Most Americans Still Support the Death Penalty

 Megan Brenan at Gallup:

The majority of Americans, 55%, are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers in the U.S. While this marks the sixth consecutive year that support for capital punishment is between 54% and 56%, it is below the 60% to 80% readings recorded in the four prior decades between 1976 and 2016.

When Gallup initiated this measure in 1936, 59% of U.S. adults favored the death penalty for convicted murderers -- and majorities have supported it since then, with the exception of several readings taken between 1957 and March 1972, including the record-low 42% in 1966.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in June 1972, majorities continued to back it. When it was reinstated in 1976, public support for it grew until it peaked at 80% in 1994. At least 60% of U.S. adults favored capital punishment until 2017, when support dipped to the lowest point since 1972, and today it remains at that level.

Nuance in Death Penalty Opinion

Joseph M. Bessette and J. Andrew Sinclair at RealClearPolicy look at detailed public opinion data about the death penalty.

To provide a rough summary of our findings: We can divide the electorate into three groups of different sizes. About a fifth of American voters oppose the death penalty in nearly every circumstance: These appear to be the truly committed opponents. About three fifths reliably support the death penalty: they favor it in theory and also want to have a death penalty law in their state. A final fifth of the American electorate approves of the death penalty in some way, in theory, but does not necessarily want the death penalty in their state.

Framed this way, there is more support for the death penalty than the 55% (Gallup) or 60% (Pew) numbers might suggest. This is not to say those numbers are “wrong” (with similar questions, we find similar results), but just that they understate death penalty support for the kinds of aggravated murders that make an offender eligible for capital punishment in American states. If a substantial proportion of death penalty “opponents” — as measured by Gallup and Pew — actually approve, at least theoretically, of the death penalty in some cases, their opposition is much softer than might be assumed. As prior research on this subject has demonstrated, changing crime rates or different media coverage might drive up support again, and these types of voters could potentially be satisfied with laws that focused on a few highly aggravated murders, provided special safeguards against mistaken convictions, or had other features to mitigate their concerns about implementation. Truly committed opponents are a small minority of voters

Death Penalty Opinion: Online v. Phone Interviews

 

Andrew Daniller and Jocelyn Kiley at Pew:

Six-in-ten U.S. adults favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to an April Pew Research Center survey that was conducted online using the Center’s American Trends Panel. The share of adults who support capital punishment for convicted murderers has been relatively stable in the Center’s online surveys over the past few years.

Opinions about the death penalty have also remained stable in the Center’s telephone surveys during this period. But while there has been relative continuity in Americans’ views across both survey modes, the public consistently expresses more support for the death penalty online than on the phone – a finding that has important consequences for understanding trends on the issue.

As the Center has previously noted, people sometimes – though not always – respond differently to similar questions on the same topics in online and telephone polls. There are a variety of reasons why that might be the case, including the fact that survey respondents’ answers might be influenced by the presence of a live phone interviewer (as opposed to online polls, which are self-administered).

Death Penalty Support

 Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Americans' support for the death penalty continues to be lower than at any point in nearly five decades. For a fourth consecutive year, fewer than six in 10 Americans (55%) are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers. Death penalty support has not been lower since 1972, when 50% were in favor.

Gallup has asked Americans whether they are "in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder" since 1936, when 58% said they were. In all but one survey -- in 1966 -- more Americans have been in favor than opposed. The 1960s and early 1970s brought many legal challenges to the death penalty, culminating in a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated state death penalty statutes. After the high court upheld revised state death penalty laws in 1976, support for capital punishment grew, peaking at 80% in 1994, a time of heightened public concern about crime.

Executions

Jessica Schneider at CNN:

Wesley Purkey was executed Thursday morning after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the second federal execution since 2003.

Purkey, 68, was originally scheduled to be executed on Wednesday evening, but a flurry of last minute legal filings delayed his death.

Early Thursday morning, the Supreme Court cleared the way for his execution, lifting injunctions from a federal judge in Washington, DC, who halted his execution and ordered further evaluation of claims about Purkey's mental competency.

