Ancillary Issues and Capital Punishment This essay considers some of the ancillary issues in the death penalty debate: costs, relative suffering, brutalization, and others. Many inconclusive issues are associated with capital punishment punishment. Some believe that the monetary cost of appealing a death sentence is excessive (1). Yet most comparisons of the cost of life imprisonment with the cost of life imprisonment and the cost of execution, aside from their dubious relevance, are tainted at least by the implicit assumption that lifers will not generate judicial costs during their incarceration. In any case, the actual monetary costs are outweighed by the importance of doing justice. Others insist that a person sentenced to death suffers more than his victim suffered, and that this (excess) suffering is undue under the lex talionis (retaliation rule). ) (2). We cannot know whether the murderer on death row suffers more than his victim; however, unlike the killer, the victim did not deserve any of the suffering inflicted. Furthermore, the limitations of the lex talionis were intended to curb private revenge, not the social punishment that took its place. Punishment, regardless of motivation, is not intended to avenge, compensate, or make up for the victim's suffering, nor to measure against it. Punishment serves to vindicate the law and social order undermined by the crime. This is why the kidnapper's criminal imprisonment is not limited to the period during which he detained his victim; nor is a thief's imprisonment intended merely to compensate for the suffering or harm he has caused to his victim; nor is it intended only to compensate for the advantage obtained (3). Another argument heard at least since Beccaria (4) is that, by killing a murderer, we encourage, support or legitimize illegal killing. However, although all punishments are intended to be unpleasant, it is rarely argued that they legitimize the illegal imposition of identical unpleasantness. Imprisonment is not believed to legitimize kidnapping; nor are fines believed to legitimize robbery. The difference between murder and execution, or between kidnapping and imprisonment, is that the former is illegal and undeserved, the latter a legitimate and deserved punishment for a wrongful act. The physical similarities between punishment and crime are irrelevant. The relevant difference is not physical, but social (5). We threaten punishment to discourage crime. We impose them not only to make threats credible but also as punishment (justice) for crimes that have not been deterred.