Friday, May 31, 2013

The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents

Updated 1/2024

The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom

These are the obvious facts that the media and other anti-death penalty groups hide from you.

How do YOU know they are hidden? You haven't seen them before.

How do I know they are hidden? It is impossible for both media and academia to, accidently, not fact check nor vet since 1995.

All sources are provided.
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The death penalty has a foundation within justice and it spares more innocent lives.


The majority populations of all countries, likely, support the death penalty for some crimes (1).


Why? Justice.


Anti-death penalty claims are either false or the pro-death penalty positions are stronger, as detailed, with sources.


FACT CHECKING/VETTING/RESEARCH FOR ALL SIDES

1) The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds 
 71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims, 
Well Known Since 1998

2) The Death Penalty: A Repudiation of Journalism, by Journalists?

3) Richard Glossip: Little Credibility with His Supporters 

4) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html


7) 30 Examples:
How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers 
More Than Their Innocent Victims:
AKA - Full Rebuttal of Sir Richard Branson & His Death Penalty Comments

8) Sister Helen Prejean: Her Lies, Deceptions . . . and/or 
Astounding Willful Ignorance? - A Compilation

9) Media Disaster: Cameron Todd Willingham: 
Media Colludes w/ the Anti-death Penalty Movement

NOTE: Enter Media Disaster in the search box for many, many more

10) Religion and The Death Penalty

11) Rebuttal: DEMETRIUS MINOR, National Director, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty

12) Some notes for the meeting with the prosecutor:
For Victim Survivors in Potential Death Penalty Cases

13) There Is No Fraud Anti-Death Penalty Folks Will Not Push: A Case Study

14) Media Disaster: Death Penalty & Journalists Murdering Journalism

NOTE: Enter Media Disaster in the search box for many, many more

15) a) Rebuttal: Botched Executions
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2017/01/rebuttal-botched-executions.html 

b) Lethal Injection & Nitrogen Hypoxia: Controversies Resolved

16) Anti-Victim: Anti-Death Penalty Movement

https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/04/anti-victim-anti-death-penalty-movement.html 

17) Saving Costs with The Death Penalty

https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html 

18) MORAL FOUNDATIONS


Immanuel Kant: "If an offender has committed murder, he must die. In this case, no possible substitute can satisfy justice. For there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life, so that there is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.". "A society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else's life is simply immoral."


Pope Pius XII; "When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live." 9/14/52


John Murray: "Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of human life." "... it is this same atrophy of moral fiber that appears in the plea for the abolition of the death penalty." "It is the sanctity of life that validates the death penalty for the crime of murder. It is the sense of this sanctity that constrains the demand for the infliction of this penalty. The deeper our regard for life the firmer will be our hold upon the penal sanction which the violation of that sanctity merit." (Page 122 of Principles of Conduct).


Plato: “Longer life is no boon to the sinner himself in such a case, and that his decease will bring a double blessing to his neighbors; it will be a lesson to them to keep themselves from wrong and will rid society of an evil man. These are the reasons for which a legislator is bound to ordain the chastisement of death for such desperate villainies, and for them alone”


William A. Petit, Jr.: "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions," according to philosopher John Rawls. It transcends national borders, races and cultures. The death penalty is the appropriate societal response to the brutal and willful act of capital felony murder. Every murder destroys a portion of society. Those murdered can never grow and contribute to humankind; the realization of their potential will never be achieved. I support the death penalty not as a deterrent or for revenge or closure, but because it is just and because it prevents murderers from ever harming again. By intentionally, unlawfully taking the life of another, a murderer breaks a sacrosanct law of society and forfeits his own right to live. (In a home invasion, Dr. Petit was, severely injured, his wife Jennifer and their 11-year-old daughter Michaela were raped and murdered. Both daughters, Michaela and Hayley were burned, alive.)


John Locke: "A criminal who, having renounced reason... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tyger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security." And upon this is grounded the great law of Nature, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Second Treatise of Civil Government.


Saint/Pope Pius V: "The just use of (executions), far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder." "The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent" (1566)


Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "In killing the criminal, we destroy not so much a citizen as an enemy. The trial and judgments are proofs that he has broken the Social Contract, and so is no longer a member of the State." (The Social Contract)

Read
a) Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice, by Judge Harold J. Rothwax, 1996
b) The Death of Punishment, Robert Blecker, 2014

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600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
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1) The media avoids these polls.

a) August 16, 2021      
86% Death Penalty Support, Depending Upon Crime Committed
New Evidence of Broad Support for Death Penalty | RealClearPolicy
Joseph M. Bessette & J. Andrew Sinclair, RealClearPolicy August 16, 2021 
 
These polls, above and below, reflect well known polls, for the last 15 years, showing much higher death penalty support than by the oft quoted, much less accurate Gallup, as even, Gallup shows (see Gallup's Mcveigh poll (below) vs their standard poll)

b)  Death Penalty Polling
 updated 3/2023
86% Death Penalty Support, Depending Upon Crime Committed 
95-99% Support From Victim Survivors in Death Penalty Cases

c) 86% Death Penalty Support: Highest Ever - April 2013
World Support Remains High
95% of Murder Victim's Family Members Support Death Penalty
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/11/86-death-penalty-support-highest-ever.html 
 
Additional research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required of everyone.  
 
