ProDPinNC

Veterinary Claims a Distortion of Reality: Human Lethal Injection

2011-12-28T08:30:00.004-05:00

Veterinary Claims a Distortion of Reality: Human Lethal Injection
Dudley Sharp

Within the death penalty debate, there is an allegation that veterinarians are prohibited from using pancuronium bromide or Pavulon, the relaxant agent used in human lethal injection, because it may cause and/or mask pain to the animals, within the euthanasia process.

It is also stated that vets are prohibited from using potassium chloride, the heart stooping drug, used thirdly, in the three drug human lethal injection protocol.

In turn, this is used as a new anti death penalty sound bite - "It is too cruel for animals, but we use it on people."

First, the The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) recommendations of 2000 (1) , inadvertently, support the human lethal injection protocol -- the opposite of what the detractors have been claiming.

AVMA: "When used alone, these drugs (paralytics) all cause respiratory arrest before loss of consciousness, so the animal may perceive pain and distress after it is immobilized." (2)

Obviously, no state, which practices human lethal injection, uses a paralytic without an anaesthetic -- EVER. The anesthesia is always used first.

These absurd claims, falsely attributed to veterinary literature, have been a bald faced lie by anti death penalty activists.

To claim that paralytics are condemned in veterinary euthanasia, without mentioning the specific context, is an intentional deception. (The AVMA does not mention the specific paralytic used in lethal injection for humans).

Secondly, if properly anesthetized, as in human lethal injection, there would be no pain experienced when using Pavulon. That is also well known.

Thirdly, the AVMA, similarly, prohibits the use of potassium chloride, "WHEN USED ALONE". (3) (my capitalization for emphasis).

Of course, human lethal injection uses the two previously mentioned drugs, prior to injection of the potassium chloride. This is well known, as well, thereby revealing more deceptions by the anti death penalty cabal.

Fourth,, the AVMA, specifically, cautions (4):"1. The guidelines in this report are in no way intended to be used for human lethal injection.2. The application of a barbiturate, paralyzing agent, and potassium chloride delivered in separate syringes or stages (the common method used for human lethal injection) is not cited in the report.3.

The report never mentions pancuronium bromide or Pavulon, the paralyzing agent used in human lethal injection."

Obviously, the AVMA is saying DON'T use our report to draw any inferences with regard to the human lethal injection protocol. Of course, death penalty opponents decided to ignore that responsible request.The AVMA continues:

"Before referring to the 2000 Report of the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia, please contact the AVMA to ensure the association's position is stated correctly. Please contact Michael San Filippo, media relations assistant at the AVMA, at 847-285-6687 (office), 847-732-6194 (cell) or msanfilippo(at)avma.org for more information or to set up an interview with a veterinary expert." (4)

Death penalty opponents ignored that request, as well.

Based upon this literature, it is clear that this veterinary nonsense was another anti death penalty fraud, which, sadly and often, escaped media fact checking, but not media repetition.

The AVMA approves of "potassium chloride in conjunction with prior general anesthesia" (5) for animals -- this is the drug protocol used within most lethal injection protocols, with the exception of the paralytic used in between.

This actually shows support for the human lethal injection protocol, however unintended.

First, this two drug protocol is approved by AVMA, for animals.

Secondly, a disadvantage listed by AVMA for potassium chloride is "clonic spams" (6) -- rapid and violent jerking of muscles soon after injection of the potassium. The paralytic drug, used second, within the human lethal injection protocol, helps to reduce, or eliminate, this effect.

In other words, a review of the AVMA literature finds much support, however inadvertent,
for the human lethal injection protocol and nothing that conflicts with or condemns it. Hopefully, this newest, blatant distortion by the anti death penalty crowd will soon fade.

----------------------

Veterinary use of sodium pentobarbital

"Pentobarbital is a barbiturate that is available as both a free acid and a sodium salt, the former of which is only slightly soluble in water and ethanol." (7) (NOTE -- I don't believe this is used for human lethal injection).

In veterinary medicine sodium pentobarbital--traded under names such as Sagatal--is used as an
anaesthetic.UBC Committee on Animal Care (2005). Euthanasia. SOP 009E1 - euthanasia - overdose with pentobarbital. The University of British Columbia. URL accessed on 4 October, 2005. Pentobarbital is an ingredient in Equithesin." (7)

It is used by itself, or more often in combination with complementary agents such as phenytoin, in commercial animal euthanasia (2003).

ANESTHESIA AND ANALGESIA. Animal Use Protocols. University of Virginia. URL accessed on 4 October, 2005. injectable solutions. Trade names include Euthasol, Euthatal, Beuthanasia-D and Fatal Plus. "(7)

NOTE ON FOOTNOTES:

Because of all the anti death penalty dishonesty and the non fact checking media repetition of it, the AVMA has re-written parts of the referenced articles (footnotes 1-6, below).

I haven't redone my footnotes to match up with the changes. Why waste my time. The anti death penalty folks and the non fact checkers in the media haven't cared about reality for 9 years.

Why would they start, now?

1) www(dot)avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf Appendix 1, page 693

2) www(dot)avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf Appendix 4, page 696

3) www(dot)avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf Page 681

4) www(dot)avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf Cover Page

5) www(dot)avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf Page 680

6) www(dot)avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf Page 681

7) http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Pentobarbital

copyright 2005-2011 Dudley Sharp

"Gov. Kitzhaber's Nonsense: Execution Moratorium in Oregon"

2011-12-04T18:40:00.007-05:00

Dudley Sharp, contact info below

Gov. Kitzhaber failed to tell us why the death penalty was "morally wrong" and "unjust", the only claims from his statement (1) that might explain his personal decision to quash his official responsibility and his violation of the a public trust, whereby he committed "to uphold the law and could not and would not intervene" in executions.

None of his other "reasons" justify his moratorium on executions, either (1).

After wading through the chaff, the governor's statement is, really, just this:

"I don't like the death penalty. I don't care what the victim survivors or the courts say. I am stopping executions because I think it morally wrong, although I won't tell you why."

To review, point by point:

1) Gov. Kitzhaber: " I do not believe that those (two prior) executions made us safer; . . .".

Reply: Governor, living murderers are infinitely more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers. This is an unchallenged truism, with the obvious example of Gary Haugen, who was sent to Oregon prison for one murder and then murdered, again, in prison. Astounding that the governor did not see both the irony and the fallacy of his position, with that one example, staring the governor in the face - this spared repeat murderer, now spared, again.

In, at least three ways, the death penalty and executions protect innocents to a higher degree than life imprisonment; Enhanced incapacitation, as discussed above; enhanced due process, which provides greater protections for actually innocent defendants and enhanced deterrence, as all prospects of sanction deter some and life is much preferred over death, not only by criminals and potential criminals, but by all of us.

2) Gov. Kitzhaber: " . . . certainly (executions) did not make us nobler as a society."

Reply: Support for the death penalty is based in justice, the same foundation of support for all legal sanctions. Is there a more noble goal than justice? Unlikely.

3) Gov. Kitzhaber: ".. . I simply cannot participate once again in something I believe to be morally wrong."

Reply: The governor never tells us why execution is morally wrong, when that is the sole reason he gives for his decision. Everything else is just claptrap. He did not have enough respect for the murder victims, their survivors, all of those who worked so hard on the cases or for the citizens of Oregon, to explain his moral reasoning. This blatant omission reeks of both contempt and self importance. Nobility?

4) Gov. Kitzhaber: "The families and friends of victims deserve certainty that justice will be carried out on behalf of the loved ones who have been taken from them in such a cruel fashion."

Reply: The governor's decision improves neither justice nor certainty, but does enhance the cruelty to the victim survivors, who have already suffered way too much.

5) Gov. Kitzhaber: "But the nature of their crimes was not different from other murderers, some of whom are sentenced to death but never executed and others who are sentenced to life in prison." "It is not applied equally to all."

Reply: Governor, that is the case with all crimes and all punishments, as you and all Oregon citizens know. Rape can bring probation or a life sentence, just as all similar crimes may result in vastly different sanctions.

6) Gov. Kitzhaber: "Oregonians have a fundamental belief in fairness and justice – in swift and certain justice. The death penalty as practiced in Oregon is neither fair nor just; and it is not swift or certain."

Reply: The governor offers no reason why the death penalty is unjust and by his decision, he knowingly made justice less swift and less certain in death penalty cases. His position is that because we cannot have justice in every case, we must do away with justice in all cases. Almost every argument that the governor uses against the death penalty he could just as easily have used against life imprisonment or other sanctions.

7) Gov. Kitzhaber: "The only factor that determines whether someone sentenced to death in Oregon is actually executed is that they volunteer. The hard truth is that in the 27 years since Oregonians reinstated the death penalty, it has only been carried out on two volunteers who waived their rights to appeal."

Reply: All criminals have the opportunity to waive their appeals and to serve their sentence without further legal challenge. This is to the common good of both Oregon citizens and of justice. It saves time and financial resources, a benefit to all jurisdictions, and represents an acceptance of a just sanction by the criminal. Will the governor seek a law prohibiting all convicted criminals from waiving their appeals? It's another ridiculous lack of reasoning by the governor.

With Oregon's death penalty, as the governor well knows, the non stop appeals process is the fault of leadership, the legislators, the governor and the judges that allow perversions of the law for never ending appeals.

Instead of supporting that perversion, even more, as the governor, now , does, he could have stated that the will of the people and the jurors should be carried out and that in the next session those perversions will be ended.

8) Gov. Kitzhaber states, along with many others, that the Oregon death penalty protocol is broken.

Reply: Obviously, an execution moratorium will not help that, but only enhances what is already broken. Virginia executes in 7.1 years and has executed nearly 75% of those sentenced to death row (2).

Does the governor care? Of course not. It doesn't matter what real or imagined problems may exist or are remedied, because the governor would oppose execution, under any circumstance, because he is morally opposed. As the governor couldn't or wouldn't explain his moral opposition, he uses a lot of filler, to support his decision, even though non of it was the reason for his decision - a crass political speech, which simply makes things worse, with added insult to victims and their survivors.

9) The governor is dead wrong on why other states got rid of the death penalty.

Illinois' repeal occurred, only, because anti death penalty politicians snuck in quick legislation, during the lame duck session, so that those politicians, voted out of office, could stick a finger in the eyes of the constituents who had rejected them. It was known that the newly elected legislators would have made a death penalty repeal impossible. The majority of Illinois citizens still supported the death penalty.

New Mexico only repealed the death penalty because of the larger number of anti death penalty legislators voted in, on the coattails of Obama, as connfirmed by the main sponsor of the legislation. None of the arguments against the death penalty, all of which were rebutted, caused the repeal. The majority of New Mexican's still support the death penalty.

New Jersey's death penalty commission, appointed by the anti death penalty governor, was stacked with 13 anti death penalty folks and, maybe, two proponents. Cost had nothing to do with their decision, as they stated in their report. It was only the presence of an anti death penalty governor and an anti death penalty legislature that made the repeal succeed, at a time when death penalty support was 78%.

10) Gov. Kitzhaber: " . . . the policy of this state on capital punishment is not mine alone to decide. It is a matter for all Oregonians to decide."

Reply: Exactly. Oregonians have decided on this and the governor simply made an individual, personal decisions, as opposed to his leadership commitment. No US citizen knowingly votes for leadership who make decisions based only upon personal feelings - feelings which contradict democratic process, as well as the promise of the governor, himself.

Yet, that is what Gov. Kitzhaber has, nobly, provided? - Even though Gov. Kitzhaber stated: I was "' 'sworn to uphold the law and could not and would not intervene.', when it came to the execution of Douglas Franklin Wright in 1996." (3).

11) At his news conference, the Governor cited his physicians requirement "to do not harm".

Reply: There is no such requirement. Please review:

"Physicians & The State Execution of Murderers: No Ethical/Medical Dilemma"
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/10/physicians-state-execution-of-murderers.html

(1) Gov. Kitzhaber's 11/22/2011 "Statement on Capital Punishment"
http://media.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/other/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Final%20Final%20JK%20Statement%20on%20the%20Death%20Penalty.pdf

(2) "Path to execution swifter, more certain in Va", 12/4/2011, Richmond-Times Dispatch
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/dec/04/tdmain01-path-to-execution-swifter-more-certain-in-ar-1512219/

(3) "Death penalty: Respecting the will of voters ", 12/3/2011, The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/12/death_penality_respecting_the.html

Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Troy Davis & The Innocent Frauds of the anti death penalty lobby

2011-11-01T17:38:00.002-04:00

Troy Davis & The Innocent Frauds of the anti death penalty lobby
Dudley Sharp

The Troy Davis campaign, like many before it (1), is a simple, blatant fraud, easily uncovered by the most basic of fact checking (1).

The case for Davis' guilt is overwhelming, just as were his due process protections, which may have surpassed that of all but a few death row inmates.

The 2010 federal court innocence hearing found:

" . . . Mr. Davis is not innocent: the evidence produced at the hearing on the merits of Mr. Davis's claim of actual innocence and a complete review of the record in this case does not require the reversal of the jury's judgment that Troy Anthony Davis murdered City of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail on August 19, 1989." (2)

"Ultimately, while Mr. Davis's new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors." (2)

"As a body, this evidence does not change the balance of proof that was presented at Mr. Davis's trial."(2)

"The vast majority of the evidence at trial remains intact, and the new evidence is largely not credible or lacking in probative value." (2)

None of this came as a surprise to anyone who actually followed the case, in contrast to the Save Troy Davis folks who were, willingly, duped.

1) a) "Troy Davis: Worldwide anti death penalty deceptions, rightly, failed",http://homicidesurvivors.com/2011/09/25/troy-davis-worldwide-anti-death-penalty-deceptions-rightly-failed.aspx

b) "Troy Davis fairly convicted, not 'railroaded' " http://savannahnow.com/column/2011-10-06/column-spencer-lawton-troy-davis-fairly-convicted-not-railroaded

2) "Innocence Hearing", ordered by the US Supreme Court, US DISTRICT COURT, in the SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA, SAVANNAH DIV.,RE TROY ANTHONY DAVIS, CASE NO. CV409-130http://multimedia.savannahnow.com/media/pdfs/DavisRuling082410.pdf

Physicians & The State Execution of Murderers

2009-10-27T10:37:00.003-04:00

Physicians & The State Execution of Murderers: No Ethical/Medical Dilemma
The Hippocratic Oath and “Do No Harm” have nothing to do with executions

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below

Some in the medical community have attempted to create an ethical prohibition against medical professionals involvement in state executions by invoking the famous “do no harm” credo and the Hippocratic Oath.

It is a dishonest effort. Neither reference is in the context of the state execution of murderers. I find the effort to ban medical professionals participation in executions an unethical effort to fabricate professional ethical standards, based upon personal anti death penalty feelings.

The Hippocratic Oath: Classical Version

The select Hippocratic Oath quote, in its original (translated) form, is

“I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.” (1)

This is a prohibition against euthanasia and abortion and has nothing to do with the fabricated medical prohibition of participation in state sanctioned executions.

I am unaware of any other ancient texts or translations which indicate a historical context, with that quote, that prohibits physicians from participation in executions.

In 2004, Dr. Markel, a medical historian, writes, “There are two highly controversial vows in the original Hippocratic Oath that we continue to ponder and struggle with as a profession: the pledges never to participate in euthanasia and abortion.” (2)

In reality, these are, barely, controversial, now. They are, however, inconvenient. Dr. Markel’s article never mentions a context of state execution of murderers, because the oath has nothing to do with it.

Dr. Markel continues: “The Hippocratics’ reasons for refusing to participate in euthanasia may have been based on a philosophical or moral belief in preserving the sanctity of life or simply on their wish to avoid involvement in any act of assisted suicide, murder, or manslaughter.” (2)

Dr. Markel is speculating. What we do know is that it was a reference to euthanasia and abortion, specifically. There is not even speculation, by Dr. Markel, that the reference had anything to do with the state execution of murderers.

The following are ” . . .the results of a study . . . in which 157 deans of allopathic and osteopathic schools of medicine in Canada and the United States were surveyed regarding the use of the Hippocratic Oath”: (3)

1. In 1993, 98% of schools administered some form of the Oath.
2. In 1928, only 26% of schools administered some form of the Oath.
3. Only 1 school used the original Hippocratic Oath.
4. 68 schools used versions of the original Hippocratic Oath.
5. 100% of current Oaths pledge a commitment to patients.
6. Only 43% vow to be accountable for their actions.
7. 14% include a prohibition against euthanasia.
8. Only 11% invoke a diety.
9. 8% prohibit abortion.
10. Only 3% prohibit sexual contact with patients.

There is no mention of the state execution of murderers, because the Hippocratic Oath has nothing to do with it.

Although there is no prohibition on the death penalty, there is one against both euthanasia and abortion. Yet, various medical associations have fabricated an imagined ethical problem with the death penalty and have, nearly, fully accepted both abortion and euthanasia.

Now, only 3% prohibit sexual contact with patients, but the original Hippocratic Oath states:

“Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.”

100% pledge a commitment to their patients, but only 43% vow being accountable for their medical actions. Some commitment. What ethics?

With these survey results and with medical professionals bringing up the Hippocratic Oath, as if it has something to say in the death penalty debate, possibly we should, now, in the true context of euthanasia and abortion, and other issues, call it what it has become, the Hypocrisy Oath.

For example, In January 2007, The North Carolina Medical Board adopted a policy that physicians participating in executions may lose their licence. In 2009, The North Carolina Supreme Court vacated the Board’s policy, finding that they had exceeded their authority.

Did the Board attempt to prevent physicians from performing abortions or have they issued a statement condemning physicians’ participation in euthanasia? Of course not.

The Oath of Hippocrates – Modern Version

The modern version is, most often, identified as that penned by Louis Lasagna in 1964.

It states: “it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.” (4)

This is in the context of killing innocent lives through either abortion or euthanasia.