Purkey was sentenced to death in January 2004 after he was convicted in federal court for the interstate kidnapping and killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in 1998.

...
Long's father and stepmother spoke after the execution and lamented the lengthy appeals process and uncertainty surrounding the execution itself.

"It just took way too long," Olivia Long said. "All these appeals, some of them he put through several times. And then we sat in a van for four hours this morning while he did a bunch more appeals. ... We just shouldn't have to wait this long."

William Long added, "It brings up everything all over again. You just sit there and relive it." He continued: "Every day for the rest of my life I will think of it, I will remember it and it is not something any parent should have to live through."

Purkey is the second federal inmate executed this week. The Justice Department restarted executions for the first time since 2003, and Daniel Lewis Lee was executed Tuesday morning in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Lee was a white supremacist who tortured and murdered gun dealer William Mueller, 52, his wife Nancy Ann Mueller, 28, as well as stepdaughter Sarah Elizabeth Powell in 1996.

 

Death Penalty Opinion, Mid-2020

Megan Brenan at Gallup:

A record-low 54% of Americans consider the death penalty to be morally acceptable, marking a six-percentage-point decrease since last year. This finding, from Gallup's May 1-13 Values and Beliefs poll, is in line with polling last fall that showed decreased public support for the death penalty and a record-high preference for life imprisonment over the death penalty as a better punishment for murder.

Gallup has measured Americans' beliefs about the moral acceptability of the death penalty and numerous other social issues each May since 2001.

This year, 40% of U.S. adults think the death penalty is morally wrong, the highest in Gallup's 20-year trend. The high point in the public's belief that the death penalty is morally acceptable, 71%, was in 2006. That year and again in 2007, it topped the list of issues rated for moral acceptability.

The latest decrease in the public's tolerance for the death penalty is largely owed to political liberals and moderates. While two-thirds of conservatives still consider it to be morally acceptable, moderates (56%) and liberals (37%) are at their lowest levels since 2001.

...
Just as views of the death penalty are sharply divided depending on Americans' ideological identification, so too are many of the other issues measured. Abortion remains the most ideologically polarizing issue asked about, with 70% of liberals and 18% of conservatives classifying it as morally acceptable. Gay or lesbian relations and teenage sex are the next most divisive issues, with acceptability gaps of 41 and 40 percentage points, respectively.

Shifts in Opinion on the Death Penalty

Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

For the first time in Gallup's 34-year trend, a majority of Americans say that life imprisonment with no possibility of parole is a better punishment for murder than the death penalty is.

The 60% to 36% advantage for life imprisonment marks a shift from the past two decades, when Americans were mostly divided in their views of the better punishment for murder. During the 1980s and 1990s, consistent majorities thought the death penalty was the better option for convicted murderers.

The Oct. 14-31 survey was conducted before a Texas state court halted the scheduled execution of Rodney Reed in mid-November. A number of prominent politicians and celebrities joined legal activist groups in lobbying Texas officials to spare Reed amid new evidence that could exonerate him.

Even as Americans have shifted to viewing life imprisonment without parole as preferable to execution, a majority still favor use of the death penalty, according to Gallup's long-term death penalty trend question, which was updated in an Oct. 1-13 poll. That question, first asked in 1936, simply asks Americans if they are "in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder," without providing an alternative option. Currently, 56% of U.S. adults say they are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers in response to this question.

Views of Moral Behavior

Megan Brenan at Gallup:

Using birth control, drinking alcohol and getting a divorce remain the most broadly accepted personal moral behaviors in the United States, out of a list of 21 measured in Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll. Conversely, extramarital affairs, cloning humans, suicide and polygamy are viewed most broadly by Americans as morally wrong behaviors.

