life in Prison,” Townhall, July 9, 2025.
I rarely disagree with Dr. Lott, but on this topic, I do.
I do not support the death penalty as currently administered. It takes far too long, and costs society far too much to impose.
That most convicted murderers (mass or otherwise) ultimately negotiate to avoid the death penalty does not concern me. What concerns me is that the existence of the death penalty did not deter them from committing murder to begin with.
What concerns me is the mandatory taxpayer-paid appeals the death penalty requires, and which take years and sometimes decades to exhaust. These do not exist with life without parole (LWOP.)
What concerns me is that the overall average cost to taxpayers is greater to administer the death penalty as compared to LWOP.
What concerns me is that in uber-liberal states like California, even when the voters uphold their preference for the death penalty and then reaffirm it be requiring that we administer it more quickly, a District Attorney (in this case George Gascon) could and regularly did refuse to seek the death penalty, and a Governor (in this case Gavin Newsom) can completely countermand the will of the people and prohibit the State Department of Corrections from performing executions.
In such cases, “Death Row” effectively becomes LWOP, but costs inordinately more.
So why bother?
My preference for California would be to end the death penalty and bring back LWOP at hard labor. House LWOP convicts in tents in the middle of the Mojave, rather than comfy bunks in air-conditioned fortresses. Feed them cold MREs and water rather than professionally prepared meals. No libraries. No gym equipment. No visitors (conjugal or otherwise.) No TVs.
Just 12-hour days of hard labor until their minds, bodies, spirits or all three, finally break down or they kill themselves, whichever happens sooner. The rules are simple: Work and be fed. Refuse to work and go hungry and thirsty until you decide to work or starve.
Don’t want to serve that kind of time, don’t commit the crime.
When they do finally die, bury them in unmarked graves that are within clear view of the other convicts, so they can all see where they will eventually end up and maybe they will kill themselves sooner.
Now I think THAT would be a deterrent!
I only support the death penalty for multiple homicide. If a person is convicted of multiple homicide, it’s usually more likely that the person has committed at least one. Virtually all mass shooters are caught “red-handed” with no reasonable doubt of guilt.
However, I do not think the examples cited by Dr. Lott necessarily prove any deterrent effect. The acts were committed with the perpetrator knowing full well the possibility of the death penalty for committing those murders in those jurisdictions. When given a choice after the fact, they choose their life over their death. The perpetrators who would choose death would have already chosen it when they escaped via suicide as most mass shooters do. Part of the deterrence of having armed citizens is that the perpetrator may be incapacitated and not killed, and not be able to “escape via suicide”.
If the death penalty is to be a deterrent, it would have to be certain, mandatory without possibility of anything less. And then, it still would likely have less deterrence against those who would commit suicide, though it would probably have some deterrence. The perps would rather die right after the act by their own hand rather than have it drag on outside of their control, and be executed by the society they hate.
To determine the effect of the death penalty upon deaths by mass shootings (or rates of mass shootings) would best be done by differential or longitudinal studies – a study of rate of mass shooting deaths between jurisdictions in which there are various rates of executions for that type of offense, or a study of the rate of mass shooting deaths before and after the enactment of a death penalty.
New research shows that 76-80% of Americans support the death penalty for the most aggravated murders:
https://roseinstitute.org/crime-justice/
For me…the premeditated murder of even one human should carry the death penalty. That penalty could also be made less of a debate topic if we just went back to the firing squad and quit worrying about sterilizing the needle.
I would concede to sterilizing the bullets if it makes anyone less squeamish.