De la Torre 1

Camila de la Torre
Professor Glenn Collins
English 115
November 11, 2015
Capital P Problem
Capital Punishment has been a controversial issue for a while. In a universe like
DADOES, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, Capital Punishment
is introduced in a manner which we are unaccustomed to, the killing of androids. There
are circumstances where one could argue the death penaltys need, such as with violent
criminals, and in this world the androids are seen as the enemy. The reason why
androids are seen as criminals is because they are accused of being the killers, but they
are misrepresented and are not given a fair trial. Now this would be logical to us if they
were alive, but are they? There are certain parallels in our world and the world of
DADOES and to explore the matter of androids rights then we must explore these
parallels and how they compare and contrast with each other. Although some can argue
that capital punishment helps our economy and is justifiable because those on death
row have killed and their punishment should fit their crime, in reality death sentences
are not effective because is difficult to know the innocent from the guilty for absolute
certain, is expensive for inmates to be on death row, and the system is flawed regarding
whether the actual conviction is done with or without bias. Considering this DADOES
mirrors these problems by way killing of the humanoid androids. This is important

De la Torre 2

because science fiction can open our eyes about issues of our world and entices us to
ask questions we never thought we would.
The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology says, Joshua Marquis says that if
you give a more strict definition of innocence the number of wrongly convicted and
sentenced to die goes down to twenty-five or thirty, out of the 7000 murderers
sentenced to death since 1976 but we cant accept this to be an accurate percentage
because those twenty-five or thirty were found to be not guilty after further testable
evidence. This opens the chance that others of the 7000 were innocent despite not
having all the proper evidence to defend them and if thats the case that first percentage
would be wrong. (Steiker) Declaring whose innocent is not so simple. In this Journal
article, there is one of many examples of someone like Joshua Marquis who makes a
claim that because of the percentage of innocent convictions compared to guilty
convictions there isnt a strong need to ban capital punishment. However, there isnt a
proper way to determine the clear qualifications on whether someone is innocent and
the fact that were still convicting innocent people is an issue. We come across this in
DADOES as well. Countless androids are killed without a clear conviction of whether or
not theyre innocent and whether an android is considered a human or equal to one, is
not really an argument for the cause whether an android is innocent or not because
thats irrelevant for this case. Its a matter of whether they have committed a crime or
not and how it should be dealt with. If someone or something never commits the crime
do we have a right to punish them if we suspect them to be capable without any
grounds? This has been argued many times for different occasions in our history. There
hasnt been a war where we havent jumped the gun to secure our safety and its why in

De la Torre 3

some states pet owners arent allowed pit bulls simply because of the stigma of one. So
this is definitely an issue in our world and in the universe of DADOES. Androids are
being sentenced to death without trial or investigation simply because they might be a
danger to society. It can be argued that androids are emotionless machines and even if
that is the case we need to take in account that some androids believe to be humans or
their equal at least. An example in DADOES of where an android showed to be innocent
is the case of Luba Loft, an android who was said to be bringing happiness to the world
through her talent of singing. She believed humans to be the superior being and lived
her life to imitate, think, and feel like a human. Luba Luft used her time on earth to use
her talents to inspire and entertain humans and while it was known that she was part of
the group of androids to escape enslavement on Mars, she has no history of a violent
nature and was an active member of the society on earth. In addition, her execution was
cruel and without trial which was uncalled for as she has proved to be harmless through
her lifestyle. In the scene of her execution, it says The beam missed its mark but, as
Resch lowered it, burrowed a narrow hole, silently, into her stomach. She began to
scream; she lay crouched against the wall of the elevator, screaming. Like the picture,
Rick thought to himself, and, with his own laser tube, killed her (Dick134). Its true that
Luba admitted she was an android but to execute her in the elevator of a museum and
not have it done swiftly was unethical and at this point Rick starts asking questions of
the humanity in his job. Its also interesting how Rick thinks Luba looks like the girl in the
painting she was looking at, Puberty by Munch. The painting is of a young girl naked
and sitting on her bed with eyes full of wonder with a dark shadow behind her
representing Luba as a young innocent android with the looming shadow over her head,