All but five of these behaviors have been measured since the early 2000s, and Americans have increasingly taken a more liberal view on many of them since then. The latest reading, from a May 1-12 poll, shows that at least 60% of Americans find 10 of the behaviors to be morally acceptable. In addition to birth control (92%), alcohol use (79%), and divorce (77%), sex between unmarried men and women (71%), gambling (68%), smoking marijuana (65%), embryonic stem cell research (64%), having a baby outside of marriage (64%), gay or lesbian relations (63%) and the death penalty (60%) round out that list.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are seven behaviors that fewer than four in 10 Americans deem morally acceptable, including teenage sex (38%), pornography (37%), cloning animals (31%), polygamy (18%), suicide (17%), cloning humans (12%) and extramarital affairs (9%).

The issues that divide Americans most closely are buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur, doctor-assisted suicide, medical testing on animals and abortion. On each, the gap between "morally acceptable" and "morally wrong" views is less than 10 percentage points.

Newsom Reprieves People on Death Row

Many posts have discussed the death penalty.

Dan Morain at CALmatters:

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to grant a “reprieve” to 737 death row inmates rather than commutations reducing their sentences to life in prison without parole is significant for at least two immediate reasons:

• If he had issued a mass commutation, the California Supreme Court would have had the authority to review his decision to determine whether he had abused his authority. He has the power to issue reprieves.
• If he commuted their sentences, Newsom would have been required to give at least a 10-day notice to district attorneys in the counties where the convictions occurred. Prosecutors in turn would have been obliged to try to contact surviving family members of victims.

That notice requirement stems from a 2011 law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who went on to issue more commutations than any governor in history.

The legislation was a reaction to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision on his last day in office to shorten the sentence of former Speaker Fabian Nunez’s son, who had been serving a 16-year sentence for manslaughter in the slaying of a San Diego State University student in 2008. Nunez’s son, Esteban, since has been released.

• At the time, Brown’s spokesman said: “Victims and their families should not be blindsided when a request is made for a sentence to be commuted. This bipartisan bill ensures ample notification and a more transparent process.”

Reprieves don’t carry the weight of a commutation. They’re generally temporary, issued when an execution in imminent.

• Ward Campbell is a retired deputy attorney general who prosecuted death penalty cases and also defended governors’ use of clemency powers: “A reprieve is a delay. It doesn’t necessarily stop any cases. The convictions are intact. A new governor could lift the reprieve.”

Declining Support for the Death Penalty

Gallup reports:

Americans' support for the death penalty has dipped to a level not seen in 45 years. Currently, 55% of U.S. adults say they favor the death penalty for convicted murderers.

The latest results, based on an Oct. 5-11 Gallup poll, continue a trend toward diminished death penalty support as many states have issued moratoria on executions or abolished capital punishment.

Gallup first asked about the death penalty using the current question format in 1936. Support has generally been 60% or higher throughout most of the past 80 years, but has been as low as 42% and as high as 80%.

Fewer Executions

Many posts have discussed the death penalty.

Pew reports:

With public support for the death penalty at its lowest point in more than four decades, the U.S. is on track for its fewest executions in a quarter century.

So far in 2016, 17 inmates have been executed, according to a database maintained by theDeath Penalty Information Center. Three additional executions are scheduled for this year. If all three proceed as planned, the year’s 20 executions will be the fewest since 1991, when 14 were recorded. The U.S. has executed at least 28 people in each year since 1992.

Declining Support for Death Penalty

Pew reports:

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear the first of two death penalty cases in this year’s term, the share of Americans who support the death penalty for people convicted of murder is now at its lowest point in more than four decades.

Only about half of Americans (49%) now favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 42% oppose it. Support has dropped 7 percentage points since March 2015, from 56%. Public support for capital punishment peaked in the mid-1990s, when eight-in-ten Americans (80% in 1994) favored the death penalty and fewer than two-in-ten were opposed (16%). Opposition to the death penalty is now the highest it has been since 1972.

Though support for the death penalty has declined across most groups, a Pew Research Center survey conducted Aug. 23-Sept. 2 among 1,201 adults finds that most Republicans continue to largely favor its use in cases of murder, while most Democrats oppose it. By more than two-to-one, more Republicans (72%) than Democrats (34%) currently favor the death penalty.