Quite the about face.

The quote shows physicians’ medical ethical/moral acceptance of taking innocent lives.

Do No Harm

The famous physician credo “First, do no harm” (a phrase translated into Latin as “Primum non nocere”) is often mistakenly ascribed to the (Hippocratic) oath, although it appears nowhere in that venerable pledge.” (2)

“Hippocrates came closest to issuing this directive in his treatise Epidemics, in an axiom that reads, “As to disease, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.” (2)

“As to disease”. Nothing else. There is no relevance outside medicine and, most certainly, no prohibition against medical professionals participation in the state execution of murderers.

Reason & Reality

Those ethical codes pertain to the medical profession, only, and to patients, only.

Judicial execution is not part of the medical profession and executions do not make death row inmates patients. Is that news?

The editors of The Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine agree. They write:

“Execution by lethal injection, even if it uses tools of intensive care such as intravenous tubing and beeping heart monitors, has the same relationship to medicine that an executioner’s axe has to surgery.” (”Lethal Injection Is Not Humane”, PLoS, 4/24/07).

So to, The American Society of Anesthesiologists:

“Although lethal injection mimics certain technical aspects of the practice of anesthesia, capital punishment in any form is not the practice of medicine. (”Statement on Physician Nonparticipation in Legally Authorized Executions,” 10/18/06).

Both confirm the obvious point: The state execution of murderers is not equivalent or connected to the medical treatment of patients. There is no ethical or moral connection. Hardly a mystery.

Any rational person can see that the state execution of murderers is not a medical treatment, but a criminal justice sanction. The basis for medical treatment is to improve the plight of the patient, for which the medical profession provides obvious and daily exceptions. The basis for execution is to carry out a criminal justice sentence where death is the sanction.

Doctors and nurses can be police and soldiers and can kill, when deemed appropriate, within those lines of duty and without violating the ethical codes of their medical profession, because there is no ethical connection. Similarly, medical professionals do not violate medical codes of ethics, when participating in the state execution of murderers.

Physicians are often part of double or triple blind studies where there is hope that the tested drugs may, someday, prove beneficial. The physicians and other researchers know that many patients, taking placebos or less effective drugs, will suffer more additional harm or death because they are not taking the subject drug or that the subject drug will actually harm or kill more patients than the placebo of other drugs used in the study.

Physicians knowingly harm individual patients, in direct contradiction to their “do no harm” oath.

For the greater good, those physicians sacrifice innocent, willing and brave patients. Of course, there have been medical experiments without consent and, even, today, they continue (”Critical Care Without Consent”, Washington Post, May 27, 2007; Page A01).

Physicians knowingly make exceptions to their “do no harm” requirement, every day, within their profession, where that code actually does apply. And, in many cases, they should. There are obvious ethical nuances and we should consider and pay attention to them, as is done within the medical profession.

SEE DO NO HARM: Additional Notes, at bottom.

Physicians and medical institutions should chose ethical guidelines which are truly relevant to their profession.

Many medical professionals need to stop the ridiculous ethical posturing and tell the truth – they don’t like the death penalty. In medical writings, against executions, you can easily find a strong bias, evidenced by use of the common and inaccurate anti death penalty claims, with no apparent effort at fact checking or balance. (5)

Any participation in executions by medical professionals should be a matter for their own personal conscience. In fact, 20-40% of doctors surveyed would participate in the execution process.

If this physician created mess had been about long standing medical ethics, based upon Hippocrates or “do no harm”, then there would be an effort to stop medical professionals from participating in euthanasia and abortion. In fact, the opposite has occurred. Instead, irresponsible medical professionals have turned those obvious, historical ethical standards upside down and have fabricated, out of thin air, a prohibition against the death penalty.

Why? For personal reasons, some have decided the formerly unethical medical practices of abortion and euthanasia are, now, just fine and that the non medical death penalty is prohibited by a fabricated medical ethic.

There is no foundation for an ethical prohibition against medical professionals participating in executions. Stop using personal bias to fabricate one.

It’s unethical.
———————–

DO NO HARM: Additional Notes:

40,000 to 100,000 innocents die, every year, in the US because of medical misadventure or improper medical treatment. (6)

It appears that some 500-1000 innocent patients die, every year, in the US, due to some type of medical misadventure, with anesthesia. (6)

There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US since 1900.

Furthermore, even with errors in lethal injection, those cases resulted in the death of the inmate – the intended outcome for the guilty murderer.

In the errors of medical professionals, we are speaking of a large number of deaths and injuries to innocent patients – the opposite of the intended outcome.

————–

1) The Hippocratic Oath: Classical Version, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_classical.html

2) “‘I Swear by Apollo’ – On Taking the Hippocratic Oath”, New England Journal of Medicine, May 13, 2004 article, by Howard Markel, PhD, MD, Director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School

3) “The Use of the Hippocratic Oath: A Review of 20th Century Practice and a Content Analysis of Oaths Administered in Medical Schools in the U.S. and Canada in 1993.” by Robert D. Orr, M.D. and Norman Pang, M.D. http://www.imagerynet.com/hippo.ama.html

4) The Hippocratic Oath – Modern Version, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html

5) “An absolute: Doctors don’t kill”, op/ed, by Dr. Charles van der Horst, News and Observer, Dec 04, 2008). My response to him can be found as “Is Dr. van der Horst just ignorant or something else? Doc?” in the comments section for “Clap hands, here comes Charlie”, UNC Healthcare Blog, December 8, 2008, 4:30 pm
http://unchealthcare.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/clap-hands-here-comes-charlie/

6) “Deaths from Medical Misadventure”at
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/m/medical_misadventure/deaths.htm and
“Health Grades Quality Study: Patient Safety in American Hospitals, July 2004″
http://www.healthgrades.com/media/english/pdf/HG_Patient_Safety_Study_Final.pdf

Additional info

Dutch Protocol for Euthanasia

The following is a Dutch protocol for parenteral (intravenous) administration to obtain euthanasia:

Intravenous administration is the most reliable and rapid way to accomplish euthanasia and therefore can be safely recommended. A coma is first induced by intravenous administration of 20 mg/kg sodium thiopental (Nesdonal) in a small volume (10 ml physiological saline). Then a triple intravenous dose of a non-depolarizing neuromuscular muscle relaxant is given, such as 20 mg pancuronium bromide (Pavulon) or 20 mg vecuronium bromide (Norcuron). The muscle relaxant should preferably be given intravenously, in order to ensure optimal availability. Only for pancuronium bromide (Pavulon) are there substantial indications that the agent may also be given intramuscularly in a dosage of 40 mg.

http://www.wweek.com/___ALL_OLD_HTML/euthanasics.html

originally written May, 2005. Updated as merited.

copyright 2005-2009 Dudley Sharp – Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O’Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Cameron Todd Willingham: Media meltdown & the death penalty:

2009-10-04T08:12:00.001-04:00

re: "Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?", by David Grann (1)

Dudley Sharp, contact info below

I could speculate that David Grann was an objective reporter who made the solid, unbiased case for an innocent executed. But, I think that is already being done, around the globe, with editorial writers and journalists and other anti death penalty activists, quoting extensively from Grann's article, with little or no fact checking and absent critical thinking.

So, why not do something different?

I'll speculate this: "David Grann, anti death penalty activist/member of the defense team".

I list the page number in the article, followed by Grann's comments then, my REPLY, underneath.

p 3 (Willingham) hollered, “Oh God— Amber, get out of the house! Get out of the house!’ ”He never sensed that Amber was in his room, he said. Perhaps she had already passed out by the time he stood up, or perhaps she came in after he left, through a second doorway, from the living room."

REPLY: Folks, think about this. Grann says "Perhaps (Amber) had already passed out by the time (Willingham) stood up". Yeah, right. "Already". What, the millisecond it took Willingham to stand up, right after Amber's screams woke him up? Grann, surely you can't do much worse than that. Let's buy Grann's nonsense. If Amber passed out, then and there, Amber is with Willingham in his room, where Amber was found. There is no fire in that room. Willingham just leaves her.

Or, perhaps Willingham should have found Amber and gotten her out of the house. Who would leave their 2 year old to their own devices to get out of a burning house? No one, who wanted to save them.

Or perhaps, Willingham asked Amber to wait for him in his bedroom, where she was found, alive, but unconscious because of smoke inhalation, while daddy went to save the twins. Then daddy skipped out of the house.

p 6 Dozens of studies have shown that witnesses’ memories of events often change when they are supplied with new contextual information. Itiel Dror, a cognitive psychologist who has done extensive research on eyewitness and expert testimony in criminal investigations, told me, “The mind is not a passive machine. Once you believe in something—on you expect something—it changes the way you perceive information and the way your memory recalls it.”

REPLY: Grann presumes, without evidence, that some earlier statements, more sympathetic to Willingham, were more credible. Grann wouldn't speculate that folks reflected and said, later, hey, Willingham, in reality, acted suspicious. Or they always were suspicious. Grann, for the defense.

Other facts, revealed, later, in Grann's article, found that the more suspicious the witnesses became of Willingham's behavior, the closer to the truth they were. In other words, Grann's speculation on page 6, was the opposite of the reality that Grann later revealed on page 16. Grann for the defense.

Maybe Grann could have looked up some studies on increased family violence during Christmastime and played up that angle. Or what about the money issues at Christmas, non working dad, working mom. Poor. Has that ever caused stress within a family? Have fathers "without motive" murdered their children under those circumstances? Or under much less stress? Or have father's with known, violent tendencies ever murdered their children? It's not uncommon for violent people to murder, with no motive. They're just mean.

Could Grann so speculate? No. Grann, for the defense.
------------------

p 9 In recent years, though, questions have mounted over whether the system is fail-safe. Since 1976, more than a hundred and thirty people on death row have been exonerated. DNA testing, which was developed in the eighties, saved seventeen of them, but the technique can be used only in rare instances.

REPLY: I know of no one that thinks any government programs are failsafe. Does Grann? Of course not. He is just using it as sarcasm, so he can trample it.

But Grann did buy it, hook, line and sinker, that anti death penalty claims are failsafe. Why? Because he only wants to show how fallible the death penalty is. It may not be true, but, it's good anti death penalty theater.

The anti death penalty, non fact checked literature told Grann what he wanted to hear, so, why fact check it? Credibility? Grann, anti death penalty activist.

Many reporters, blindly parrot these same anti death penalty morsels of nonsense, below A-E, without fact checking. So travels Grann.

(A) Grann says "Since 1976, more than a hundred and thirty people on death row have been exonerated."

It's total nonsense.

The 130 (now 135) death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx

(B) On the DNA front, Grann says DNA "saved" 17 death row inmates. Grann wants us to believe those 17 would have been executed, absent that DNA exclusion.

Can Grann prove that those 17 ever would have been executed, absent the DNA finding? Of course not.

Some reality. About 13% of death row inmates have been executed. About 44% have been removed from death row for other reasons.

8-9 of those 17 had already been taken off death row, prior to the DNA exclusion. Those were "saved" prior to DNA testing. Grann works the good anti death penalty drama. But, accuracy?

Mr. Grann, do you need proof, evidence or fact checking to make claims? Isn't that, allegedly, what the article was concerned with? Oh well. Grann, anti death penalty activist.

Grann may have speculated that innocents are more protected with the death penalty than they are with lesser sentences. But, why would an anti death penalty article so speculate? It wouldn't, of course. But, maybe it's true.

"The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx----------------------

p 9 (C) In 2000, after thirteen people on death row in Illinois were exonerated, George Ryan, who was then governor of the state, suspended the death penalty.

REPLY: Why can't Grann fact check and tell us how many of those 13 "exonerated" are actually innocent? Maybe there is a reason why. The term "exonerated" has been highly misused by anti death penalty activists, to the point where exonerated has no connection to its real meaning. See the 130 "exonerated" above and this:

Grann, review: "The Death Penalty Debate in Illinois", JJKinsella, 6/2000, http://www.dcba.org/brief/junissue/2000/art010600.htm

Mr. Grann, fact checking? Yes, some of the reviews within the Kinsella article are very incomplete, dated and in error. However, the point is that the 13 were not exonerated. And Grann just used it, anyway.

Is fact checking such a bad thing? No. But, Grann, anti death penalty activist.
-------------------------------

p 9 (D) In 1993, Ruben Cantu was executed in Texas for fatally shooting a man during a robbery. Years later, a second victim, who survived the shooting, told the Houston Chronicle that he had been pressured by police to identify Cantu as the gunman, even though he believed Cantu to be innocent. Sam Millsap, the district attorney in the case, who had once supported capital punishment (“I’m no wild-eyed, pointy-headed liberal”), said that he was disturbed by the thought that he had made a mistake.

REPLY: Fact checking would be nice. The only pressure was for Moreno to identify the man who murdered Moreno's best friend and almost murdered Moreno. The police had nothing on Moreno to pressure him. Grann for the defense.

Mr. Grann, read this:

Ruben Cantu: In the Matter of Juan Moreno: Investigation Relating to The State of Texas v. Ruben Cantu, Cause No. 85-CR-1303, 6/26/2007
http://www.bexar.org/da2/body_pages/morenocantuinvestigation.pdf

(E) Instead of playing the bluff, using Grann's imagination style of reporting, where Grann wrote that Millsap "thought he had made a mistake.", why not be a little less nebulous and suggestive. How about - One could safely call Millsap an anti death penalty activist, who had radically changed his statements on Cantu. Explain that Millsap has gone from Cantu was innocent to, well maybe, he didn't get adequate due process, or various versions of that. Grann wasn't trying to get us to imagine that Millsap thought Cantu was actually innocent, was he? Millsap "thought he had made a mistake."

And Grann left all of that out because . . . he only had 17 pages for his article?

Why did Grann stick all of this anti death penalty "innocence" nonsense (A-E) into his article? It was to influence the reader into turning them toward an "innocent" Willingham. It was setting the stage. But, it was fiction.

NOTE: I sent a fact checking inquiry to New Yorker on these on 9/4/09, to fiction@newyorker.com, shouts@newyorker.com, newsbreaks@newyorker.com, themail@newyorker.com. Then on 9/14, I sent to the same group with Grann, added.

So far, no reply or correction.
--------------------------

p 15 Without having visited the fire scene, (fire expert Gerald) Hurst says, it was impossible to pinpoint the cause of the blaze. But, based upon the evidence, he had little doubt that it was an accidental fire—one caused most likely by the space heater or faulty electrical wiring.

REPLY: "IMPOSSIBLE." Keep that in mind.

"Impossible" to pinpoint. But, "(Hurst) had little doubt it was an accidental fire". "impossible to pinpoint the cause". But, Hurst says it's "most likely" that "the space heater or faulty wiring" was the cause.

Is "most likely" or "little doubt" scientific, or is it a game of chance, where 20% doubt is little doubt or "most likely" means 51% likely? Dr. Hurst?

How does "IMPOSSIBLE" reconcile with "little doubt" or "most likely" the space heater or the electrical wiring reconcile, scientifically? They don't reconcile. The scientific method? Clairvoyant? Soothsayer?

Dr. Hurst, would that be a 26% vote for space heater, 25% for the electrical wiring and 49% for arson? That would give the space heater and electrical wiring a 51% "most likely", over the "less likely" 49% for arson.

Or are we looking at 34% for heater, 34% for wiring and 32% for arson?

Dr. Hurst, which scientific method works best?

It has been reported that the gas was turned off 4 days prior to the fire. What does that do for Hurt's "most likely", if true? Dr. Hurst? "IMPOSSIBLE?"

Let's go back to the (maybe) valid criticism of the state "experts" at trial, that imagination, opinion based upon fantasy/bad science and faulty judgement were their calling cards. You know "more likely than not" "most likely". Not science.

The state arson "experts" agreed that the fire was not caused by the space heater or the electrical wiring. Has anyone contradicted their testimony on that topic, based upon the facts? "Impossible."

Furthermore, two of the state experts, Fogg and Hensley, are, now, blasting the conclusions of the newest forensics report by Beyler.

There are, currently, 3 forensic reviews, highly critical of the courtroom testimony, The reviews are Hurst, Innocent Project and Beyler. Briefly, they say, that the trial testimony was false, that arson could not have been detected, based upon the flawed knowledge of the trial's fire "experts" and that flashover may have caused the arson evidence, if any, to become indistinguishable from a non arson fire.

Fogg:
"A lot of this stuff (in Beyler’s report) is misspoken or misinterpreted,” Fogg said. “We eliminated all accidental causes.” "Beyler acknowledges that one sample did have accelerant in it, but said it was unidentified, a claim Fogg disputes.""Beyler theorized it was a flashover, and said investigators didn’t see the difference between the intense heat of a flashover and an accelerant-driven fire.""Fogg laughed at the notion." " If it had been a flashover, it would have taken out the thin layer of sheetrock on the walls, he argued." “That house was box construction,” Fogg said. “The only sheetrock that came down was what was hit with water. The paper backing wasn’t even scorched.”

Hensley:
"For Hensley, the most damning evidence came from Willingham, who told officers that 2-year-old Amber woke him up. Firefighters later found her in his bed, with burns on the soles of her feet." " Yet, Willingham didn’t take the girl with him when he fled, nor did he receive burns walking down that same hallway, Hensley pointed out." "Willingham “had no more (carbon monoxide) than somebody who had just smoked a cigarette,” Hensley said. "Hensley has since become a certified arson investigator. In hindsight, he insists they took the right steps with the evidence in the Willingham case." “We did everything we were supposed to do,” he said.

"Hensley also dismisses Beyler’s report, pointing out that Beyler didn’t talk to the investigators, and reading the testimony can’t replace first-person observations." “You can find expert witnesses everywhere, and if you pay them enough they’ll testify to anything,” Hensley said. “They’re to be bought.” “You can’t just look at a little part. Look at the whole picture, and that’s what the jury did,” Hensley said. “If a 2-year-old wakes you up and there’s smoke and fire everywhere, aren’t you going to at least get that one out? It couldn’t possibly have happened the way (Willingham) said.” "Willingham’s behavior afterwards did not help his case. Todd Morris was the first police officer on the scene and he found Willingham trying to push his car away from the house to save it from the fire, while his children were inside burning up, Hensley said."

