Prof. Yin highlights one of those wonderful articles by concerned liberals (in this case Anna Quindlen) that causes a moment of pause. I have to remind myself that there are quite sensible people who object to the death penalty, and they don't all offer drivel as arguments. It's worth listening to them.

I find this tough to remember because death penalty abolitionists have some pretty staunch spinmeisters in their corner. Justice Scalia's concurrence in Marsh today challenged some of the key figures one hears, but for my money Amnesty International takes the Arachne Award for the Service of Spun Statistics to Public Policy. For instance, it's hard to find a death penalty press release that doesn't contain some variation of the statement, "In 2005, 94 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA."

That sounds pretty damning, doesn't it? But what if I told you that (based on the same statistics), the U.S. came in fourth place and counted for only 2.8% of all executions in 2005? That's a bit less impressive. On a per capita basis, Singapore's hangmen are busier by almost a factor of ten? (OK, the figures are old, but it's still a high multiple.) The big deal, of course, is China, which accounts for over 80% of all executions worldwide.

Amensty choses the "top four" cut off, of course, not because the U.S. is exceptional among countries retaining the death penalty (that would be China), but because the United States is fourth. Amnesty often precedes the line I quoted above with, "As in previous years, the vast majority of executions worldwide were carried out in a tiny handful of countries." True so far as it goes. But the vast majority of executions are carried out by a single country, and the rest are just frosting on that particular cake.

This spin also allows people like Quinlen to blithely write:

Hardly any other civilized place does this anymore. In the past three decades, the number of nations that have abolished the death penalty has risen from 16 to 86. Last year four countries accounted for nearly all executions worldwide: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Despite being flat-out deceptive, Amnesty is happy to push these little statistics, and commentators like Quindlen trot them out like respectable toy poodles. The trouble is that once one learns how the numbers have been massaged, it's hard not to judge the rest of the abolitionist claims with some skepticism. Hundreds of exonerations? Well, were these innocent people or are we trying for large headline numbers by including procedural faults?

I'm sure Amnesty's heart is in the right place, which is normally the excuse one hears for them. But it's hard to think that when the "best of intentions" are promoted by rather shady means.