Believing executions never happen lets jurors vote death without moral cost

Evidence

Those who are sentenced to death can go through various stages of appeals regarding issues concerning conviction and sentencing. These appeal processes can go on for decades. As a result, the connection between the death sentence and execution may span many years; in many cases, execution never occurs. The greatest moral self-exoneration is the belief that executions do not really happen. Except in a few southern states, jurors can point to the fact that inmates sentenced to death are rarely if ever executed. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2008

Categorization

• XREF: The belief that harmful consequences never actually materialize is a distinct minimization variant; connects to how voters support punitive policies assuming deterrent effects that never materialize.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2008