1) The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts included)
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Partial CV

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Speeding Up Appeals: Florida

Dudley Sharp

Re: Rebuttal to "On death penalty, wrongly accused are victims, too",  Leonard Pitts, Jr., In My Opinion, Miami Herald, 5/18/13

Pitts - Dead Wrong

Mr. Pitts is upset that Florida wants to have a responsible death penalty protocol, in an effort that may get appeals down to about 10 years on average, prior to execution, or a reasoned 4-6 years of state appeals and 4-6 years of federal appeals, or 40% more appeals time than in Virginia's death penalty cases.


As an example of how the death penalty should be handled, Pitts cites courageous pseudo-Saint George Ryan, a former governor who commuted the death sentences of all murderers on Illinois' death row.

Let's look at Mr. Pitts' shining example.

Gov. Ryan was a lying, felonious politician.

What courage? Ryan was held in total contempt by both political parties and by Illinois citizens. Ryan knew he had broken the law and was likely going to jail, which did occur, Ryan had already decided that he could not run for office, again.

What Ryan was filled with was contempt, not courage.

Ryan commuted all of those death sentences because Ryan's only remaining supporters were the murderers on death row and those who would do anything to make sure that all murderers lived.

No one doubts that there were problems with Illinois' death penalty system. There was also no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the death row cases were solid. Ryan promised he would review all cases individually and decide accordingly. Of course, that is not what he did.

Governors and murder victim's family members soundly criticized Ryan. Murderers and their supporters cheered, literally, as, certainly, did Mr. Pitts.

Ryan showed his disrespect for the innocent murder victims, their surviving loved ones,  the state - the prosecutors, the trial judge, the jurors, the appellate courts, Illinois citizens and justice.

Mr. Pitts' claim that there have been 24 "exonerated" from Florida's death row is false.

At least since 2002, it has been well known, throughout Florida, that the "exonerated" claims for Florida's death row was the largest of the nationwide frauds regarding the "exonerated" or "innocence" claims (1).

Based upon two studies, from 2002 and 2011 (1) by a state agency, the Florida Commission on Capital Cases, the real number is from 4-5 actual innocents discovered on Florida's death row since 1973, or about an 80% error rate in the "exoneration" claims made by Pitts and other death penalty opponents, a percentage similar to the national error rate, by death penalty opponents, for such claims, based upon the, now, 142 "exonerated" from death row, with proof of innocence (2), whereby the reality is the numbers are 25-40 (2), based upon a number of reviews, inclusive of an admission by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) that their claims are not based upon either exoneration or innocent, as commonly and properly defined (2), as opposed to the bizarre definitions created by DPIC, in order to further this deception.

Basic, easy, fact checking confirms this.  Possibly, Pitts didn't get the memo. Really?

No one wants the actually innocent to be investigated, arrested, indicted, tried, convicted or sentenced.

Reality finds that innocents are more protected with the death penalty (3).

Virginia executes their murderers within 7.1 years, on average, and has executed 70% (or 110) of those murderers so sentenced since 1976.

Virginia has no claims of an innocent executed.

Obviously, Florida can, responsibly, have a similar protocol.

But, as Mr. Pitts wants to make sure that all murderers live . . . .

1)  Florida: The 83% error rate in "exoneration" claims.

 This may represent the worst case of media deception, as the Florida media has known the real numbers since 2002, but refuses to use them, instead, pushing the well known deception of the 23/24 numbers. That is how bad it has gotten.

        a)  Case Histories: A Review of 24 Individuals Released from Death Row (2002), FLORIDA COMMISSION ON CAPITAL CASES, Locke Burt, Chairman, June 20, 2002, Revised: September 10, 2002      http://www.floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us/Publications/innocentsproject.pdf
     
        b)  TRULY INNOCENT?: A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida‘s Death Row Since 1973, Commission on Capital Cases, The Florida Legislature, Roger R. Maas, Executive Director     May 13, 2011 
http://www.floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us/Publications/casehistory05-13-11%20Report.pdf


2)  a) The 130 (now 142) death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx

     b)  The "Innocent", the "Exonerated" and Death Row
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-innocent-exonerated-and-death-row_19.html

3) The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html
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Victim's Voices - These are the murder victims