The Death-Penalty Debate Thank you to Jonathan Alter and NEWSWEEK for a well-written and -researched cover story on capital punishment in America (“The Death Penalty on Trial,” Special Report, June 12). It is a stunning follow-up to the extensive article you published in the May 29 issue. It’s time politicians realized that concern about use of the death penalty is not limited to a few fringe groups, but that mainstream America is questioning this barbaric, outdated and nonsensical approach to criminal justice. Maybe they will come to understand that being “tough on crime” does not need to mean supporting capital punishment, and that lives do not need to be sacrificed to earn votes. Alice Curtis Olympia, Wash.
It is good that we are “rethinking the death penalty.” With DNA testing helping to preclude the execution of innocent persons, it makes more sense than ever that criminals who kill someone in a brutal and heinous manner should forfeit their own lives. If the death penalty does not deter crime, it certainly puts an abrupt end to recidivism. John Schank San Pablo, Calif.
Quite apart from the fact that most countries in the world have already banned capital punishment, when a nation like ours feels it necessary to execute its citizens it tells us our criminal-justice system has failed its fundamental purpose, which I believe is to rehabilitate. We may think of ourselves as an advanced and enlightened culture, but as long as we choose killing as a solution to killing, we will continue to live with our feet stuck in the Middle Ages. Thomas Wallace San Francisco, Calif.
The only strictly logical purpose of judicial punishment is the removal of the culprit from society, to make it physically impossible for him to be a threat any longer. This removal should be temporary for minor crimes and permanent for major crimes, and the cheapest and most effective way to achieve permanent removal is the death penalty. And it should be noted that for one category of crime–acts of terrorism–the death penalty is absolutely indispensable. To put a convicted terrorist away for 20 years, or even for life, still leaves us wide open to blackmail threats by other terrorists. To argue against the death penalty because of the remote possibility of judicial errors is like advocating not eating because occasionally someone dies of food poisoning. P. G. Kafka Bellevue, Wash.
The death penalty is a citizens’ authorization of the state to murder someone on our behalf. It is premeditated. It has a motive. It is wrong. And it should be abolished. Hymie Samuelson Austin, Texas
The only way a rational debate on capital punishment could even begin is if we became a society with no bigotry, economic discrimination or flaws in our judicial system. Since we are not even close, there is no justice at all in allowing such sentencing. Bob Rowell Collingswood, N.J.
For the Record Your May 29 article “Something Rotten in Palestine” (International) contains factually incorrect information about PricewaterhouseCoopers’s relationship with the Palestinian Authority. Contrary to what appeared in NEWSWEEK, PricewaterhouseCoopers does not audit and never has audited the Palestinian Authority. For the record, the PricewaterhouseCoopers Financial Advisory Services group has assisted the Palestinian Monetary Authority in looking at the workings of a foreign-owned bank in the West Bank and has been retained by the Palestine Investment Fund to develop and offer consulting services in managing various investments in a manner consistent with international standards. Jim Prince Financial Advisory Services PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Los Angeles, Calif.
Correction In a short review (“Critical Moment,” Arts & Entertainment, June 26), we misidentified the title of a new book by Stewart O’Nan. The correct title is “The Circus Fire.”