Catholics and Capital Punishment

At The Catholic World Report, Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bessette write:

Pope St. John Paul II was well-known for his vigorous opposition to capital punishment. Yet in 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- the pope’s own chief doctrinal officer, later to become Pope Benedict XVI -- stated unambiguously that:

[I]f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment… he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities… to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible… to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about… applying the death penalty… (emphasis added)

How could it be “legitimate” for a Catholic to be “at odds with” the pope on such a matter? The answer is that the pope’s opposition to capital punishment was not a matter of binding doctrine, but merely an opinion which a Catholic must respectfully consider but not necessarily agree with. Cardinal Ratzinger could not possibly have said what he did otherwise. If it were mortally sinful for a Catholic to disagree with the pope about capital punishment, then he could not “present himself to receive Holy Communion.” If it were even venially sinful to disagree, then there could not be “a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics.”

The fact is that it is the irreformable teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate, not merely to ensure the physical safety of others when an offender poses an immediate danger (a case where even John Paul II was willing to allow for the death penalty), but even for purposes such as securing retributive justice and deterring serious crime. What is open to debate is merely whether recourse to the death penalty is in practice the best option given particular historical and cultural circumstances. That is a “prudential” matter about which popes have no special expertise.

We defend these claims in detail and at length in our book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of the Death Penalty, forthcoming from Ignatius Press.

(Part 2 of this essay is here.) 

Trump and Executive Orders

Some conservatives hope that Trump would curb executive authority. But January 10, his comments on Meet the Press suggested the opposite:

CHUCK TODD:Are you going to refuse to do executive orders as president?

DONALD TRUMP:I won't refuse it. I won't refuse them.

CHUCK TODD:You'll do them, too, right--

DONALD TRUMP:I will do a lot of right things. Well, I mean, he's led the way, to be honest with you; what he's done on immigration, when he signed those papers. Now, fortunately, the courts, all of a sudden, have done a little bit of a termination. We'll see what happens. But one of the beautiful things about executive orders (from my standpoint) is, if I get elected, many of those executive orders that he signed, the first day, they're going to be unsigned.

CHUCK TODD:Oh, I understand that. But you're willing to use them, too, yourself?

DONALD TRUMP:Oh, I'm not going to rule it out.

CHUCK TODD:Final question, because I know you've got the rally to get to--

DONALD TRUMP: But I'm going to use them much better and they're going to be, and they're going to serve a much better purpose than what he's done.

He had already identified one such order.  In December, Ben Kasimar reported at The Hill:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to issue an executive order to mandate the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer.

“One of the first things I’d do in terms of executive order, if I win, will be to sign a strong, strong statement that would go out to the country, out to the world, anybody killing a police man, a police woman, a police officer, anybody killing a police officer, the death penalty is going to happen,” he said.

(The proposal was not a slip of the tongue.  Media adviser Dan Scavino tweeted it out.)

The New York Times explains:

For a person prosecuted in state court for killing a police officer, that state’s laws would apply, not the wishes of the president.

“He would have no authority over what happens in prosecutions under state law,” said Austin D. Sarat, a professor of law and political science at Amherst College who has studied the death penalty.

Moreover, nearly 20 states do not have the death penalty.

The death penalty does exist for some federal crimes, including killing a federal law enforcement official. But it is seldom used; only three people have been executed by the federal government in the last half-century.

Those issues aside, if Mr. Trump wants the death penalty to be mandatory for people who kill police officers, that is problematic, too, according to experts. The Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that mandatory death sentences were unconstitutional.

Death Penalty Support in 2015

Gallup reports:

About six in 10 Americans favor the use of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, similar to 2014. This continues a gradual decline in support for the procedure since reaching its all-time high point of 80% in 1994.

Thirty-seven percent oppose the death penalty, slightly higher than in recent years, in part because this year, only 2% of Americans say they have no opinion on the topic.

These results come from Gallup's annual Crime poll, conducted Oct. 7-11, 2015. While the public has, with one exception, favored the death penalty over the 78 years Gallup has asked this question, support for the measure has varied considerably. The low point for support, 42%, came in the 1960s, with support reaching its peak in the mid-1990s and generally declining since that point. Over the past decade, however, there has been minimal fluctuation in the percentage of adults who favor the death penalty, with support always at or above 60%.

