Capital Punishment and Deterrence

In his Jan. 1 commentary, “The Death Penalty: A 1% Nonsolution to Crime,” Jeff Gillenkirk uses the usual “no deterrence” argument and points out that “no study has ever quantified a link between motivation and murder statistics.” Well, of course. Until someone invents a mind-reading machine, there cannot possibly be a way to determine motivation for anything people do, or refrain from doing. This is true regarding all crimes and all punishments. And why would anyone expect a punishment that is used so rarely to have any major deterrent effect?

Marc Russell

Los Angeles

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Though I agree with Gillenkirk’s stance on abolishing the death penalty, I take issue with his reasoning that Kevin Cooper, the inmate convicted of killing four in 1983 by hacking his victims to death, was given the death penalty because he was poor and unable to afford a “decent” attorney, thereby implying he could “get” only a public defender. My husband has been a Los Angeles County deputy public defender for 34 years. It is common knowledge that the public defenders qualified to handle capital cases are among the most experienced defense attorneys in the country.

Gillenkirk mentions the Menendez brothers’ “resources” as being the reason they were not strapped to gurneys. The Menendez brothers’ attorney, Leslie Abramson, got her start and gained invaluable experience in the Los Angeles public defender’s office during the 1970s, as did many “decent” lawyers we read about every day in The Times who handle big criminal cases. It is obvious that the jurors felt the facts and evidence spoke for themselves in this particular case.

Michele Adashek

Cheviot Hills