Dear Editor,
Your excellent editorial of 30th August 2020 – entitled `The Death Penalty’ – states that, “Amnesty International has found, for example, that the murder rates in US states which do not have the death penalty are no higher than in those which do”. This isn’t quite correct. US states which have capital punishment in fact have higher murder rates than those which don’t. One of the reasons for this is that capital punishment reduces respect for the sanctity of human life.
The death penalty is in itself murder – murder by the state.
Yours faithfully,
Adam Frankowski