Jurisdiction and the Charleston Massacre

As with the Boston bombing,  Charleston massacre involves questions of jurisdiction. Bob McGovern writes at The Boston Herald:

Jurisdiction can be the difference between life and death.

And that may be the dilemma facing authorities now deciding where to prosecute accused racist mass-murderer Dylann Storm Roof.

If South Carolina — which has the death penalty but no hate crime law — tries Roof, he could get the needle. However, if he is convicted of hate crimes under federal law, the route to the death penalty is a lot more convoluted.

That leads to the big question: Is it more important to prosecute the case as a hate crime, or does a death sentence send a stronger message?

“I suspect that ... there’s a debate going on about that right now,” said Brad Bailey, a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. “The death penalty doesn’t apply in federal court here per se, and so that has to be something the decision makers are thinking about and talking about.”

Under the federal hate crime law, committing murder as an act of racial bigotry alone doesn’t carry the death penalty. But religious bigotry does. Prosecutors would have to prove Roof damaged religious property or, by force, attempted to prevent someone from enjoying their religious beliefs, to make him eligible for the death penalty.

Basically, prosecutors would have to package race and religion together to execute Roof.

At Vox, Dara Lind explains that the federal government usually prosecutes only when states aren't doing their job, which seems not to be the case there.

Federal and state prosecutors usually figure out which one of them is in the best position to bring a case to trial, for efficiency's sake. It's plausible that federal prosecutors are still negotiating with each other, and with South Carolina, about whether they want to file federal charges.

In deciding whether to take Roof to federal court for a hate crime or to state court for murder, federal and state prosecutors have a choice to make. If they want to send a message that the Charleston massacre was especially abhorrent, they can charge Roof with a federal hate crime. But if they want to guarantee the swiftest possible conviction — and death sentence — then state court might be the way to go.

South Carolina law clearly prohibits murder; Roof is accused of murdering nine people. So there's no reason he can't simply be tried, convicted, and sentenced in South Carolina court. Traditionally, as long as states have been willing to take someone to trial for murder, the federal government has chosen not to file separate charges of its own.

The problem has been when states aren't willing to prosecute, or when they can't successfully bring someone to justice. "Often the federal government will act as a backstop to state prosecutions if they feel the state may have gotten it wrong," says [former federal prosecutor Alex] Little. And when it comes to attacks on African Americans, they've often felt the stateshave gotten it wrong: as with cases in the mid-20th century when local prosecutors weren't willing to charge whites for attacks on black people, and the 1993 federal trial of the police officers who beat Rodney King — after they were acquitted by a Los Angeles jury with no black members.

But regardless of whether South Carolina has come to terms with its racist history, the state government seems pretty eager to convict Roof. Gov. Nikki Haley has said that "we will absolutely want him to get the death penalty." So it doesn't look like the federal government is going to need to step in.

Opinion on the Death Penalty

Pew reports:

A majority of Americans favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder, but support for the death penalty is as low as it has been in the past 40 years. A new Pew Research Center survey finds 56% favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 38% are opposed.

The share supporting the death penalty has declined six percentage points, from 62%, since 2011. Throughout much of the 1980s and 90s, support for the death penalty often surpassed 70%. In a 1996 survey, 78% favored the death penalty, while just 18% were opposed.

Much of the decline in support over the past two decades has come among Democrats. Currently, just 40% of Democrats favor the death penalty, while 56% are opposed. In 1996, Democrats favored capital punishment by a wide margin (71% to 25%).

There has been much less change in opinions among Republicans: 77% favor the death penalty, down from 87% in 1996. The share of independents who favor the death penalty has fallen 22 points over this period, from 79% to 57%.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Mar. 25-29 among 1,500 adults, finds widespread doubts about how the death penalty is applied and whether it deters serious crime. Yet a majority (63%) says that when someone commits a crime like murder, the death penalty is morally justified; just 31% say it is morally wrong, even in cases of murder.