Grann, could Fogg and Hensley have been important for your article? Of course not, they don't help the case that Grann was presenting. Grann, for the defense.

Grann, try reading this:
"No doubts: Those closest to case shed no tears for Willingham"
http://www.corsicanadailysun.com/thewillinghamfiles/local_story_250180658.html

Hurst said it was IMPOSSIBLE to pinpoint the origin of the fire.

That means the cause of the fire is indeterminate. The fire could have been arson or could have been accidental.

Grann couldn't speculate that such is what "IMPOSSIBLE" means. Grann for the defense.
------------------------

p 15 It explained why there had never been a motive for the crime.

REPLY: No motive?! Get rid of the kids. They're bothering me. Just because Willingham denied it, doesn't mean that wasn't the motive. Have fathers "without motive" murdered their children? Or have father's with known, violent tendencies ever murdered their children? It's not uncommon for violent people to murder, with no motive. They're just mean. Grann? Motive? Grann, for the defense.

Please refer to my page 6 REPLY, above.
-----------

p 15 (Gerald) Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on “junk science.”

REPLY: Remember "Without having visited the fire scene, Hurst says, it was IMPOSSIBLE to pinpoint the cause of the blaze."

Certainly, the trial testimony of the arson "experts' at trial may have been junk science. Although, today, with all of this additional knowledge, they still conclude is was arson.

Did anyone notice that the state experts agreed in their testimony that there were alternate scenarios for the fire and alternate possibilities for the arsonist, but that they both believed Willingham to be the arsonist? The jury heard the state arson "experts" state that there were alternate scenarios for the fire, that it may not have been arson, and that anyone could have set the fire.

Yet, those arson "experts" and the jury, with the knowledge of all of the alternate possibilities, still found for Willingham's guilt. Now, speculate that there was a reason for that. And those reasons were covered at trial and Grann "missed" a lot of them. Grann for the defense.

NOTE: I have not read the trial transcript. I got the information on the trial testimony from other articles, which may or may not have fact checked.
------------------------------

p 16 Earlier, (Willingham) had confessed to his parents that there was one thing about the day of the fire he had lied about. He said that he had never actually crawled into the children’s room. “I just didn't want people to think I was a coward,” he said. Hurst told (Grann), “People who have never been in a fire don't understand why those who survive often can't rescue the victims. They have no concept of what a fire is like.”

REPLY: Hurst (?) and Grann for the defense.

Neither Hurst nor Grann has evidence that Willingham did not set the fire and murder his children. Period.

Let's speculate.

Willingham's confession is the closest Willingham could get to admitting he murdered his children. He didn't try to save them. He made up why he had burns. Amber, Willingham's two year old, only had burned feet. She was found in a different room. She was in the master bedroom with Willingham when she "woke" him because of the fire. Willingham had the opportunity to grab Amber and take her out of the house, with him. If we use Grann's speculation, maybe Amber passed out in Willingham's bedroom, with her dad, and he just left her there. Remember, the only reason Willingham gave, that he left Amber, was that he told Amber to get out, as Willingham tried to save the twins - he was crawling on his hands and knees to get the twins.

But, we know he lied. He never did that.

He simply abandoned Amber in the fire, along with the twins. Why? Maybe because he had no intention of saving them. Maybe, his intent was to murder them.

Amber was found, un-burned, except for her feet, in the master bedroom, alive. She later died of smoke inhalation. The fire never entered the master bedroom or the back of the house.

We will never know how much time Willingham had to save all of his children. But we do know, he never tried.

Why didn't Willingham just grab Amber, run down the hallway and exit the house? Or go out the windows, with Amber, in the back, or the back door? She was alive when he left her. Maybe the twins were alive, too.

We, now, know, that he wasn't stopping to save the twins. Why not save Amber? Maybe his intention was to murder her and them, not save anyone.

After Willingham left the house, he had plenty of time and plenty of doors and windows to got into where there was no fire, to, at least, save Amber. He had no intention of doing so. How do we know? Because he had every opportunity to do so and didn't.

Willingham's intention was to fabricate a heroic father, with burns, screaming and yelling, when an audience was there. "I have to save my children."

He, later admits, he was never going into that house, not even at the beginning of the fire, not even when most of the house had no flames - which was the entire time of the fire.

No wonder he had no signs of smoke inhalation.

He is yelling and screaming, handcuffed to the fire truck, the desperate father, straining to get into the flames to save his babies. It was all a conscious, deliberate deception.

He says he had no such intentions of ever saving his children because he was a coward.

As his children are burning up, Willingham has the foresight, calmness and grotesque callousness to create an entire drama, a complete fraud and Willingham admitted it.

How about this? Willingham had no intention of rescuing his children because he was a murderer, not a coward.

Why couldn't Grann make such a speculation? It doesn't help the defense or the anti death penalty position.

Maybe my speculation is just based upon "I have little doubt" or "most likely", you know, like Gerald Hurst's.

(Note: I have emailed Hurst, twice, for clarification on his comments. So far, no reply.)
-------------------------------

p 17 "Just before Willingham received the lethal injection, he was asked if he had any last words. He said, “The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for twelve years for something I did not do. From God’s dust I came and to dust I will return, so the Earth shall become my throne.”

REPLY: How profound. Do you think Grann left the following out on purpose?

Before Willingham received the lethal injection, he addressed Stacy Kuykendall, his ex-wife and mother of the three children he had killed, who was watching about 8 feet away through a window. He said "Fuck you bitch" and I hope you rot in hell, bitch." He attempted to maneuver his hand, strapped at the wrist, into an obscene gesture.

Leaves you with a slightly different impression. Doesn't it? Or what Grann didn't want you to read.

Grann, for the defense. Maybe the whole article was written that way.

But worldwide media and anti death penalty activists (often the same) bought into it, without fact checking and without any additional knowledge. Why? Because they WANT to believe it and they want you to, as well.

Is that possible? Likely? Sure?
------------------------------------

NOTE: The final chapter in this case is, nowhere, close to being concluded.

(1) "Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?", by David Grann, A Reporter at Large, The New Yorker, September 7, 2009
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

A Broken Study: A Review of "A Broken System"

2009-10-02T12:24:00.006-04:00

re: "A Broken System: The Persistent Patterns of Reversals of Death Sentences in the United States"

Dudley Sharp, contact info below

"A Broken System", published in 2000, found a 68% error rate in US death penalty cases, from 1973-1995. (1)

Based upon another, neutral source, the overturning rate, for that same period, is 30% and, likely, lower (2).

Of the 5555 sentenced to death, from 1973-1995, the period of the study, 1648 cases, or less than 30%, were overturned because of some error in conviction or sentence.

Even the 30% is too high, because some of those cases were overturned because of either new legislative or case law that didn't exist at the time of the trial.

I suggest, based upon a thorough review, inclusive of cases overturned by "new law", a review of true error in death penalty cases, from 1973-1995, will find the disposition of the cases, overturned, solely, because of error, will be in the 20-28% range, as of publication date 1999, footnote 2.

I looked at the database of all death penalty cases, from 1981-1985, which all had 20-25 years of appeals. Of the 1288 sentenced to death, 560 were overturned because of conviction or sentencing errors, or 43%, minus any "new law" cases. (3)

Still, very high, indeed, but, likely, 40-50% lower than the 68% claimed in "A Broken System".

In addition, sentences are overturned at nearly twice the rate of convictions, 28% vs 15%, which, in context, may tell us about the bias of many judges against the death penalty, more than it does about errors in sentencing. The judicial bias against the death penalty in states such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey is, or was, respectively, quite clear.

Some examples of the criticism of "A Broken System".

Pennsylvania review: "(A Broken System") counts cases thrown out when the United States Supreme Court overturned all existing death penalties in the 1970's. He also counts cases that were reversed on appeal, even if that reversal was itself reversed on further appeal, reinstating the original conviction. Obviously, none of these reversals says anything about the fairness of the current administration of capital punishment." (4)

NOTE: Therefore, both of these issues are, improperly, evaluated as errors in "A Broken System".

Florida Review: "Using the authors' misleading definition, the "study" does, however, conclude that 64 Florida post-conviction cases were rife with "error" - even though none of these Florida cases was ultimately resolved by a "not guilty" verdict, a pardon or a dismissal of murder charges." " Indeed, in more than a third of the 64 cases cited by the "study," the death sentence was reimposed, while in other cases the State agreed to accept a plea of life to spare the families of victims the trauma of additional court proceedings. These cases should not be included in a true "error rate" analysis, and if factored out, would show far less "error" in post-conviction cases than the "study" suggests." "(The study) may leave readers with the false impression that Florida put the wrong individual away for an offense, when no such claim is supported by competent evidence." (5)

Note: In Florida, it appears, "A Broken System" may have made errors in excess of 40%.

Nevada review: "Death penalty records are kept by the Nevada Supreme Court, Attorney General, Department of Prisons, 17 district attorneys and 17 court clerks, yet Liebman got his from criminal defense attorneys (who apparently reported their wins, but not their losses) and the NAACP Capital Punishment Project (whose agenda is the abolition of the death penalty)." "Second, it appears Liebman picked and chose his cases, tailoring the study to get certain results. He took cases from 1973-1995 for some results; 1993-1995 for other results; and 1973-April, 2000 for others. He used only published opinions for some results, but used unpublished opinions for others. He used only Nevada Supreme Court or federal appeal cases for some results, but added lower state court cases to increase reversals. Liebman didn't count all Nevada cases. He excluded killers who discontinued their appeals. (He presumed they did so due to frustration with the system, not because they were proved guilty and accepted it.) Incredibly, he didn't even count the eight men executed in Nevada since 1977!" (6)

NOTE: Could "A Broken System" be that misleading?

Philadelphia Deputy District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg; "The refusal to share underlying data with researchers is particularly troubling in light of the media misrepresentation of Liebman as a neutral professor heading a Columbia University study. In truth, Liebman maintains an active criminal defense practice, and has been litigating against the death penalty since long before he became a professor. His study was funded in large part by a grant from the anti-capital punishment Soros Foundation, with the stated purpose of "find[ing] effective ways to curb the [death] penalty's use." (Preface to Latzer and Cauthen article) (7)

"Upon our request, Prof. Liebman (the primary author) declined to release his data to us. We therefore could not examine the cases or verify the decisions in the "Broken System". (8)

To decline releasing data could be viewed as another blow to the credibility of "A Broken System".

FOOTNOTES

(1) A Broken System: The Persistent Patterns of Reversals of Death Sentences in the United States, (2000), http://www2.law.columbia.edu/instructionalservices/liebman/
with updates at http://www2.law.columbia.edu/brokensystem2/index2.html

(2) Based upon the publication date of "A Broken System", 2000, this appears to be the most relevant data base:
the data for 1973-1995, Appendix table 1. Prisoners sentenced to death and the outcome sentence, by year of sentencing, 1973-1998, "Capital Punishment, 1998", Bureau Of Justice Statistics BULLETIN, published December, 1999,
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cp02.pdf

(3) Appendix table 2., Prisoners sentenced to death and the outcome sentence, by year of sentencing, 1973-2005, page 14, "Capital Punishment, 2005", Bureau of Justice Statistics, Dec, 2006, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cp05.pdf

(4) http://prodeathpenalty.com/Liebman/Pennsylvania.htm

(5) http://prodeathpenalty.com/Liebman/Florida.htm

(6) http://prodeathpenalty.com/Liebman/Nevada.htm

(7) http://prodeathpenalty.com/Liebman/LCPreface.htm

(8) endnote 11, page 28. "Another Recount: Appeals in Capital Cases", Latzer and Cauthern, The Prosecutor, January/February 2001. http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/docs/prosecutor.pdf

Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Pro death penalty sites
essays

http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Death%20Penalty.aspx
http://prodpinNC.blogspot.com/

http://www.dpinfo.com
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
http://www.coastda.com/archives.html
http://www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html

Is The News And Observer beyond repair? The Death Penalty

2009-07-20T13:24:00.001-04:00

To: Governor Perdue , The State Legislature and media throughout the state

From: Dudley Sharp, contact info below

The News and Observer (NO) says the death penalty is "Beyond fixing" (7/19/09). Based upon their op/ed, it is NO that is beyond repair.

NO says the list of the exonerated from death row tells the tail of how inaccurate the death penalty is. Well, no. More likely, it tells us the poor state of fact checking in the media.

The term"exonerated", as the NO knows, has been, highly misused by both the media and anti death penalty folks (often the same).

The national death row "exonerated" list has grown to 135, but it has nothing to do with the actually innocent sent to and released from death row. Even the New York Times did an article on this obvious anti death penalty deception. (1) Did NO not get the memo?

The number is very likely much closer to 25, or about 0.3% of those so sentenced - meaning the actually guilty sent to death row is about 99.7%. The 25 (as well as the 135) have all been released. (2)

Maybe the NO can do an article on what the difference is between 1) the alleged "exonerated" from North Carolina's death row and 2) for how many of those cases is there proof of actual innocence. It is the only relevant issue in the innocence debate. Why? First, to be clear and honest. Secondly, we can't execute the legally innocent- that is impossible. Therefore, only the actual innocent are the relevant issue.

Is the NO aware of a more accurate criminal sanction than the death penalty?

The NO only mentions that African Americans "are too often caught up in the wheels of the court system, and the chance that they will pay a price for flaws in that system is high."

Why the race baiting? It's unseemly.

In the modern era of the US death penalty, since 1973, whites represent, nationally, 57% of those executed, blacks 34%. In North Carolina, whites represent 28 (65%) of those executed, blacks 13 (30%). It is clear that whites are more likely to suffer the worst flaw- an innocent executed -the number one alleged concern of anti death penalty folks, such as NO. In reality, it is everyone's chief concern.

Why didn't NO point that out? However, let's try to agree that no one wants any innocent human beings convicted of a crime they didn't commit.

In a serious debate, it is ludicrous to imply discrimination because census data on population counts, for different races and ethnicities, is not consistent with the percentage counts of those races/ethnicities on death row. Instead of populations counts, try looking at who is committing capital, death penalty eligible murders, instead. It's a much better barometer.

The NO completely blows it on their concern that the death penalty system can't catch ever mistake. We all know that no system can catch every mistake. The NO overlooked the crucial, relevant issue - the death penalty is more likely to catch a mistake than is any lesser sanction. Put another way, innocents are more protected with the death penalty. (3)

Even NO knows that the death penalty system has, by far, the most extensive due process protections in US law. That means that the actually innocent convicted are more likely in non death penalty life cases and are more likely to die in prison, serving under that sentence, than it is that an actual innocent will be executed. (3)

The NO gets really silly. The NO states: "The (Racial Justice Act's) House champions know better than to swallow that kind of poison pill." For NO, the "poison pill" is the Senate language to resume executions. Why is it a poison pill to implement the death penalty that judges and jurors felt was the most appropriate sanction for the crime committed? Because the NO's goal is to help stop any executions, just like their champions.

From a statistical standpoint, it is fitting that NO agrees with US Supreme Court Justice Blackmun that we should no longer tinker with death's machinery.

That is one judge out of 110 that have served on SCOTUS, or less than 1%. The NO is in perfect company.

Time for the NO to get their act together, if it isn't already "Beyond Fixing".

It isn't. Simply honor the Fourth Estate, present honest and balanced coverage of the death penalty. Period.

1) "The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt", New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak, national legal correspondent for The NY Times. Excerpt: "To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . ". That is out of the DPIC claimed 119 "exonerated", at that time, for a 75% error rate. NOTE: It's hard to understand how an absolute can have a differential of 33%. I suggest the "to be sure" is, now, closer to 25.

2) The 130 (now 135) death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx

3) "The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx

Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Pro death penalty sites

essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

http://www.dpinfo.com/
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
http://www.coastda.com/archives.html
http://www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html

DETAILS: Why the Racial Justice Act is a SCAM - North Carolina

2009-07-15T17:25:00.002-04:00

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

DETAILS: Why the Racial Justice Act is a SCAM - North Carolina

Dudley Sharp, contact info below, 7/13/09

Racial/ethnic bias should be taken seriously and by people of good will with honest intentions.

The aim of the Racial Justice Act (RJA) is not racial justice. The RJA's purpose is to increase cost and delay in death penalty cases, with a goal of assisting the end of the death penalty in North Carolina.

The RJA bill: Proof of racial discrimination is established if "Death sentences were sought or imposed significantly "MORE FREQUENTLY" upon persons of one race than upon persons of one race than upon persons of another race." (1)
Frequency is a measure of occurrence, not a measure of disproportionality, discrimination or measurable bias.
For example, if 10 death sentences are sought and imposed for both black and white murderers, the frequency of death sentences for each race is equal. Equal frequency can be, totally, disproportionate.
If whites had committed 100 death penalty eligible murders, yet only 10 death sentences were sought and imposed, and blacks had committed 12 "identical" (2) death penalty eligible murders, yet 10 death sentences were sought and imposed, there would be equal frequency, but striking disproportionality.

For those truly looking for discrimination, it doesn't matter how frequently, how often or how rarely the death penalty is sought or imposed for murderers of different races/ethnicities, it only matters if it is significantly, measurably disproportionately sought or imposed based upon discrimination.
In any jurisdiction, if death sentences are sought or imposed 10 times for whites and 7 times for blacks or 10 times for blacks and 7 times for whites, the frequency is 30% less or 43% more and - voila - a claim of "more frequently" will be made and discrimination will be pronounced, even if death sentences are sought and imposed proportionately to any race/ethnicity involvement in capital murders and there is zero discrimination.

