situation, and history has indicated that there is no better deterrent to murder than the imminence of "going to the chair". Throughout the 30s, 40s and 50s, the death penalty was administered liberally all over the U.S.; by the early 60s, murder rates had plummeted so low as to warrant the death penalty virtually unnecessary, and so it was doled out in only the most well publicized cases (Tucker, 2000, p. 2). However, in 1971, the Supreme Court overturned all existing death penalty laws, and at zero executions, the murder rate took a turn for the worse -- by 1980, the murder rate had risen to more than double what it had been two decades before (Tucker, 2000, p. 2).
Exploring this argument from a strictly ethical basis, it is prudent then to consider killing with an eye towards frequency.
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