The Econ­o­mist is a won­der­ful mag­a­zine. This week, in “Cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Amer­ica,” I learned that:

• It now costs con­sid­er­ably more to exe­cute a man than it does to give him life in prison. (In North Car­olina, cap­i­tal cases cost about $2M more.)
• The specter of the death penalty is prob­a­bly not a deter­rence to crime. In 2005 there were 46% more mur­ders per capita in states with the death penalty than in those with­out it.

Mostly for these two rea­sons, I am opposed to the death penalty. In this case, moral con­cerns can take the back seat to what seem to be prac­ti­cal disadvantages.

The gap between Texas and the rest of the United States is also kind of inter­est­ing. I won­der what accounts for the dif­fer­ing attitudes.