The RJA, intentionally, allows cases to be challenged and overturned based upon a definition of "discrimination" which has nothing to do with discrimination.
The RJA makes a mockery of justice and is a direct insult to those who truly wish to end racism and discrimination.

The RJA is a big, unnecessary dishonest mess.

The "Study": One often hears that racial bias was established by the study, "Race and The Death Penalty in North Carolina", by UNC-CH professors Boger and Unah (2). It wasn't.
First, the only alleged racial “disparity” (not bias) uncovered in the “study” is based upon: “. . . the “death odds multiplier” is 3.5, indicating that, on average, the odds of receiving a death sentence are increased by a factor of 3.5 when the murder victim is white.” (3). IF true, that 3.5 odds multiplier might be about a 2%-4% differential – completely meaningless, based upon actual cases sent to death row.

NOTE: Many, in the media and elsewhere, misinterpreted the 3.5 as "times" (a 250% differential) as opposed to the actual "odds multiplier" (maybe a 2-4% differential) .

Did Boger/Unah ever correct that misunderstanding? The same problem exists with the McCleskey v Georgia case. (4)

Secondly, the study looks at 1993-1997, or 16% of the 32 years of current death penalty laws and 99 out of the 383 death sentences, or 26%. In the unlikely case the study is sound, the results show no discrimination. In the context of the full 32 year database, this study is irrelevant in discussing the death penalty in North Carolina, today.

Thirdly, academics, lawmakers, media (I hope) and others have been trying, without success, to get the database/methodology on the Boger/Unah study for nearly a decade. Is there a legitimate academic reason for withholding that information? Of course not.

The RJA - Renders Justice an Ass. Don't pass this bill.

Footnotes:
(1) HB461,15A-2011, (b), (1) & , mostly, (2), 6/30/09
http://ncleg.net/Sessions/2009/Bills/Senate/PDF/S461v5.pdf
(2) Of course, there is no such thing as "identical" murders. The circumstances of each murder are all distinct, as are the murderer(s) and the victim(s). That is one of the obvious reasons why the RJA is so flawed.
(3) "Race and The Death Penalty in North Carolina: An Empirical Analysis 1993-1997", page 4, 4/16/2001
http://www.common-sense.org/pdfs/NCDeathPenaltyReport2001.pdf
(4) See "The Odds of Execution" within "How numbers are tricking you"
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/4834/barnett.htm
and
"The Math Behind Race, Crime and Sentencing Statistics"
http://8.12.42.31/1998/jul/12/opinion/op-2965
see also
RACE: A Death Penalty Primer – No Bias in Death Penalty Sentencing
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2006/03/25/race-a-death-penalty-primer.aspx?ref=rss
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally..

Race, Death Penalty & North Carolina: The Boger/Unah Study

2009-07-12T20:16:00.003-04:00

Race, Death Penalty & North Carolina: The Boger/Unah Study
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Dudley Sharp

One often hears that racial bias was established by the study, "Race and The Death Penalty in North Carolina", by UNC-CH professors Boger and Unah (1). It wasn't.

First, the only alleged racial “disparity” (not bias) uncovered in the study is based upon: “. . . the “death odds multiplier” is 3.5, indicating that, on average, the odds of receiving a death sentence are increased by a factor of 3.5 when the murder victim is white.”.

IF true, that 3.5 odds multiplier can mean a differential as low as 2%-4% – completely meaningless, based upon actual cases sent to death row.

NOTE: Many, in the media and elsewhere, misinterpreted the 3.5 as "times", a 250% differential, as opposed to the actual 3.5 "odds multiplier" which may be a differential as low as 2-4% .

Did Boger/Unah ever clarify this issue? If they did, I haven't found it. The same problem exists with David Baldus and his work in Philadelphia and within Baldus' analysis that has caused so much misinterpretation in SCOTUS' McCleskey v Georgia case. (2)

Secondly, the North Carolina study looks at 1993-1997, or 16% of the 32 years of current death penalty laws and 99 out of the 383 death sentences, or 26%. In the unlikely case the study is sound, the results may show no discrimination. In the context of the full 32 year database, this study is irrelevant in discussing the death penalty in North Carolina, today.

Thirdly, academics, lawmakers, media (I hope) and others have been trying, without success, to get the database/methodology on the Boger/Unah study for nearly a decade. Is there a legitimate academic reason for withholding that information? Of course not.

Footnotes:

(1) "Race and The Death Penalty in North Carolina: An Empirical Analysis 1993-1997", page 4, 4/16/2001
http://www.common-sense.org/pdfs/NCDeathPenaltyReport2001.pdf

(2) See "The Odds of Execution" within "How numbers are tricking you"
http://reocities.com/CapitolHill/4834/barnett.htm

and

"The Math Behind Race, Crime and Sentencing Statistics"
http://8.12.42.31/1998/jul/12/opinion/op-2965

see also

RACE: A Death Penalty Primer – No Bias in Death Penalty Sentencing
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2006/03/25/race-a-death-penalty-primer.aspx?ref=rss

Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally

Death Penalty Sentencing: No Systemic Bias

2009-07-11T13:10:00.001-04:00

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below

7 studies are reviewed, herein

For emphasis, population count is totally irrelevant, regarding any consideration of class or race/ethnicity bias in the application of the death penalty. The only relevant factors in such a review are class, race/ethnic distribution of murderers and their victims in capital murders, as well as criminal history, the specific circumstances of the crime(s) and a review of individual prosecutorial jurisdictions.

Study 1: Drs. Stephen Klein and John Rolph: "After accounting for some of the many factors that may influence penalty decisions, neither race of the defendant nor race of the victim appreciably improved prediction of who was sentenced to death . . . ". "Relationship of Offender and Victim Race to Death Penalty Sentences in California", Jurimetrics Journal, 32, Fall 1991, aka The Rand Corporation Study)

Study 2: Smith College Professors Stanley Rothman and Stephen Powers found that legal variables, such as prior criminal history and the aggravated nature of the murder, are the proven basis for imposition of the death penalty. The black/white variation in sentencing has generally been reduced to zero when such legal variables are introduced as controls. "Execution by Quota?", The Public Interest, Summer 1994

Study 3: NO BIAS IN DEATH SENTENCING: U of Maryland's Death Penalty Study (1)

The following are direct quotes from the Executive Summary of the U of Maryland study. NOTE: In earlier stages of the process, allegations of bias or some improper racial disproportionality are unfounded (2).

Race of the victim

"The race of the victim effect does not hold up, however, at the decision of the state's attorney to advance a case to penalty trial and at the decision of the judge or jury to impose a death sentence given that a penalty trial has occurred." p 27

"The race of the victim does not appear to matter when the decision is to advance a case to the penalty phase or to sentence a defendant to death after a penalty phase
hearing." page 29

The victim's race has no impact on seeking or giving death sentences

"Among the subset of cases where the case actually does reach a penalty trial, the victim's race does not have a significant impact on the imposition of a death sentence." page 35

The study shows no race of the victim effect in death sentencing in Maryland.

"When the prosecuting jurisdiction is added to the model the effect for the victims race diminishes substantially, and is no longer statistically significant." page 32

When you look at the capital murder cases, from each, separate jurisdiction, individually, any alleged race of the victim effect cannot be found.

" . . . any attempt to deal with any racial disparity in the imposition of the death penalty in Maryland cannot ignore the substantial variability that exists in different state's attorney's offices in the processing of death cases." p 34

It is important to look at how each jurisdiction handles their capital cases, because each jurisdiction is different. When that is done, no bias in death sentencing is found.

Race of victim and defendant

"There is no race of the offender / victim effect at either the decision to advance a case to penalty hearing or the decision to sentence a defendant to death
given a penalty hearing." page 30

Neither the race of the defendant nor the race of the victim have an impact on seeking or giving death sentences.

Race of the defendant

" . . . there is no evidence that the race of the defendant matters at any stage once case characteristics are controlled for." page 26

" . . . we found no evidence that the race of the defendant matters in processing of capital cases in the state." p 26

Maryland is not looking at race, but is concentrating on the nature of the murders.

Study 4: No Racial Bias in the New Jersey Death Penalty System

New Jersey For release: February 11, 2003
For further information: Winnie Comfort, AOC (609) 292-9580
Report on Proportionality

Trenton, N.J.

The 2002 report essentially mirrors the findings contained in the 2001 report, and may be summarized as follows:

--There is no sustained, statistically significant evidence that the race of the defendant affects which cases advance to penalty trial. Although bivariate analysis reveals that a greater proportion of death-eligible white defendants than African-American defendants advance to the penalty phase, that finding is not supported by regression studies and application of case-sorting techniques. There is no sustained, statistically significant evidence that the race of the defendant affects which cases result in imposition of the death penalty. Again, although bivariate analysis reveals that a greater proportion of death-eligible white defendants are sentenced to death than African-American defendants, that finding is not supported by regression studies and application of case-sorting techniques.
--There is statistically significant evidence that white victim cases are more likely than African-American victim cases to advance to penalty trial, but that finding is eradicated when county variability is taken into account. A disproportionate number of minority victim cases are tried in counties with the lowest overall rates of progression to penalty trial, while less urban counties with a high concentration of white victim cases have higher rates of capital prosecutions. Although Judge Baime notes that county variability may itself be a problem, he offers no opinion on the subject because that issue is well beyond the contours of his report.
--There is no sustained, statistically significant evidence that white victim cases are more likely than minority victim cases to result in imposition of the death penalty

The New Jersey Supreme Court has accepted the 2002 annual report prepared by Judge David S. Baime, a retired Appellate Division judge, on the monitoring of proportionality review in capital punishment cases in New Jersey. The Supreme Court adopted a monitoring system in 2000 to determine whether racial discrimination played a role in the administration of New Jersey's capital cases.

In his capacity as a "special master," a role that requires extrajudicial expertise and work with court-appointed experts, Judge Baime prepared the "Report to the New Jersey Supreme Court: Systemic Proportionality Review Project 2001-2002 Term." .

Judge Baime was assisted by statistical analysts David Weisburd, a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The University of Maryland, College Park, and Joseph Naus, a professor at Rutgers University. In an effort to provide the most accurate analysis possible, the monitoring system approved by the Court consists of three different statistical strategies: bivariate analyses, regression studies and case-sorting techniques. In order to establish systemic disproportionality, a defendant must relentlessly document the risk of racial disparity. This requires that the outcomes produced by the three modes of analysis substantially converge, or lead to the conclusion that racial discrimination plays a part in capital sentencing.

The three modes of analysis were applied to three separate decision points: death outcomes at penalty trials, death outcomes among all death-eligible cases, as determined by Judge Baime and the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), and advancement of death-eligible cases to penalty trials. Three identifiable groups--African-Americans, whites and Hispanics--were examined, and possible disparities in terms of the race or ethnicity of the defendant and the race or ethnicity of the victim were considered.

Study 5: Pro & Con: The Death Penalty in Black and White, by Dudley Sharp
IntellectualCapital.com, 6/24/99.
stored at www.prodeathpenalty.com/racism.htm

I don't know about you, but when I get into a discussion about the death penalty, my first thoughts go to the victim and to the brutality of the murder. That is the foundation of the just nature of the death penalty.

Too often these days, however the death penalty is discussed in different terms. Inevitably, with the racial history of this country, the effect of race in the application of the death penalty has become a central part of the death-penalty discourse. This is particularly true as some politicians are making the case for a death-penalty moratorium, in part to consider whether the death penalty is inherently racist.

All too often, however, those arguments are spurious. In the death penalty debate, it should be the facts, and not the hype, that are in be black and white.

A closer look at the statistics

Often such discussion begins with the obvious: the race of the defendant. The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reports that black murderers represent 35% of those executed, white murderers 56%. As the argument goes, this must be evidence of systemic racism, as blacks represent 12% of the population, whites 74%.

Fortunately, the United States does not execute people based on their population counts but on the murders they commit. As blacks represent 47% of murderers and whites 37%, we see that whites are twice as likely to be executed for committing murder as are their black counterparts.

Furthermore, the Bureau of Justice Statistics says that whites sentenced to death are executed 17 months more quickly than blacks. With 98% of all head prosecutors in the United States being white, according to DPIC, how is such a result possible? Maybe prosecutors, judges and juries are focusing on the crimes and not the race of the defendant.

That is not the case, say anti-death penalty groups, such as Amnesty International, and now the United Nations. If you adjust for the specific aggravating factors present within capital crimes, you find clear evidence of racism.

Death-penalty opponents note, for example, that the Supreme Court, in the famous race-based challenge to the death penalty (McCleskey v. Kemp), found in 1987 that those who murderer whites were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murder blacks, under similar circumstances.

David Baldus (3), who did the statistical study on McCleskey's behalf, also completed a recent study in Philadelphia where it is was reported to show that black murderers were four times more likely to receive a death sentence than white murderers. With such results, how can anyone dispute the racist application of the death penalty?

Quite easily.

The Supreme Court, as well as many others, confused odds with multiples. The data reflect odds of 4-to-1, not four times more likely.

What difference does it make?

In Baldus' Philadelphia (3) study, we find that if only 2% more white murderers had been sentenced to death and only 2.5% fewer black murderers had been sentenced to death, then each group would have been sentenced to death by juries at the same rate -- a far cry from the 300% differential stated within the incorrect interpretation of "four times"!

A punishment that fits the crimes

The next issue raised is the victim's race. While blacks and whites comprise about an equal number of murder victims, the ratio of white-to-black victims in death-penalty cases is about 7-to-1. This has given rise to the allegation that the "system" only cares about white murder victims. A horrible accusation, if true.

However, the ratio of white-to-black victims in the aggravated circumstances necessary for a capital murder conviction (rape, robbery, car-jacking, burglary, police murders, serial/multiple murders, etc.) is from 4-to-1 to 8-to-1 -- numbers consistent with the victim ratios on death row.

The final resting place for the racism charge lies within those cases where blacks have been executed for murdering whites and whites have been executed for murdering blacks. There have been 144 blacks and 10 whites executed under such circumstances, or a ratio of 14-to-1. As blacks are about 2.5 times more likely to murder whites than the other way around, there appears to be a huge disparity in such executions. Is racism the reason?

If we look at robbery, the aggravated crime found most often in capital cases, we find that when there is a robbery with injury, the ratio of black robber/white victims versus white robbers/black victims is 21-to-1.

Again, when looking at the circumstances consistent with capital crimes, we find no evidence of racial bias.

The determining factor for sentencing in death-penalty cases is what it should be -- the aggravating nature of the crimes. Both the Rand Corp. study of 1991 and the research presented by Smith College professors Stanley Rothman and Stephen Powers in 1994 confirm that finding. In other words, it appears that any racial variations present within the data are reflective of the crimes themselves and not racial bias within the system. A review of those studies, as well as of criminal-justice statistics, within the context of the aggravating circumstances present within capital murders and the related statutes, produces the same conclusion.

Don't assume the worst motives

There will always be some variables of race, ethnicity and class within any study of criminal-justice practices, and based on historic, as well as current prejudices, we can never lower our guard. Because all studies are subject to poor protocols, bias and misinterpretation, we must make reasoned judgments based on as many respected considerations as we may have at our disposal.

And even if criminal-justice statistics did not show the obvious correlation between crimes and the application of the death penalty, we should note what the Supreme Court stated in McCleskey: "Where the discretion that is fundamental to our criminal justice process is involved, we decline to assume that what is unexplained [by measured factors] is invidious." Sound ideas should not be eliminated based on misguided statistics.

In the case of the death penalty, the facts lead to only one conclusion. No moratorium is necessary.

Study 6: Death Penalty Opponents Distortions are the Real Story

"To properly protect the people in Baltimore City and other jurisdictions like it, we must restore public confidence in and support of capital punishment, so that prosecutors can seek it in appropriate cases, and jurors will impose it. The first step toward that end is to debunk the myth that capital punishment is imposed discriminatorily. The numbers are there, in the opponents's own studies, once we cut through the spin and look at the facts."

Smoke and Mirrors on Race and the Death Penalty, Kent Scheidegger, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Engage Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 2, 10/2003 www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/EngageArticle.pdf

Study 7: Full Review Finds no Bias

"From 1976-1995, 5 white murderers have been put to death for the murder of black persons and 101 black murderers have been put to death for the murder of white persons (NAACP LDF, 1996). Opponents falsely contend that this is evidence of racism in the "system". That 101:5 ratio, or 20:1, is consistent with statistics that show aggravated crimes (those crimes committed with the murder which may make a crime eligible for the death penalty) are committed by blacks against whites in far greater numbers than by whites against blacks. For all violent crimes, there are ten times as many black offenders (2,016,939) involved in white victim violent crimes as there are white offenders (210,869) involved in black victim violent crimes, or a 10:1 ratio. (The State of Violent Crime in America, pg. 12,1/96, data derived from Criminal Victimization in the U.S., 1993, BJS forthcoming, tables 42 and 48. Multiple offenders were assumed to be two offenders for calculation purposes.) In addition, blacks are nearly three times as likely to murder whites (849), as whites are to murder blacks (304), or 3:1 (Sourcebook 1994, BJS 1995, table 3.123). IF murder rates are statistically consistent within the violent crime category, as McCleskey et al indicate, then blacks are, statistically, by a 30:1 (10:1 X 3:1) ratio, more likely to murder whites, than whites are to murder blacks, in those circumstances where an additional aggravating factor is present (see C2). These are those crimes most eligible for the death penalty. That statistically projected ratio of 30:1 is hardly inconsistent with the 20:1 ratio for black offender(s)/white victim vs white offender(s)/black victim executions. The most relevant aggravated crime is robbery with injury, wherein blacks are 21 times more likely to be involved in such crimes as are whites. This 21:1 ratio represents 1.4 million black offender(s)/white victim vs. 68,000 white offender(s)/black victim for robbery with injury crimes (JFA, using BJS, 1977-84 data). IF overall murder statistics are consistent, within this crime category, as McCleskey et al suggests, then there is a 30-60:1 ratio of black on white vs white on black murders within this robbery/murder category. (From 1977-1984)."

