Murder and capital punishment: some further evidence.

The literature relating homicide and capital punishment is reviewed briefly. Despite the "presumed conclusiveness" of the evidence against the death penalty, most studies are shown to suffer from a number of theoretical and methodological shortcomings. To provide a more theoretically sound and comprehensive examination of the question, this paper analyzes alternative data for first and second degree murder and homicide in death penalty and abolition states. Results are essentially consistent with those of earlier investigations.