At the same time, 71% of Americans say there is some risk that an innocent person will be put to death. Only about a quarter (26%) say there are adequate safeguards in place to make sure that does not happen.

About six-in-ten (61%) say the death penalty does not deter people from committing serious crimes; 35% say it does deter serious crime.

And about half (52%) say that minorities are more likely than whites to be sentenced to death for similar crimes; fewer (41%) think that whites and minorities are equally likely to be sentenced for similar [sic].

The survey also finds that Americans are relatively unaware about whether the number of death penalty executions taking place in the U.S. has changed in recent years. According toU.S. Justice Department records the number of prisoners executed in the last 10 years has declined.

Americans Still Support the Death Penalty in 2014

Gallup reports:

Six in 10 Americans favor the death penalty for convicted murderers, generally consistent with attitudes since 2008. Since 1937, support has been as low as 42% in 1966 and as high as 80% in 1994.

Americans' support for the death penalty has varied over time, but apart from a single reading in 1966, the public has consistently favored it. Support ebbed from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, when the application of the death penalty was questioned and ultimately led to the Supreme Court's invalidating state death penalty laws. Subsequent to that, newly written laws passed constitutional muster and states began to use the death penalty again in the late 1970s, with support among Americans increasing to 70% or more in the mid-1980s to the late 1990s.

The Moral Acceptability of the Death Penalty

Our chapter on public opinion discusses the death penalty, the topic of many posts.  Gallup reports:

The recent news about the botched execution of an Oklahoma death row inmate has not affected the way Americans view the death penalty. Sixty-one percent say the death penalty is morally acceptable, similar to the 62% who said so in 2013, although both figures are down from a high of 71% in 2006.

The results are based on Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 8-11. On April 29, an Oklahoma death row inmate given a lethal injection appeared to suffer for an extended period of time until finally dying of a heart attack. That incident led to the postponement of a second execution scheduled in Oklahoma that day and raised questions about the methods used to execute prisoners.

The case did not fundamentally alter Americans' perceptions of the death penalty, however, with a solid majority viewing it as morally acceptable. This percentage is similar to the 60% who say they favor the death penalty as punishment for murder in Gallup's October update.

But the longer-term trends reveal that Americans have become less supportive of the death penalty. Gallup first asked the moral acceptability question in 2001, with an average 66% saying it was acceptable between 2001 and the peak in 2006. Over the last three years, the percentage saying it is morally acceptable has averaged 60%.

Similarly, Americans' support for the death penalty as a punishment for murder is also trending downward. Support reached a high of 80% in 1994, but it has generally slipped since then.

Euthanasia and Foreign Law

 At The Volokh Conspiracy blog, law professor Eugene Kontorovich writes:

Belgium has just passed a law allowing euthanasia for children. The Low Countries allow for suicide and doctor-assisted suicide, but Brussels is the first to open to door to dealing death to children of any age.
...
Aside from its inherent significance, Belgium’s move requires us to revisit Roper v. Simmons, the 2005 Supreme Court case that ruled it inherently unconstitutional to apply the death penalty to anyone under 18. European nations had long waged a moral campaign against America’s allowance of the death penalty for 16-18 year olds, which they called barbaric and savage. After all, minors are not really responsible for their actions. America was labelled a human rights violator, an international outlier.

... 

Belgium’s law shows the folly of basing constitutional decisions on the practice of other countries: though we all eat at McDonalds, American and Belgian notions of decency are fundamentally different. In American, an age-unlimited euthanasia law would be unthinkable, in Belgium it apparently has 75 percent popular support. American intellectual elites became uncomfortable being the only Western nation with a juvenile death penalty; the Belgians do not blush at standing out.

Roper was wrong to look across the seas, and the campaigners against the 16-18 year old death penalty were wrong to accept the conceit of European moral superiority and American ugliness. But to the extent that Roper did base its decision on a theoretically unified consensus about juvenile responsibility, Belgium’s action, which may be followed by other northern European countries, gives an occasion to overrule it.