Excerpt from "C. RACE, SENTENCING AND THE DEATH PENALTY", paragraph No. 5., DEATH PENALTY AND SENTENCING INFORMATION In the United States, 10/1/97, by Dudley Sharp, http://prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html#C.Race

-------------------------------------

Conclusion

You cannot remove all bias from human endeavors.

The weight of the evidence is that there is no systemic racial/ethnic bias within the modern US death penalty. Police, prosecutors, judges and jurors, overwhelmingly, are honorable folks, working to do the right thing in any given case.

The death penalty has the most extensive due process protections, meaning they have the most thorough reviews, inclusive of bias, in the pre trial, trial and appellate reviews.

With so few death sentences, over such a long period of time, statistical variances are, often, the result of very small numerical or percentage comparisons, which cannot and do not establish racial or ethnic bias or are the result of very poor studies, as Baldus' in McCleskey.

-----------------------

1) Executive Summary: An Empirical Analysis of Maryland's Death Sentencing System with Respect to the Influence of Race and Legal Jurisdiction, www.urhome.umd.edu/newsdesk/pdf/exec.pdf

2) Minority Report, well hidden, between pages 128 and 129 (see p 8-12), part of Final Report to the General Assembly, Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, 12/12/08
http://www.goccp.maryland.gov/capital-punishment/documents/death-penalty-commission-final-report.pdf

3) I am, particularly, wary of David Baldus' works or anyone who refers, approvingly, of his work. See Joseph Katz' deconstruction of Baldus' work for McCleskey, as well as:

"The Math Behind Race, Crime and Sentencing Statistics"
John Allen Paulos, Los Angeles Times, 7/12/98
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jul/12/opinion/op-2965

and

"The Odds of Execution" within "How numbers are tricking you
Arnold Barnett, MIT Technology Review October, 1994
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/4834/barnett.htm

copyright 1998-2009 Dudley Sharp Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
email sharpjfa@aol.com, phone 713-622-5491
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Pro death penalty sites

essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

http://www.dpinfo.com
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
http://www.coastda.com/archives.html
http://www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html

Death Penalty Polls - Support Remains Very High - 80%

2009-07-09T13:41:00.001-04:00

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
April, 2009

When polls correctly ask about true capital, death penalty eligible murders, support is around 80%.

Most familiar polls wrongly ask a variation of "Do you support the death penalty for murder?", usually getting replies in the 60-75% range.

However, in the US, the death penalty is only allowed for those who commit capital murders. Therefore, all polls, which only refer to murders are irrelevant when asking about death penalty support.

Death penalty support is much deeper and much wider than we are often led to believe.

Death penalty support for relevant capital, death penalty eligible murders

81% of the American people supported the execution of Timothy McVeigh, with only 16% opposed. "(T)his view appears to be the consensus of all major groups in society, including men, women, whites, nonwhites, "liberals" and "conservatives." (Gallup 5/2/01).

85% of Connecticut respondents voiced support for serial/rapist murderer Michael Ross' "voluntary" execution. (Quinnipiac University Poll, January 12, 2005). This is the best example of a death penalty poll I have seen, regarding how polling results change, based upon the way a question is asked.

79% support the death penalty for terrorists (Survey USA News Poll #12074, Sponsor: WABC-TV New York, 4/26/2007 New York State poll)

"78% of (Nebraska's) 3,232 respondents said they supported the death penalty for “heinous crimes.” 16% opposed. ". . . a nearly identical number (76%) said they opposed legislation that would abolish the death penalty. ("Survey Shows Statewide Support for Death Penalty", MPB Public Affairs Poll, 2/14/08)

73% of Connecticut voters support the death penalty for the two parolees accused of the Cheshire (Ct) home invasion rape/murders of a mother and her two daughters. While 63% of Connecticut voters support the death penalty for murderers, in general, AT THE SAME TIME. ("Connecticut Voters Support Death Penalty 2-1", Quinnipiac University Poll, 11/7/07). NOTE: Support is actually greater than 3 to 1. The poll showed 73% for execution, 23% opposed, for those parolees. It was 63-27% for the general question.

82% of those in the US favored of executing Saddam Hussein (French daily Le Monde, 12/2006{1}), also in
Great Britain: 69%
France: 58%
Germany: 53%
Spain: 51%
Italy: 46%

We are led to believe there isn't death penalty support in England or Europe. European governments won't allow executions when their populations support it: they're anti democratic. (2)

Why is the "error rate" so large between the general murder question and specific, death penalty eligible murders?

Likely, it is due to several factors:
(1) the reluctance of some respondents to voice stronger support for the death penalty, unless specific examples of murderers and their crimes are provided. All of the above polls reflect that.;
(2) the widespread media coverage of anti death penalty claims, without the balance of contradicting those false claims, producing lower general support (The 130 death row "innocents" scam is a perfect example); and
(3) the absence of that influence from (2) when looking at individual cases, when the public knows the crimes, the guilt of the murderer and absent the anti death penalty bias factor, thus producing much higher specific case support, also reflected in the polls, above.

Death Penalty Opposition? Look Again.

Significant percentages of those who say the oppose the death penalty, in general, do, in fact, support that sanction for truly death eligible crimes. This provides firm evidence that death penalty support is much wider and deeper than expressed with the answers to the general and improper death penalty polling questions.

57% of those who say they oppose the death penalty, generally, actually do support it for McVeigh's execution (81% supported the execution of McVeigh, 16% opposed (Gallup 5/02/01), while 65% offer general support for executions for "murder", with 28% opposed (Gallup, 6/10/01). The polls were conducted at nearly the same time.

40% who say they oppose the death penalty, generally, actually do support it for terrorists. (79% support and 18% oppose the death penalty for terrorists. 67% support and 29% oppose the death penalty for "murder".) (SAME POLL - Survey USA News Poll #12074, Sponsor: WABC-TV New York, 4/26/2007 New York State poll)

84% of those who, generally, say they oppose the death penalty, in general, actual did support it for Michael Ross. (SAME POLL - 85% say Connecticut serial rapist/murderer Michael Ross should be allowed to waive appeals and be executed. When asked whether they favor or oppose the death penalty, 59% favor - 31% oppose (Quinnipiac University Poll, January 12, 2005).

NOTE: The percentages will likely have a range of change, instead of a specific percentage, because there would be a transfer of points, not just from those opposing, under the general question, but from the undecided" or "did not answer" group, as well, into the supportive group for specific murders.

Distortion: Death Penalty vs Life Without Parole Polls

When responding to this question: “If you could choose between the following two approaches, which do you think is the better penalty for murder: the death penalty (or) life imprisonment, with absolutely no possibility of parole?”, Gallup found:

47% for the death penalty, 48% for life without parole, (Gallup, May 2006).

Some, including Gallup and Quinnipiac, speculate that this represents lower support for the death penalty. Such improper and inaccurate speculation cannot be justified and is an unethical use of pollsters' opinion.

First error: Neither respondent group is saying do away with the other sanction or that they oppose the other sanction. What it does mean is that 95% of US citizens support the death penalty and/or life without parole for murderers. It could also mean that 90% of all respondents support both sanctions, particularly when properly using capital murders.

For example, "Which do you think is better - vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream?" 50% prefer chocolate, 45% vanilla. However, 92% actually like both vanilla and chocolate ice cream - with a slightly lower percentage liking vanilla, marginally less. 99% of respondents don't want either ice cream banned. 1% were undecided.

Second error: This polling question is highly prejudicial, which wrongly influences the answers. This has become commonplace.

"Absolutely" no possibility of parole (release) doesn't exist.

What is absolute is that the executive branch can reduce sentences and the legislature can change the laws and make them retroactive, if it benefits the criminal, thereby offering two avenues for parole in "absolutely" no-parole cases.

Therefore, the polling question offers a false premise which, obviously, distorts the answers. Gallup has been made aware of this for some time.

Third error: By law and in the context of the death penalty, it cannot be a choice of either only a death sentence or only a life sentence, as Gallup wrongly poses. Constitutionally, the death penalty cannot be mandatory. Therefore, at least two sentencing options must always be provided to jurors in a death penalty eligible case.

Therefore, the polling question begins with 3 false premises, all of which wrongly effect the poll.

Gallup did not ask this misleading question in 2007, 2008 or 2009. I hope they did so because of theses error issues and will not resume it.

Fourth error: Inexcusably, Gallup wrongly continues to mention the previous results of this highly misleading poll.

If you are searching for a true life vs death penalty choice, the poll question should be in the context of true death penalty eligible murders, such as:

For the rape and murder of children do you prefer the punishment options of
1) Life without parole, excluding, in all cases, the death penalty? or
2) Giving the jury the option of selecting either the death penalty or life without parole?

This has the benefit of reflecting reality, as opposed to the distorted fiction of Gallup's (and others') current life sentence vs death penalty polling. The death penalty cannot be a punishment option, without also having life or other options and the death penalty is case specific to capital murders.

Conclusion

Death penalty support is much deeper and much wider than we are often led to believe, with significant percentages of those who say they, generally, oppose the death penalty, actually supporting it when it is a true death eligible crime.

There is 82% death penalty support in the US, as recently as December 2006. Even one of the most liberal US states, Connecticut, has shown very strong support for specific, death eligible case executions - 85% (2005), 73% (2007).

95% of US citizens support the death penalty and/or life without parole for murderers. Therefore, we already have the most democratic approach - we give jurors and judges the choice between those two sentences in capital eligible cases.

Copyright 2005-2009, Dudley Sharp, Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or part, is approved, with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Pro death penalty sites

essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

http://www.dpinfo.com
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
http://prodpinNC.blogspot.com/
http://www.coastda.com/archives.html
http://www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html

(1) The recent results of a poll conducted by Novatris/Harris for the French daily Le Monde on the death penalty shocked the editors and writers at Germany's left-leaning SPIEGEL ONLINE (Dec. 22, 2006). When asked whether they favored the death penalty for Saddam Hussein, a majority of respondents in Germany, France and Spain responded in the affirmative.

(2)An excellent article, “Death in Venice: Europe’s Death-penalty Elitism", details this anti democratic position (The New Republic, by Joshua Micah Marshall, 7/31/2000). Another situation reflects this same mentality. "(Pres. Mandela says 'no' to reinstating the death penalty in South Africa - Nelson Mandela against death penalty though 93% of public favors it, according to poll. "(JET, 10/14/96). Pres. Mandela explained that ". . . it was necessary to inform the people about other strategies the government was using to combat crime." As if the people didn't understand. South Africa has had some of the highest crime rates in the world in the ten years, since Mandela's comments. "The number of murders committed each year in the country is as high as 47,000, according to Interpol statistics." As of 2006, 72% of South Africans want the death penalty back. ("South Africans Support Death Penalty", 5/14/2006, Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research

NOTE: Some recent polls - with no mention of specific crimes.

97%+ of Guatemalans support the death penalty. 2.6% oppose
(telephone survey, newspaper Prensa Libre, 2/14/08)
www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5545

79% support the resumption of hanging in Jamaica. 16% oppose. (Bill Johnson Polling for The Gleaner (Jamaica) Newspaper, 1/12-13/08

Two-thirds of Czechs for death penalty reintroduction - poll
Prague- Almost two-thirds of Czechs believe that death penalty should exist in the Czech Republic, while one-third believes the opposite, according to a poll the CVVM agency conducted in May and released. June 12, 2008, Ceskenoviny.cz/news/

Death Penalty Support: Modern Catholic Scholars

2009-07-05T16:43:00.004-04:00

Dudley Sharp, contact info below

There are thoughtful writings on both sides of this debate, but the pro death penalty side is stronger.

Even today, a Catholic in good standing can call for more executions, if their prudential judgement finds for that.

NOTE: Additional secular and additional Christian essays, are linked or referenced, below.

1) Avery Cardinal Dulles:

This recently deceased US Cardinal, in one of his final interviews (2006, published 2008), states that he thought the Church may return to a "more traditional posture" on the death penalty (and just war).

"Recent popes, Dulles conceded, beginning with John XXIIII, seem to have taken quasi-abolitionist positions on both matters. Yet used sparingly and with safeguards to protect the interests of justice, Dulles argued, both the death penalty and war have, over the centuries, been recognized by the church as legitimate, sometimes even obligatory, exercises of state power. The momentum of "internal solidification," he said, may lead to some reconsideration of these social teachings." (1)

Based upon the strength of the Catholic biblical, theological and traditional support for the death penalty as, partially, revealed, below, I think the Church will have to.

2) Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., considered one of the most prominent Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century.

"There are certain moral norms that have always and everywhere been held by the successors of the Apostles in communion with the Bishop of Rome. Although never formally defined, they are irreversibly binding on the followers of Christ until the end of the world." "Such moral truths are the grave sinfulness of contraception and direct abortion. Such, too, is the Catholic doctrine which defends the imposition of the death penalty." (2)

"Most of the Church's teaching, especially in the moral order, is infallible doctrine because it belongs to what we call her ordinary universal magisterium." (2)

"Equally important is the Pope's (Pius XII) insistence that capital punishment is morally defensible in every age and culture of Christianity." " . . . the Church's teaching on 'the coercive power of legitimate human authority' is based on 'the sources of revelation and traditional doctrine.' It is wrong, therefore 'to say that these sources only contain ideas which are conditioned by historical circumstances.' On the contrary, they have 'a general and abiding validity.' (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1955, pp 81-2)." (2)

3) Romano Amerio, a faithful Catholic Vatican insider, scholar, professor at the Academy of Lugano, consultant to the Preparatory Commission of Vatican II, and a peritus (expert theologian) at the Council.

"The most irreligious aspect of this argument against capital punishment is that it denies its expiatory value which, from a religious point of view, is of the highest importance because it can include a final consent to give up the greatest of all worldly goods. This fits exactly with St. Thomas’s opinion that as well as canceling out any debt that the criminal owes to civil society, capital punishment can cancel all punishment due in the life to come. His thought is . . . Summa, 'Even death inflicted as a punishment for crimes takes away the whole punishment due for those crimes in the next life, or a least part of that punishment, according to the quantities of guilt, resignation and contrition; but a natural death does not.' The moral importance of wanting to make expiation also explains the indefatigable efforts of the Confraternity of St. John the Baptist Beheaded, the members of which used to accompany men to their deaths, all the while suggesting, begging and providing help to get them to repent and accept their deaths, so ensuring that they would die in the grace of God, as the saying went." (3)

Some opposing capital punishment " . . . go on to assert that a life should not be ended because that would remove the possibility of making expiation, is to ignore the great truth that capital punishment is itself expiatory. In a humanistic religion expiation would of course be primarily the converting of a man to other men. On that view, time is needed to effect a reformation, and the time available should not be shortened. In God’s religion, on the other hand, expiation is primarily a recognition of the divine majesty and lordship, which can be and should be recognized at every moment, in accordance with the principle of the concentration of one’s moral life." (3)

Some death penalty opponents "deny the expiatory value of death; death which has the highest expiatory value possible among natural things, precisely because life is the highest good among the relative goods of this world; and it is by consenting to sacrifice that life, that the fullest expiation can be made. And again, the expiation that the innocent Christ made for the sins of mankind was itself effected through his being condemned to death." (3)

========================================================

Many other modern and ancient scholars, religious and secular

4) "Catholic and other Christian References: Support for the Death Penalty", at
www.homicidesurvivors.com/2006/10/12/catholic-and-other-christian-references-support-for-the-death-penalty.aspx

5) John Stuart Mill, speech on the death penalty
http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/Mill_supports_death_penalty.htm

6) Pope John Paul II: Prudential Judgement and the death penalty
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2007/07/23/pope-john-paul-ii-his-death-penalty-errors.aspx

7) "Capital Punishment: A Catholic Perspective", by Br. Augustine (Emmanuel Valenza)
http://www.sspx.org/against_sound_bites/capital_punishment.htm

8) "The Right of Punishing", Immanuel Kant, http://web.telia.com/~u15509119/ny_sida_9.htm

9) "Capital Punishment: What the Bible Says", Dr. Lloyd R. Bailey, Abingdon Press, 1987. The definitive biblical review of the death penalty.

10) "What Do Murderers Deserve?" by David Gelernter (unabomber victim & Yale U. Computer Professor), Commentary Magazine, April 1998
Reprint, Utne Reader, March/April 1999, http://www.utne.com/1999-03-01/WhatdoMurderersDeserve.aspx

NOTE Gelernter ERROR: Karla Faye Tucker did not, voluntarily, end her appeals

11) "Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice", Prof. J. Budziszewski, First Things, August / September 2004 found at
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles4/BudziszewskiPunishment.shtml

12) "Defending Capital Punishment" by William Gairdner
http://www.williamgairdner.com/defending-capital-punishment/

13) "Why I Support Capital Punishment", by Andrew Tallman, sections 1-6 secular review, sections 7-11 biblical review,
http://andrewtallmanshowarticles.blogspot.com/search?q=Capital+punishment

14) "THE ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT: A DEFENSE", Ernest van den Haag, Harvard Law Review, 1986
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/angel/procon/haagarticle.html

15) "The Death Penalty", by Solange Strong Hertz at http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/archive-death%20penalty.htm

16) "A Seamless Garment In a Sinful World" by John R. Connery, S. J., America, 7/14/84, p 5-8).