De la Torre 4

that of her impending danger of being executed. I believe Philip K. Dick introduces this
painting and uses it to draw a connection to Luba and to evoke questions in Rick and
the reader. Regarding capital punishment, the system is flawed whether we can
completely know whether someone is guilty or not guilty. In the case of Luba Luft in
DADOES she was executed when she couldve been innocent and even if we knew that
she did take part in the escape on Mars and did do harm to others, could her crime be
justified? Is it enough to end her life and rid the world of her beautiful talent? She was a
fine android, built with extraordinary likeness to humans and retiring her may of cost
more to society then benefit from it.
A big argument for those in favor of Capital Punishment is that the death penalty
is less expensive than paying for an inmates life long sentence in prison and that this
money should be going to the people that are not behind bars. The New Hampshire Bar
Journal says, Therefore, there it is reasonable to conclude that the lifetime costs of
average LWOP sentences will be significantly higher than average costs of persons
serving shorter sentences (Putnam,Reams).While this is reasonable to believe that it
costs more money for the government to pay for an inmate spending a lifetime in prison
rather than an inmate with a shorter sentence, it is not the case for an inmate on death
row. This is because the background checks, the extensive trial cases, and overall costs
are more expensive actually to be on death row. the Death Penalty Review
Commission concluded that the costs associated with death penalty prosecutions and
incarceration significantly exceed the costs associated with first-degree murder cases
(LWOP)(Putnam,Reams) The matter of expenses is also mirrored in the novel
DADOES. In a world where everything is decaying and theres not much people on

De la Torre 5

earth, people are living superficially with the dream of having higher status by the
owning of animals. Money is highly sought after and androids are an expensive
investment. The government paid to create these expensive near human machines and
now they are paying bounty hunters to destroy them. The retiring of androids stems
from the fear that life is now sacred in this universe and androids may pose a threat to
life because they lack empathy. Even if the androids may have committed crimes, the
fact of the matter is they have not been given fair trial because of their stigma. If they
were given a trial and found guilty anyways it would be a shame to kill them because its
so expensive and the universe of DADOES would benefit more from studying them.
This also applies to the parallel in our universe of inmates on death row who are guilty
because its more expensive to execute them and if we do we lose the opportunity to
learn more about why they came to be this way and to prevent more killers from being
created. For example, in the DADOES universe the government wouldve benefited
more on studying actual android killers like Roy Baty and stopped making androids like
him who do pose a threat to human and android kind. Of course the only way they could
find the guilty from the not guilty in the DADOES universe is to have a fair trial where
complications could arise. Whats the punishment for Roy Baty, an apparent android
killer versus Irmagard Baty, a fairly innocent android but with a history of aiding and
being witness to Roy Batys crimes? Would the jury be in favor of Irmagard because she
appears more innocent regardless?
Another issue regarding Capital Punishment is whether a conviction is done with
or without a bias. Interestingly enough the android characters in the novel DADOES
were created by Philip K. Dick with a bias whether knowingly or unknowingly. All the

De la Torre 6

male androids showed and proved to have a more violent and aggressive nature while
the female androids had a pacifist and innocent nature as this was the case for androids
like Roy Baty and Palokov versus androids like Luba Luft and Irmagard Baty. Paralleling
the real world, this is the case as well, where female inmates are seen as less harmful
and malicious then male inmates, therefore, being convicted with a bias. A Miami
University Dissertation says, In addition, masculine defendants were more likely than
feminine defendants to be perceived as guilty which resulted in harsher punishment for
defendants possessing masculine traits (Janicki). In this experiment, it was found that
people view female convicts as less likely to commit a violent act again formulating a
bias which affects those with masculine traits causing more males to be put on death
row rather than females which is an unfair execution. This is seen in the novel as well
where Rick is attracted to female androids which are how he questions whether killing
androids is right but despite that he doesnt hesitate to kill the male androids of the
novel. Im feeling capable of feeling empathy for at least specific, certain androids. Not
for all of them but- one or two. For Luba Luft, as an example, he said to himself. (Dick
142). The other one would be Racheal who he said earlier he was attracted to. Its clear
that Capital Punishment may also cause more hurt then help if the inmates on death
row are there because of a bias. Philip K. Dick may show these biases as well or he
may just have been subliminally including former biases that our country may have
always had.
Philip K. Dick does a great job of showing parallels to the world of DADOES and
to our own world. There are arguments like how the cost of inmates in life sentences
cost more and that only a very few convicted criminals that are innocent are executed,

De la Torre 7

but Capital Punishment is ineffective because its difficult to find the guilty from the not
guilty, it costs a lot of money for inmates to be on death row and trials may be done with
or without a bias. We should look into the world of DADOES for asking questions on the
topic of Capital Punishment because theres much to explore and discover on the
subject. We often dehumanize criminals to less than normal society but, does that give
us the right to eliminate them from society? If the androids were made by society and
born with the knowledge and understanding of a human being is it justified to destroy
without proper trial what we created in the first place?

Work Cited
Janicki, Heidi Lynn. The Effects of a Defendant's Sex and Gender Stereotypes on
Capital Punishment Decisions. n.p.: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1999.
Reams James, M, and Charles T Putnam. "The Costs of Capital Punishment Litiga
Steiker, Jordan M, and Carol S Steiker. "The Seduction of Innocence: The Attraction and
Limitations of the Focus on Innocence in Capital Punishment Law and Advocacy." The
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 95.2 (2005): 587-624.