Here's another awful case where the prospect of the death penalty doesn't prevent murder:
A convicted rapist accused of strangling a corrections officer to death with an amplifier cord in the prison chapel is standing trial on charges that could carry the death penalty if he's convicted.
[...]
Scherf wrote detectives and prosecutors, saying he wanted to plead guilty. He urged authorities to seek the death penalty. He wrote that Biendl's family deserved swift justice. After being advised of his rights, he agreed to video interviews with investigators. He spoke against the advice of his lawyer.
You read that correctly: A man serving a life sentence killed a corrections officer in order to get the death penalty.
The amazing thing, of course, is that commenters on the Huffington Post article I cite here are all calling for the death penalty. Why exactly? Well, because they are outraged and they have no other idea about how they can express their justifiable outrage.
Of course, these misguided proponents of the death penalty write things like this:
Glad it's in a state with the death penalty
This rabid dog was already serving a life sentence, it's not like he had anything to lose. Hang him. Before he kills anyone else.
This is why we have the death penality. To protect society and corrections officers from animals like this. Call the electric company, we're going to need more amps soon.
What they're apparently not recognizing, amazingly, is how an offender who had not previously committed murder decided to commit murder because he wanted to get out of his life sentence. Faced with the prospect of spending the rest of his life in miserable prison conditions, and knowing that his state kills people who kill other people, he hoped he could get the state to put an early end to his life sentence.
In other words, this murder almost certainly happened because Washington has the death penalty. In this case, the death penalty didn't just fail to deter a homicide; it seems pretty likely that it caused one.
HT: Drew Jacob.