17) "God’s Justice and Ours" by US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, First Things, 5/2002
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2022

18) "The Purpose of Punishment (in the Catholic tradition)", by R. Michael Dunningan, J.D., J.C.L., CHRISTIFIDELIS, Vol.21,No.4, sept 14, 2003
http://www.st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2003/21-4

19) Chapter V:The Sanctity of Life, "Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics" By John Murray, 1991 (first published 1957) by Wm. B. Eerdmans http://tiny.cc/4SFBY

20) "MOST CATHOLICS OPPOSE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?", KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers, March 2, 2004
http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp

21) "THOUGHTS ON THE BISHOPS' MEETING: NOWADAYS, VOTERS IGNORE BISHOPS", KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers, 11/22/05
http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_051122.asp

22) Forgotten Truths: "Is The Church Against Abortion and The Death Penalty" Luiz Sergio Solimeo, Crusade Magazine, p14-16, May/June 2007
http://www.tfp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=957

23) "Just Violence: An Aristotelian Justification of Capital Punishment"
http://www.csuchico.edu/pst/JustViolence.htm

Personal Note: I support the death penalty because it is a just and deserved sanction - the same foundation as for all legal sanctions. Secondarily, the death penalty is a greater protector of innocent lives. The moral difference between those who oppose or support capital punishment is that one finds it morally wrong, the other morally correct, respectively. Do we execute because we value life? Societies imprison criminals because we value freedom so much. A sanction is only a sanction when we take away that which is valued.

========================================================

FOOTNOTES

1) "An unpublished interview with Avery Dulles", All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr., NCRcafe.org, Posted on Dec 19, 2008, at
http://ncrcafe.org/node/2340

2) "Capital Punishment: New Testament Teaching", Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., 1998
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Sacred_Scripture/Sacred_Scripture_014.htm

3) "Amerio on capital punishment ", Chapter XXVI, 187. The death penalty, from the book Iota Unum, May 25, 2007 ,
http://www.domid.blogspot.com/2007/05/amerio-on-capital-punishment.html

about Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
http://www.mariancatechist.com/html/general/stjohnhardon.htm
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/archives.htm
http://www.mariancatechist.com/html/general/fatherhardon.htm
http://www.saintphilomena.com/newpage4.htm
http://credo.stormloader.com/Saints/hardon.htm
about Romano Amerio
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/176565?eng=y
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2006/02/romano-amerio-and-pope-benedict.html
http://www.latin-mass-society.org/2007/romanoamerio.html
http://www.angeluspress.org/oscatalog/item/6700/iota-unum

copyright 2006-2009, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail

Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A Reply to Radelet and Lacock

2009-07-02T16:44:00.000-04:00

Dudley Sharp, contact info below

Subject:"Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists", by Michael Radelet, Traci Lacock (1)

There appears to be a lot of confusion, with regard to the actual findings of the subject review/survey (hereinafter "Survey").

SOME REALITY

Within this Survey, the response to question 12 finds that 100% (or 77) of the criminologists agree that the death penalty may deter some.

It is a rational conclusion. All prospects of a negative outcome/consequence deter the behavior of some. It is a truism.

The responses to question 8 found that 61% (or 46) of the criminologists found some support for the deterrent effects of the death penalty through the empirical, social science studies.

16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses (2), find for death penalty deterrence. These studies find executions deter from 4-28 murders per execution.

Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life. No surprise.

If your public policy question is "Does the death penalty deter?" The answer is "Of course it does."

Game over? Not quite.

Can we accurately and convincingly measure how many innocent lives are spared because of the deterrent effect of the death penalty? Unlikely. Social sciences are not exact sciences. Even if all protocols and data are sound, results will still vary from study to study. This public policy debate is so contentious, in academia, as elsewhere, that there will always be some disagreement over methodology and results. Therefore, the "convincingly" will always be problematic with such studies.

The question is not "Does the death penalty deter?" It does. The question is "Will there every be full agreement on how much the death penalty deters?" There won't be.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF RADELET/LACOCK

The first three survey questions are specific to murder rates and deterrence. Both reason and social science have known, for a very long time, that murder rates are not how deterrence is established.

For example, look at crime rates. Some jurisdictions have high crime rates, some low - from year to year crime rates go up, down or stay, roughly, the same. In all of those circumstances, we know that some potential criminals are deterred from committing crimes.

It is the same with all which deters, inclusive of the death penalty. Whether murder rates go up or down, whether they are high or low, there will be fewer net murders with the death penalty and more net murders without it.

Would Radelet/Lacock or the criminologists say that no criminals are deterred because one jurisdiction has higher crime rates than another or because crime rates have risen? Of course not. It would be silly to even suggest such a thing.

But, it appears that is what Radelt/Lacock are trying to do with there first three questions. It's nonsense.

Questions 4 and 5 deal with political implications, which have no relevance to deterrence.

Statement 6 "The death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides". Nearly 57% (or 43) of criminologists said the statement was totally inaccurate.

How do the authors quantify a "significant reduction" in murders? They don't. Therefore, no one has a clue as to what the authors or respondents meant.

How many innocent lives saved by deterrence is insignificant? There is no insignificant number.

One deterred is significant if it is your child's life saved. Is 2-5 innocents saved per year or per execution a significant reduction? 11-25, 112-210, 1800-2800? What is a "significant reduction" in homicides for these 43 criminologists?

There is a reason Radelet/Lacock didn't say: "The death penalty deters no one." No one can rationally, or truthfully, make such a statement.

Question 7 regards whether the death penalty is a stronger deterrent to homicide than a life sentence. 91%, or a total of 67, of the criminologists said no.

Even if the death penalty is only equal in value as a life sentence, as a deterrent, then the death penalty is an important deterrent.

There are several major tiebreakers in this "equality".

First, look at those murderers who were not deterred. About 99.9% of all of those murderers who face the death penalty either plea bargain to a life sentence, go to trial, seeking a life sentence, argue for life, not death, in the punishment phase of their trials and fight a, seemingly, never ending appellate battle to stay alive while they are on death row.

If 99.9% of death penalty eligible murderers not deterred, tell us they fear execution more than life, what about those more reasoned, potential murderers, who have chosen not to murder? Is it possible that they, like most of us, prefer life over death and fear death more than life?

Secondly, there are a number of real life stories of potential murderers who have stated that it was the death penalty that prevented them from committing murder. This is known as the individual deterrent effect. In these cases, the death penalty was an enhanced deterrent over a life sentence, just as the first example found. In addition, individual, enhanced deterrence cannot exist without general, enhanced deterrence. Therefore, there is a general, enhanced deterrent.

Thirdly, if we are unsure about deterrence, there is no "equality" in the results of our choices.

If there is deterrence and we execute, we save innocent lives via deterrence and by preventing murderers from ever harming again. If there is deterrence and we fail to execute, we sacrifice more innocent lives by reduced deterrence and, additionally, put more innocents at risk, because living murderers are always more likely to harm again, than are executed ones. If there is no deterrence and we execute, we protect more innocents because of enhanced incapacitation. If there is no deterrence and we don't execute, more innocents are at risk because the murderer is still alive.

The weight of the evidence is that the death penalty is an enhanced deterrent over a life sentence and any deterrence is significant for many of us.

There is a reason Radelet/Lacock didn't ask: "Can you prove the death penalty does not deter some who were not deterred by a life sentence?" Answer: Of course not.

Radelet/Lacock may misinterpret how important deterrence is to the argument for capital punishment.

No one can support the death penalty, solely, because of deterrence, because they first must find the sanction just and deserved. Just ask anyone that says they support the death penalty solely because of deterrence: "If you didn't find the person deserved the death penalty, would you still support their execution because of deterrence?"

80% of those polled in the US support the death penalty for death eligible, capital murders. (3)

The Survey review appears to agree that deterrence is not much of a foundation for death penalty support. Folks support the death penalty because it is a just and appropriate sanction for the crimes committed - the same reason they support all legal sanctions.

However, Radelet/Lacock overlooked that death penalty deterrence appears to be a significant threat to anti death penalty folks. That is because a deterrent effect will mean that in achieving their goals anti death penalty folks will be sparing the lives of murderers, at the cost of more innocents murdered. It is a tough result for anti death penalty folks who find themselves with a terrible dilemma.

The death penalty saves lives, in at least three ways, over a life sentence, - enhanced incapacitation, enhanced due process and enhanced deterrence. Yet, those benefits remain secondary to execution being a just and appropriate sanction for some murders.

LOOK DEEPER

Pretend that there is an imaginary world where the evidence is completely neutral on the effects of negative prospects, where there is no evidence of what incentives mean to behavior.

Do we have two equally balanced prospects? The death penalty/executions deter and the death penalty/executions don't deter.

This prospect is neither inconclusive nor equally balanced, because you have a prospect between sparing innocent life, via death penalty/execution deterrence or a prospect of death penalty/execution, with no deterrence, but enhanced incapacitation.

If deterrence is inconclusive, the prospect of saving innocent lives is not.

Let's look at what criminologists are not saying. They are not saying "The death penalty deters no one." They can't. Reason, common sense and human experience all find that the prospects of a negative outcome/consequence deter some. It is a truism.

Why would the most severe criminal sanction be the only one that doesn't deter some? It wouldn't be.

All legal sanctions deter some.

This debate is often turned backwards, with anti death penalty folks saying "There is no deterrent effect of the death penalty." or asking "Can you prove there is a deterrent effect?"

As all prospects of a negative outcome/consequence deter some, the burden of proof is not on those who say the death penalty deters, but on those who say it does not. Can death penalty opponents prove that the death penalty does not deter some? Of course not.

What social science conflicts with the notion that the potential for negative outcomes/consequences restrains the behavior of some? There are none. Execution is the most serious negative outcome/consequence that a murderer may face.

SOME NOTES ABOUT BIAS

This Survey was funded by Sheilah's Fund at the Tides Foundation in San Francisco and was arranged through the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) in Washington, D.C.

The Tides Foundation Death Penalty Mobilization Fund's sole purpose is the end of the death penalty. Sheilah's Fund is a direct contributor to anti death penalty efforts, as well.

The DPIC is one of the leading anti death penalty groups in the US and, in my opinion, is one of the most deceptive.

Prof. Radelet has been one of the most active anti death penalty activists for decades.

Jeffrey Fagan is a ASC Fellow and has been an anti death penalty activist for decades.

For context and perspective, it is important to look at the recent past and current positions of the American Society of Criminology (ASC).

Not long ago, the subtitle to the ASC Death Penalty Resources page was “Anti-Capital Punishment Resources”. They were a proud anti death penalty organization. As today, ASC listed few, if any, capital punishment resources which had a positive view of the death penalty.

If you visit their site, today, and go to their death penalty material, references and links, it is almost all anti death penalty. Their referenced essays are typical anti death penalty material that are, easily, contradicted.

This is not uncommon in academia.

The ASC has an official position against the death penalty.

Bias can be overcome and studies/reviews can be accurate and reliable despite bias. It is always a benefit to the reader to know the bias of the funding agency and author(s) of any study/review.

1) Northwestern University School of Law's Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf

2) As noted in the Survey, the study authors have not replied to all criticisms of their econometric studies finding for deterrence, just some. That often reflects that the authors found no reason for a defense because the criticism was unworthy of rebuttal (my suspicion with Fagan) or they have not yet published a response (my suspicion with Berk). The fact that 61% of the criminologists find some credibility with deterrence, as detected by the empirical studies is important.

Some of the 16 studies and their defenses
Article on Death Penalty Deterrence, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPDeterrence.htm

3) Most quoted polls wrongly poll for murder, not capital murders. The death penalty is only an option in limited capital, death eligible murders.EXAMPLES: (1)82% in the US favored executing Saddam Hussein. In Great Britain: 69%, France: 58%, Germany: 53%, Spain: 51%, Italy: 46%. (Le Monde (France) , 12/06); (2)81% support Timothy McVeigh’s execution – “the consensus of all major groups, including men, women, whites, nonwhites, “liberals” and “conservatives.” 16% oppose (Gallup 5/2/01); (3) 85% of liberal Connecticut supported serial/rapist murderer Michael Ross’ “voluntary” execution (Quinnipiac 1/12/05); (4) 79% support death penalty for terrorists (4/26/2007 New York State poll); (5) 78% of Nebraskans support death penalty for “heinous crimes.” 16% opposed.(MPB Public Affairs Poll, 2/14/08).

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Duke (North Carolina) Death Penalty Cost Study: Let's be honest

2009-06-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

Duke (North Carolina) Death Penalty Cost Study: Let's be honest
Dudley Sharp, contact info below

Anti death penalty folks claim that the death penalty costs $2.1 million dollars more than a life sentence in North Carolina.

This sticks as one of the more widely used cost deceptions by the anti death penalty crowd.

True life cases are more expensive than death penalty cases, as per the Duke Study. (1)

As per the Duke study, the difference in cost between a "life" sentence and a death sentence is $163, 459-$216, 461. (Table 9.1, page 77)

However, in the study, a "life" sentence is only 20 years. You need to add at least 20 years or $332, 000/case to get a true life sentence (my analysis). The Duke study "present valued" incarceration costs at $16, 600/year. (Tables 8.1, page 71 & 9.1, page 73)

The authors also concede leaving out geriatric care, recently found to be $60,000-$90,000/yr/prisoner (various studies). Add $225,000 per case, present valued at $15, 000/year/case for 15 years (my analysis). Geriatric care begins at age 50-55 for prisoners.

The authors should have calculated the cost savings of plea bargains to a life sentence in 20% of the death eligible cases, which accrues as a cost savings for the death penalty. Rough estimate of $40,000 cost saving per plea bargain (an average of $8000/case or 20% of $40,000.) (my analysis, although I think the number is too low).

What the study really tells us is that an actual life sentence costs much more than a death sentence.

The study finds that it costs $2.16 million per execution, if you roll the cost of every death penalty cases into only one execution. Specifically, if you have 10 death penalty cases at an "extra cost" of $216, 461/per case, over the cost of a "life" sentence, and you execute 1 of those 10 cases, then the study says that every execution costs $2.16 more than a single life case.

One could be just as misleading and state that it costs $3.48 million per completed true life sentence (death of inmate), over the cost of a death sentence case, if you roll the cost of every true life case into only one death. Specifically, if you have 10 true life cases at an extra cost of $348,539/per case, over the cost of a death sentence, and 1 of those 10 lifers had died, then every completed true life case costs $3.48 million more than a single death sentenced case. (2)

How misleading. But that is just how that $2.16 million figure was calculated.

Incredibly, New Mexico's irresponsible and/or dishonest Legislative Finance Committee used this Duke study as the only one to show that the death penalty was more expensive than life without parole.

(1) "The Costs of Processing Murder Cases in North Carolina" http://fds.duke.edu/db?attachment-34--1667-view-301

(2) The $348, 539, reflects the cost a true life sentence over the death penalty, based upon costs and credits for true life incarceration (add $332,000 for life), geriatric care (add $225, 000 for life ), & plea bargain savings ($8000 death penalty credit)combined with the studies <$216, 461>. or $565, 000 - $216, 461 = $348,000 more for a true life sentence. My analysis.

copyright 1998--2009, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Pro death penalty sites

essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

www.dpinfo.comwww.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html

Studies Author Mum

2009-06-26T07:14:00.001-04:00

Prof. Cook:

I hope you find this of interest. Dudley Sharp

Cost Savings: The Death Penalty
Dudley Sharp, contact info below

Reasonable and responsible protocols, currently in use, will produce a death penalty which costs no more, or will cost less, than Life Without Parole (LWOP).

States could better implement justice, as given by jurors, and save taxpayers money, currently wasted by irresponsible state systems.

1) Obvious solution: Improve the system

Virginia executes in 5-7 years. 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed. Only 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned. The national averages are 11 years, 14% and 36%, respectively.

With the high costs of long term imprisonment, a true life sentence will be more expensive than such a death penalty protocol.

2) Current cost study problems

a) Geriatric care: Most, if not all, cost studies exclude geriatric care, recently found to be $60,000-$90,000/inmate/yr., a significant omission from life sentence costs. Prisoners are often found to be geriatric at relatively young ages, 50-55, because of lifestyle.

b) Plea Bargain to life: ONLY the presence of the death penalty allows for a plea bargain to a maximum life sentence. Such plea cost benefit, estimated at $300,000 to $1 million/case, accrues as a cost benefit/credit to the death penalty. I am aware of no study which includes this. They all must, for a relevant cost analysis.

c) The cost of death row: There need not be any additional cost for death row. Missouri and Kansas don't have one.

NOTE: Depending upon jurisdiction, the inclusion of only 2a and 2b will result in a minimal cost differential between the two sanctions or an actual net cost benefit to the death penalty.

Adding (1) would, very likely, mean that all death penalty jurisdictions would see a cost savings with the death penalty as compared to a true life sentence.

3) The Disinformation problem: The pure deception in some cost "studies" is overt.

a) Some studies compare the cost of a death penalty case, including pre trial, trial, appeals and incarceration, to only the cost of incarceration for 40 years, excluding all trial costs and appeals, and geriatric care for a life sentence. The much cited, highly misleading Texas "study" does this.
b) It has been claimed that it costs $3.2 million/execution in Florida. That "study" decided to add the cost of the entire death penalty system in Florida ($57 million), which included all of the death penalty cases and dividing that number by only the number of executions (18). It is the same as stating that the cost of LWOP is $15 million/case, based upon all costs of 2000 LWOP cases being placed into the 40 lifers to have died (given an average cost of $300, 000/LWOP case, so far, for those 2000 cases.). The much cited and misused Duke University death penalty cost analysis for North Carolina does the same thing.
c) Many of the "studies", such as Maryland's (2008), suffer from similar or worse problems.

4) Deterrence "value": FCC economist Dr. Paul Zimmerman finds that executions result in a huge cost benefit to society. "Specifically, it is estimated that each state execution deters somewhere between 3 and 25 murders per year (14 being the average). Assuming that the value of human life is approximately $5 million {i.e. the average of the range estimates provided by Viscussi (1993)}, our estimates imply that society avoids losing approximately $70 million per year on average at the current rate of execution all else equal." The study used state level data from 1978 to 1997 for all 50 states (excluding Washington D.C.). (1)

That is a cost benefit of $70 million per execution. 15 additional recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, support the deterrent effect.

No cost study has included such calculations.

Although many will find it inappropriate to put a dollar value on life, evidently this is not uncommon for economists, insurers, etc.

The death penalty provides greater protections for innocents than life sentences. (2).

What value do you put on the lives saved? Certainly not less than $5 million.

5) Justice: The main reason sentences are given is because jurors find that it is the most just punishment available. No state, concerned with justice, will base a decision on cost, alone. If they did, all cases would be plea bargained and every crime would have a probation option.
----------------------------------

1) "State Executions, Deterrence and the Incidence of Murder", Paul R. Zimmerman (zimmy@att.net), March 3. 2003, Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID354680_code021216500.pdf?abstractid=354680

2) "The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/01/30/the-death-penalty-provides-more-protection-for-innocents---new-mexico.aspx

copyright 2003-2009 Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

Cost, Deception & the Death Penalty: The Colorado Experience

2009-05-07T19:14:00.002-04:00

Death penalty opponents fashioned this argument: End the death penalty, they said, and we can use the $380,000/year(1), the alleged net cost excess of the death penalty, to fund cold case investigations, for over 1400 Colorado unsolved murders.

From the beginning, this was, only, another anti death penalty effort. Plea bargains to a life sentence, only possible because of the presence of the death penalty, likely, would save more money (1).

By the end of the Colorado Legislative session, even for the most naive, all doubt was removed.

Some Senators had re written bill 1274, taken out the death penalty repeal and introduced constant funding for cold case investigations. This revived bill came "up with as much money for cold-case investigations as the bill originally would have" by establishing "a $2.50 surcharge on all traffic tickets and criminal convictions in the state." (2)

Anti death penalty legislators said no. They re instated the death penalty repeal, in conference committee, even though they already had the cold case funds.

The last day of the session, the reconstituted anti death penalty bill failed, just as death penalty opponents knew that it could, thus gutting the additional cold case funding, also part of bill 1274.

This was never about cold case funds. Had it been, death penalty opponents would have secured the funding, in conference committee, then voted for that funding, alone and jubilantly.

This was about repealing the death penalty, whose adherents knowingly sacrificed cold case funding, which, certainly, would have passed, absent the death penalty repeal re introduction.

How cynical did it get?

Death penalty opponent and Senate President Peter Groff stated "We've put some nice garnish (cold case funding) around it, but really what this is about is whether government should kill or not kill." (3)

"nice garnish."

Nationwide strategy

Every few years, death penalty opponents create a new crisis, because their previous one failed. Thus, the cost issue and, in Colorado, its coupling with cold case funding.

This year, there were, at least, 10 states, wherein death penalty opponents were using cost as their main repeal issue.

New Mexico will, likely, be the only state to repeal this year and started out, strong, with the cost mantra. Cost soon died, as an issue, because it was, blatantly, false.

The NM repeal succeeded only because more anti death penalty democrats were elected.

The ". . . Senate vote to repeal the death penalty in New Mexico was a direct result of November's election of several new lawmakers." The repeal bill's sponsor, Rep. Gail Chase said she was able to get the bill through because the 2008 election added three more senators to the Democratic majority. District Attorney Lem Martinez, who had spoken against the repeal bill, said "the Senate vote was the result of Obama's coattails." ("Senate backs death-penalty repeal", Steve Terrell, The (Santa Fe) New Mexican, 3/13/09). (4)

So goes death penalty opponents machinery of deception, until the next session.

copyright 2009 Dudley Sharp: Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

(1) A few months later, the cost savings of ending the death penalty rose to $1 million/year, the newest alleged net cost excess. A complete cost review, which was not done, may have found little to no cost savings.

See "Cost Savings: The Death Penalty"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/05/07/cost-savings-the-death-penalty.aspx

" . . . the actual amount of money that would have been saved if there were no death penalty was a subject of considerable dispute." ("Death penalty may live on", The Daily Sentinel, May 05, 2009)

(2) "Death penalty may live on", The Daily Sentinel, May 05, 2009

(3) "Senators vote to keep executions", The Durango Herald, May 07, 2009

(4) See "Why did Gov. Richardson repeal the death penalty? His legacy"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/31/why-did-gov-richardson-repeal-the-death-penalty-his-legacy.aspx

"Rebuttal to Governor Richardson - Repeal of the Death Penalty in New Mexico"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/19/rebuttal-to-governor-richardson--repeal-of-the-death-penalty-in-new-mexico.aspx

and,

on the New Jersey death penalty repeal, see my four responses to New Jersey Assembly Speaker Roberts' article, after his article. Starting with:

"DEAD WRONG: New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission"
http://hallnj.blogspot.com/2007/12/case-for-repealing-death-penalty.html

Sister Catherine Nichol (Billings), Letter: Death penalty isn't the Christian way, Billings Gazette, April 01, 2009

2009-04-01T20:16:00.000-04:00

To: Montana Legislators and Media

Re: Sister Catherine Nichol (Billings), Letter: Death penalty isn't the Christian way, Billings Gazette, April 01, 2009

From: Dudley Sharp, contact info below

The Sister made a number of errors common to anti death penalty folks. With many of the religious, they only review the anti death penalty literature and refuse to fact check it. For Church leadership and for this debate, that represents a disservice to the truth, as well at to their flock.

1) The Sister contends that those Christians who support the death penalty are "people (that are) stalled in the Old Testament." "We read in the Bible, 'Jesus said, You have heard it said, 'An eye for an eye,' etc., 'but I say to you ...' " No! In effect, "Love one another" can't be kill one another."

REPLY: There is almost no end to the Saints, Popes, biblical and theological scholars who find New Testament support for the death penalty - Saints Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, for two.

"Review: Catholic Death Penalty Support: Modern Scholars" (among others)

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/18/catholic-death-penalty-support-modern-scholars.aspx

2) The Sister claims: "There's a much better option - life imprisonment with no parole. Many outstanding members of the clergy have already testified to this."

REPLY: There is no "better" about life without parole. It is a decidedly different sanction than the death penalty. Juries have the option, between those two sanctions, thereby allowing them to choose what they find as the better of the two, for the crime before them. Neither the Sister nor those clergymen have expressed why locking up one another for life so expresses "love one another". Biblically, there is a well known distinction between how we, personally, respond to those who harm us and how the government should respond to those criminals who harm the innocent.

3) The Sister states: "That no mistakes have been made is a mistake to claim. Other states have discovered their fatal errors."

REPLY: Which states, Sister? There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900. The evidence is that the death penalty is a superior protector of innocents, over a life sentence.

Review: The Death Penalty Provides More Protection for Innocentsose

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/01/30/the-death-penalty-provides-more-protection-for-innocents---new-mexico.aspx

4) The Sister states: "As to economics, it simply doesn't hold water to claim that a life sentence is more expensive than a death sentence. Researched data has disproved that position."

REPLY: Well, no. Some studies are simply horrible in their lack of thoroughness. And, if all states imposed the death penalty as does Virginia, then true life cases would, almost always, be more expensive than the death penalty.

Review: "Cost Savings: The Death Penalty" first comment at

http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/governor_keeping_close_eye_on_death_penalty_debate/8764/

5) Let us hope and pray that Montana can join the "leadership" in our country on this issue with abolishment of the death penalty!

REPLY: It is very likely that the Sister has no clue as to what horrid "leadership" that has been.

Please review:

"Rebuttal to Governor Richardson - Repeal of the Death Penalty in New Mexico"

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/19/rebuttal-to-governor-richardson--repeal-of-the-death-penalty-in-new-mexico.aspx

"Why did Gov. Richardson repeal the death penalty? His legacy"

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/31/why-did-gov-richardson-repeal-the-death-penalty-his-legacy.aspx

"DEAD WRONG: NJ Death Penalty Study Commission"

Response, at bottom. One of four response to New Jersey Assembly Speaker Roberts.

http://hallnj.blogspot.com/2007/12/case-for-repealing-death-penalty.html

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally

Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let's be clear

2009-03-23T15:24:00.001-04:00

Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let's be clear
by Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, 0309

There is a constant within all jurisdictions -- negative consequences will always deter some. Whether a jurisdiction with high murder rates or low ones, rather rising or lowering rates, the presence of the death penalty will produce fewer net murders, the absence of the death penalty will produce more net murders.

In their story, "States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates", The New York Times did their best to illustrate that the death penalty was not a deterrent, by showing that the average murder rate in death penalty states was higher than the average rate in non death penalty states and, it is. (1)

What the Times failed to observe is that their own study confirmed that you can't simply compare those averages to make that determination regarding deterrence.

As one observer stated: "The Times story does nothing more than repeat the dumbest of all dumb mistakes — taking the murder rate in a traditionally high-homicide state with capital punishment (like Texas) and comparing it to a traditionally low-homicide state with no death penalty (like North Dakota) and concluding that the death penalty doesn't work at all. Even this comparison doesn't work so well. The Times own graph shows Texas, where murder rates were 40 percent above Michigan's in 1991, has now fallen below Michigan . . .". (2)

Within the Times article, Michigan Governor John Engler states, "I think Michigan made a wise decision 150 years ago," referring to the state's abolition of the death penalty in 1846. "We're pretty proud of the fact that we don't have the death penalty."(3)

Even though easily observed on the Times' own graphics, they failed to mention the obvious. Michigan's murder rate is near or above that of 31 of the US's 38 death penalty states. And then, it should be recognized that Washington, DC (not found within the Times study) and Detroit, Michigan, two non death penalty jurisdictions, have been perennial leaders in murder and violent crime rates for the past 30 years. Delaware, a jurisdiction similar in size to them, leads the nation in executions per murder, but has significantly lower rates of murders and violent crime than do either DC or Detroit, during that same period.

Obviously, the Times study and any other simple comparison of jurisdictions with and without the death penalty, means little, with regard to deterrence.

Also revealed within the Times study, but not pointed out by them,: "One-third of the nation's executions take place in Texas—and the steepest decline in homicides has occurred in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, which together account for nearly half the nation's executions." (4)

And, the Times also failed to mention that the major US jurisdiction with the most executions is Harris County (Houston, Texas), which has seen a 73% decrease in murder rates since resuming executions in 1982 -- possibly the largest reduction for a major metropolitan area since that time.

Also omitted from the Times review, although they had the data, is that during a virtual cessation of executions, from 1966-1980, that murders more than doubled in the US. Any other rise and fall in murders, after that time, has been only a fraction of that change, indicating a strong and direct correlation between the lack of executions and the dramatic increase in murders, if that is specifically what you are looking for.

If deterrence was measured by direct correlation's between execution, or the lack thereof, and murder rates, as implied by the Times article, and as wrongly assumed by those blindly accepting that model, then there would be no debate, only more confusion. Which may have been the Times' goal.

Let's take a look at the science.

Some non death penalty jurisdictions, such as South Africa and Mexico lead the world in murder and violent crime rates. But then some non death penalty jurisdictions, such as Sweden, have quite low rates. Then there are such death penalty jurisdictions as Japan and Singapore which have low rates of such crime. But then other death penalty jurisdictions, such as Rwanda and Louisiana, that have high rates.

To which an astute observer will respond: But socially, culturally, geographically, legally, historically and many other ways, all of those jurisdictions are very different. Exactly, a simple comparison of only execution rates and murder rates cannot tell the tale of deterrence. And within the US, between states, there exist many variables which will effect the rates of homicides.

See REVIEW, below

And, as so well illustrated by the Times graphics, a non death penalty state, such as Michigan has high murder rates and another non death penalty state, such as North Dakota, has low murder rates and then there are death penalty states, such as Louisiana, with high murder rates and death penalty states, such South Dakota, with low rates. Apparently, unbeknownst to the Times, but quite obvious to any neutral observer, there are other factors at play here, not just the presence or absence of the death penalty. Most thinking folks already knew that.

As Economics Professor Ehrlich stated in the Times piece and, as accepted by all knowledgeable parties, there are many factors involved in such evaluations. That is why there is a wide variation of crime rates both within and between some death penalty and non death penalty jurisdictions, and small variations within and between others. Any direct comparison of only execution rates and only murder rates, to determine deterrence, would reflect either ignorance or deception.

Ehrlich called the Times study "a throwback to the vintage 1960s statistical analyses done by criminologists who compared murder rates in neighboring states where capital punishment was either legal or illegal." "The statistics involved in such comparisons have long been recognized as devoid of scientific merit." He called the Times story a "one sided affair" devoid of merit. Most interesting is that Ehrlich was interviewed by the Time's writer, Fessenden, who asked Ehrlich to comment on the results before the story was published. Somehow Ehrlich's overwhelming criticisms were left out of the article.

Ehrlich also referred Fessenden to some professors who produced the recently released Emory study. Emory Economics department head, Prof. Deshbakhsh "says he was contacted by Fessenden, and he indicated to the Times reporter that the study suggested a very strong deterrent effect of capital punishment." Somehow,
Fessenden's left that out of the Times story, as well. (5).

An analogy. Consider smoking. Whether a jurisdiction has high smoking rates or low ones, rather rising or lowering rates, the knowledge of medical problems from smoking will produce fewer net smokers, the absence of any medical problems from smoking would produce more net smokers.

It is the same for all prospects of a negative outcome - they all deter some.

Maybe the Times will be a bit more thoughtful, next time.

REVIEW

"The List: Murder Capitals of the World", 09/08, Foreign Policy Magazine
Capital punishment (cp) or not (ncp)
murder rates/100,000 population

4 out of the top 5 do not have the death penalty

1. Caracas (ncp), Venezuela 130-160
Bad policing.
2. New Orleans (cp), La, USA 69-95
Variable because of different counts in surging population. Drug related.
Nos 2 & 3 in US, Detroit (ncp), 46 and Baltimore (cp), 45.
3. Cape Town (ncp), South Africa 62
Most crimes with people who know each other.
4. Port Mores (ncp), Papua New Guinea 54
Chinese gangs, corrupt policing
5. Moscow (ncp), Russia 9.6
various

Of the Top 10 Countries With Lowest Murder Rates (1), 7 have the death penalty

O f the Top 10 Countries With Highest Murder Rates (2), 5 have the death penalty

Top 10 Countries With Lowest Murder Rates
Iceland 0.00 ncp
Senegal 0.33 ncp
Burkina Faso 0.38 cp
Cameroon 0.38 cp
Finland 0.71 ncp
Gambia 0.71 cp
Mali 0.71 cp
Saudi Arabia 0.71 cp
Mauritania 0.76 cp
Oman cp

Top 10 Countries With Highest Murder Rates
Honduras 154.02 ncp
South Africa 121.91 ncp
Swaziland 93.32 cp
Colombia 69.98 ncp
Lesotho 50.41 cp
Rwanda 45.08 ncp
Jamaica 37.21 cp
El. Salvador 36.88 cp
Venezuela 33.20 ncp
Bolivia 31.98 cp

(1) http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-lowest-murder-rates.html no date

(2) http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-highest-murder-rates.html no date

FOOTNOTES

1) "States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates", The New
York Times 9/22/00 located at
www (dot) nytimes.com/2000/09/22/national/22STUD.html and www (dot) nytimes.com/2000/09/22/national/22DEAT.html
2) “Don't Know Much About Calculus: The (New York) Times flunks high-school
math in death-penalty piece", William Tucker, National Review, 9/22/00, located
at www (dot) nationalreview.com/comment/comment092200c.shtml
3) ibid, see footnote 11
4) "The Death Penalty Saves Lives", AIM Report, August 2000, located atwww (dot) aim.org/publications/aim_report/2000/08a.html
5) "NEW YORK TIMES UNDER FIRE AGAIN", Accuracy in Media, 10/16/00, go to www (dot) aim.org/
copyright 2000-2008 Dudley Sharp: Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Repeal of the Death Penalty in New Mexico

2009-03-19T19:36:00.000-04:00

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: A Rebuttal to Governor Richardson
Repeal of the Death Penalty in New Mexico
Dudley Sharp, contact info below

1) Gov. Bill Richardson states: "Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe." (1)

REBUTTAL: There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US since 1900. There is overwhelming proof that many thousands of innocents have been murdered because of the lack of perfection in parole, probation, early release, prison/jail management etc.

Why did the Governor choose to end that criminal justice practice - the death penalty - which may be the least likely to result in innocent deaths?

Lack of perfection had nothing to do with his decision.

In addition, the death penalty protects innocents at a higher level than does a life sentence. (FOOTNOTE: "Death penalty repeal arguments are false" paragraph 2 & 3).

No one disputes that the death penalty has greater due process than lesser sentences - meaning that actual innocents, serving life, are more likely to die in prison than are actual innocents likely to be executed.

2) Governor Richardson stated: "The bill I am signing today .. . replaces the death penalty with true life without the possibility of parole – a sentence that ensures violent criminals are locked away from society forever .. . ." . (1)

REBUTTAL: Governor Richardson knows that there is no such thing as true life without "possibility" of parole.

The only absolute with sentencing is that the executive branch, a Governor or President, can commute any sentence and release criminals, early - as Governor Richardson did, in Nov. 2004, when he commuted Janet Vigil's "life" case. (2)

How quickly he "forgot".

Gov. Richardson's buddy, former New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya, commuted William Wayne Gilbert's death sentence in 1986.

Gilbert led a 7 inmate prison escape, a few months later, where Gilbert shot a guard. (3)

Gilbert had previously murdered " . . . his wife, Carol; a newlywed couple, Kenn and Noel Johnson, and a young model, Barbara McMullen. He bragged of other murders, as well. 'It was very easy to kill," he said. "It's almost like it's the night before Christmas when you're 5 years old.' "

Hardly a great candidate for commutation. But, this commutation wasn't about the criminal or about the citizens of New Mexico. It was all about Gov. Anaya. His commutations of all death row, had nothing to do with allegations of protecting innocents - it did just the opposite, of course - he just didn't like the death penalty and he takes no responsibility for the outcome.

In addition, legislatures can write new laws which, retroactively, reduce sentences already given.

Gov. Richardson is aware that states around the US are, now, doing just that, as more consider reducing life sentences to save money by releasing lifers, early.

3) The Governor stated: "More than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years in this country, including four New Mexicans – a fact I cannot ignore." (1)

REBUTTAL: The Governor has been informed, repeatedly, that the 130 exonerated is a complete fraud, as has been well documented by many and presented to the Governor, often (FOOTNOTE, paragraph 3). Not only is he not ignoring this deception, he is advancing it, even when it is so easy to disprove. Governor, how many innocents were harmed and murdered because of the lack of perfection in parole, probation, early release, prison/jail management etc.?
---------

4) What about law enforcements' concerns?

"The New Mexico Sheriffs' and Police Association opposed repeal, saying capital punishment deters violence against police officers, jailers and prison guards. District attorneys also opposed the legislation, arguing that the death penalty was a useful prosecutorial tool." (4)

They told the Governor that the death penalty saves lives and helped solve cases.

The Governor conceded that "the death penalty may be a deterrent"(1), thereby telling us that the death penalty is more likely to save innocent lives than it is to take them.

He also conceded that by repealing the death penalty he was taken away a tool for law enforcement. (1) He didn't speculate how many innocent lives he was sacrificing by ending that tool.

We may never know why he really ended the death penalty. We do know that it had nothing to do with saving innocent lives.

"Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White said law enforcement officers have 'lost a layer of protection and it's a sad day in New Mexico.' " (4)

(1) Gov. Bill Richardson's statement on signing the repeal of New Mexico's death penalty (3/18/09)

(2) " In Loving Memory of Estevan Vigil", http://www.nmsoh.org/vigil_estevan_mem.htm

(3) "Let Loose by the Governor", The Justice Story, The New York Daily News, 3/11/07
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/03/11/2007-03-11_let_loose_by_the_governor.html

(4) "New Mexico governor signs measure to abolish death penalty"
DEBORAH BAKER, Associated Press Writer, Originally published Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 5:21 PM

-----------------------------------------

FOOTNOTE: "Death penalty repeal arguments are false"

In a message dated 3/17/2009 4:37:39 P.M. Central Daylight Time, Sharpjfa writes:

To: Governor Richardson, staff and cabinet and
Corrections Department and Police Agencies and media throughout New Mexico

From: Dudley Sharp, contact info, below

Dear Honorable Governor Richardson:

In addition to all of the pro-repeal arguments being weak or false (see below), the death penalty should remain as the just sanction for some of the worst crimes.

JUSTICE: The death penalty should remain in New Mexico because of justice. New Mexico is currently investigating serial murders which, to date, have reached 14 victims. Leave the death penalty option up to New Mexico jurors, for such cases as this, as well as the rape/murder of children and the murder of police officers and correction workers and other crimes.

1) COST SAVINGS

The LFC fiscal evaluation wrongly found the North Carolina death penalty more expensive than a 20 year "life" sentence. It wasn't. The was the only study cited (1)

Reasonable and responsible protocols, currently in use, will produce a death penalty which will cost less or no more than LWOP. (2)

Example: Virginia executes in 5-7 years; 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed; 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned. With the high costs of long term imprisonment, a true life sentence will be more expensive than such a death penalty protocol. (2)

Most cost studies suffer from major problems, such as a) not crediting the death penalty for allowing plea bargains to a true life sentence ( $300,000 to $1 million savings or more, for each plea); 2) not including geriatric care for life sentences (cost of $60,000-$90, 000/year/inmate); c) deceptively inflating costs of executions, based upon putting all the costs of every death penalty case into those executed (see Florida); d) many more such problems, or even worse. (2)

2) MORE PROTECTION FOR INNOCENTS

Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty? Unlikely.

Innocents are more protected because of enhanced due process, enhanced incapacitation and enhanced deterrence. (3)

Anti death penalty folks claim that 130 "innocents" have been released from death row, nationally. Fact checking easily uncovers this as a scam. Study reviews have found that 70-83% of those claims are not credible. Possibly 25 "actual" innocents have been identified and released from death row. (4)

There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.

There is overwhelming proof that living murderers harm and murder, again. Executed ones don't.

3) 16 recent studies find for DETERRENCE

16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence. No surprise. Life is preferred over death, death is feared more than life. (5)

There is a constant within all jurisdictions -- negative consequences will always deter some - a truism.

NOTE: Repeal proponents bring up that many death penalty states have higher murder rates than non death penalty states. That has nothing to do with the deterrent effect failing, as fully explained to them and you in a previous email. (6)

Whether a jurisdiction has high murder rates or low ones, rather rising or lowering rates, the presence of the death penalty will produce fewer net murders, the absence of the death penalty will produce more net murders.

An analogy. Consider smoking. Whether a jurisdiction has high smoking rates or low ones, or rising or lowering rates, the knowledge of medical problems from smoking will produce fewer net smokers, the absence of any medical problems from smoking would produce more net smokers.

4. STRONG PUBLIC SUPPORT

80% death penalty support, for specific capital murders, such as mass murder, serial murders, rape/murders, terrorism, etc. (6)

-- 82% in the US favor executing Saddam Hussein, In Great Britain: 69%, France: 58%, Germany: 53%, Spain: 51%, Italy: 46%. , Le Monde (France) , 12/06
-- 81% support Timothy McVeigh's execution - "the consensus of all major groups, including men, women, whites, nonwhites, "liberals" and "conservatives." 16% oppose (Gallup 5/2/01).
-- 85% of liberal Connecticut supported serial/rapist murderer Michael Ross' "voluntary" execution. (Quinnipiac 1/12/05)
-- 79% support death penalty for terrorists (4/26/2007 New York State poll)
-- 78% of Nebraskans support death penalty for “heinous crimes.” 16% opposed. 76% opposed legislation to abolish. MPB Public Affairs Poll, 2/14/08)

Most quoted polls wrongly poll for murder, not capital murders. The death penalty is only an option in capital cases. Possibly, 10% of all murder cases are death eligible. Those are the only cases relevant to death penalty polling.

5) THE LEAST ARBITARY PUNISHMENT

The US death penalty is likely the least arbitrary and capricious criminal sanctions in the US. About 60,000 murders qualified for a death penalty eligible trial, since 1973. 8000 murderers were so sentenced or 13% of those eligible. Based upon pre trial, trial, appellate and clemency/commutation realities and that high percentage (13%) of receiving the maximum sentence (absent mandatory sentences) the death penalty must be the least arbitrary and capricious sanction.

-----------------------

Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Respectfully submitted, Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally

1) "LFC Fiscal Error: Death Penalty Repeal - For Senate Judiciary Committee Record"
email to Senate, 3/9/2009 6:11:28 P.M. Central Daylight Time
2) "Cost Savings: The Death Penalty: For Senate Judiciary Committee Record", email to Senate, 3/9/2009 4:45:21 P.M. Central Daylight Time
3) "Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents" NM, email to Governor Richardson, legislature and media, 3/4/2009 2:49:23 P.M. Central Daylight Time
4) "The death row 130 "innocents" scam" NM, email to Governor Richardson, legislature and media, 3/4/2009 1:36:11 P.M. Central Standard Time
5) "The Death Penalty is a Deterrent - 16 Recent Studies", NM, email to Governor Richardson, legislature and media on 3/4/2009 1:31:35 P.M. Central Daylight Time
6) "Death Penalty and Deterrence: Let's be clear" NM, email to Governor Richardson, legislators and media on 3/4/2009 1:52:09 P.M. Central Standard Time

Incredible Costs -Life Without Parole

2009-03-15T10:21:00.002-04:00

From Dudley Sharp, contact info below

1. " . . .state officials estimate that an average prisoner costs California about $35,000 a year and that elderly inmates, who require more care, cost an average of $70,000."

"The price of punishment"SCOTT SMITH. The Record, Jan 29, 2006
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060129/NEWS01/601290307/1001/ARCHIVE

2. "A California study found that annual medical costs for prison inmates 55 and older are $60, 000 to $80, 000."

"Robbing Ourselves Blind: The Economics of Getting Tough on Crime, Hary Merriman, Sociology of Law, 9/30/00.
http://www.oberlin.edu/news-info/01may/robbingblind.pdf

3. "The National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, an Alexandria-based organization that advocates alternatives to incarceration, estimates the average yearly cost of confining an elderly prisoner at $69,000 -- more than three times the $22,000 spent on ordinary inmates.

" Cost of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down"

Bill Sizemore, The Virginian-Pilot, 3/7/00,
http://p199.ezboard.com/fdrugpolicytalkseriesnewsarticles.showMessage?topicID=10.topic

4. "Young prisoners cost the system $21,000 per year on average while older prisoners cost $60,000. And for those over age 60 the average cost is $69,000 per year -- twice the cost of a nursing home." "The situation will get worse as our prison population continues to age. In 1998 7.2 percent of the 1.8 million prisoners in federal, state and local prisons were over age 50, up from 4.9 percent in 1990 And the numbers will increase to as much as 10 percent over the next few years."

"Release of older prisoners could save taxpayers money, Bernard Starr, News Chief, 9/13/99
http://www.polkonline.com/stories/091399/opi_oldprisner.shtml

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

What time is it? (execution time)

2007-06-07T01:21:00.000-04:00

Execution opponents engage in some of their most desperate arguments when they make the claim that when death sentences are carried out late at night, they intentionally scheduled to hide the event. Evidence to the contrary of these claims includes the fact that schedules are posted well in advance. Additionally, everyone in the prison knows what will happen the night of an execution, but the vast majority have no “say so” when it comes to changing things around them.

The prison population is comprised mostly of, you guessed it, offenders. Death penalty foes purposely ignore security measures intended to protect witnesses, participants, offenders and other prison staff. The impact of scheduling executions at a time when operations are at a relative lull should be obvious. Most offenders sleep peacefully while the condemned are read their last rites or encouraged to be calm and accept their punishment. The condemned murderer exits prison grounds in an inconspicuous vehicle. Nobody usually notices.

Prison schedules are an important part of what makes them secure. Offenders used to rituals are lulled into a sense of security. They know what to expect and when to expect certain things. Creating schedule exceptions means that something new or special is occurring and gives them reason to question what’s going on or test security for flaws.

Condemned inmates aren’t the only offenders in the prison. Making one class of offenders “more special” makes all the rest “less special”, even on execution night. Undue attention can motivate offenders to fight amongst themselves or to do other things to draw attention.

Another obvious or likely question is, if executions are indeed “special events” inside the prison, why not eliminate them? The answer to that is simple. Prisoners should not be allowed to dictate what their sentences should be. Justice should be what the courts (or jurists) determine, based on the law. Capital punishment is part of North Carolina law.

Appropriate punishments should continue to include the occasional and deserved execution (for premeditated murders with aggravating circumstances) because not all murderers can be contained inside prison walls. Imprisonment alone doesn’t address the crimes of all murderers either. Meting out a single sanction to all murderers doesn’t acknowledge the heinousness of the worst or most predatory… and just because a few who truly deserve execution escape it doesn’t mean that they all should either.

Convicted murderers (all of them) should be considered potentially dangerous… and to encourage violent criminals to believe that they should continue contacting the outside world (via prison ministry groups or the media?) is contrary to the needs of public safety and justice. Yet certain organizations (trial lawyers, radical groups and prison ministries) actually encourage offenders to make themselves known outside prison walls or pair them with pen pals.

Many of those who advocate for condemned inmates are “part timers” when it comes to their involvement. They can afford to look at the system in idealistic ways and insinuate that we should have a “perfect judicial system” or a perfected execution method before we allow executions to resume. These aren’t the same persons who’ve lost relatives and friends to the predators the wind up on death row. The average anti-death penalty protestor is someone that doesn’t know what it’s like to tell the mother and father of a real victim that their child has been murdered. The average anti-death penalty protester doesn’t believe that murder or other violent crime will affect their family. These “part timers” have the luxury of being able to shuck their business suits and ties, or Thai dyed T-shirts at the end of the day and forget that living predators would think nothing of intimidating (or killing) those who’ve testified against them. Their idealism is admirable but it’s not based on reality.

Death penalty foes have no use for a “real” death penalty or a death row because in their minds, the circumstances (or aggravating factors) that would lead reasonable persons to believe there is such a thing as a capital crime don’t exist. They count states like New York and New Jersey as “death penalty states” even when they don’t actually execute. “OJ Innocence” is their standard. Life, even psychopathic ones, no matter how dangerous is so precious to them that they’d rather risk innocent ones... they forget that murderers love to manipulate their advocates into getting them released… so that they might harm others. Is it any surprise that these persons (DP foes) don’t acknowledge that there are more offenders who’ve been released from prisons after serving time for first or second degree murder than there are on death row? These same persons and groups don’t acknowledge the behaviors that offenders engage in while they are incarcerated (except for participation in religious groups)… or escapes. 14 murderers are currently in escape status from the North Carolina prison system. No matter what your position is on capital punishment, the fact that these murderers are not serving their sentences should deserve notice.

Do prison schedules prevent death penalty opponents from turning executions into yet another public spectacle? If the protests outside the prison walls are any indication, then the answer is “No”. They (death penalty foes) cross lines, get arrested and perpetuate myths with astounding ease. These acts all sell papers or get airtime. If some of these “actors” lose some sleep over execution schedules, maybe that’s a “good thing”?

Meanwhile, the vast majority of North Carolinians don’t feel a need to prevent what’s happening in the execution chamber, no matter what time of day prison staff happens to schedule it. If ordinary citizens distrust the judicial system now it’s because it’s so easily slowed or broken by frivolous arguments and obvious grandstanding. For its part, the General Assembly should be ashamed of its inaction. Leadership seems to be confused or stuck in “wait and see” mode.

At the beginning (or the end) of any given day does it really matter what time it is when a condemned inmate is executed? No! Executions aren’t scheduled for the convenience of demonstrators or media, nor should they be. Public safety, justice and the schedules of the vast majority of the other prison “residents” should have a priority.

Counting the wrong thousand

2005-11-29T18:54:00.000-05:00

Recently I learned that Kenneth Lee Boyd could become the 1000^th murderer executed since 1977, when capital punishment was reinstated. I’ve given the issue of capital punishment serious thought over the past few years and publicly shared some of my thoughts about this issue on occasion. Death penalty foes and the media have focused on a grim statistic, one that demonstrates their confusion about the issue in general. My point here is that they are counting murderers as if they are some kind of victim.

The statistics that persons who advocate against the death penalty often fail to acknowledge are the lives of innocent victims who died at the hands of these condemned/executed inmates. I found the following information on the Internet:

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/scheduled_executions.htm

1977 - 1997 Executions	Murderers	Victims
1977 - 1997 Executions	434	690
1998 Executions	68	134
1999 Executions	98	177
2000 Executions	85	156
2001 Executions	66	267
2002 Executions	71	120
2003 Executions	65	129
2004 Executions	59	88
	946	1761

It’s easy to see that there is an average of nearly two victims per murderer or inmate who gets executed. Another statistic that death penalty foes fail to acknowledge is that 100% of these condemned inmates were guilty of the capital murders they were executed for.

I don’t make a point of attending death penalty related rallies or protests. Persons like me who support capital punishment are not “bloodthirsty” or vengeful. We only expect that the law be carried out to its fullest (so that the innocent might be better protected). Death penalty protests are usually held or organized by persons who have some tie to condemned inmates. Such persons are quick to equate convictions with executions or an acquittal with actual innocence. There is no sense in trying to reason with such persons. Many of these rallies are attended by students whose knowledge of the judicial system comes from fictional works such as “Dead Man Walking”, “The Green Mile” or the “The Fugitive”. They’ve already made up their minds. Their motivations are often very selfish or narrow minded. They are there to dance for the cameras, to court the media and each other.

I would consider going to Central Prison on the night of an execution. I wouldn’t join the protesters in the parking lot though. I sent Warden Polk an email a while back requesting to be a witness for the state if space were made available. I have my own reasons for supporting capital punishment and if I were asked to attend an execution it would be to confirm my beliefs about this subject. I doubt it would change my perspective much though.

There don't seem to be any questions of guilt in Boyd’s case, he’s admitted to the murders. It seems like a slam dunk in terms of an execution this time. To my knowledge, family members of the victims support this sentence. I plan to send a letter to Governor Easley supporting the execution of this double murderer today.

Three NC Murderers Scheduled for Execution

2005-10-14T12:40:00.000-04:00

North Carolina Department of Correction Secretary Theodis Beck has set the execution dates for three North Carolina inmates.

Steven Van McHone is scheduled to be executed at 2 a.m. on Nov. 11, 2005. The execution is scheduled for 2 a.m. at Central Prison in Raleigh.

McHone, 35, was sentenced to death March 7, 1991 in Surry County Superior Court for the June 1990 murders of Mildred Johnson Adams and Wesley Dalton Adams Sr.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/4th/0414p.pdf

McHone’s prison behaviors include: SUBSTANCE POSSESSION, PROFANE LANGUAGE, DISOBEY ORDER, FIGHTING, and UNAUTHORIZED FUNDS.

McHones convictions include: MURDER FIRST DEGREE (PRINCIPAL), FAILURE TO STOP FOR ACCIDENT (PRINCIPAL), FELONY B&E (PRINCIPAL), LARCENY (OVER $200) (PRINCIPAL) and MISD B&E (PRINCIPAL).

Elias Hanna Syriani is scheduled to be executed at 2 a.m. on Nov. 18, 2005.

Syriani, 67, was sentenced to death June 12, 1991 in Mecklenburg County Superior Court for the summer 1990 murder of Teresa Yousef Syriani. He stabbed her 28 times with a screwdriver. She had filed for divorce days earlier.

http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/0412.U.pdf

Syriani’s prison behaviors include: DISOBEY ORDER.
Syriani’s convictions include: MURDER FIRST DEGREE (PRINCIPAL).

Kenneth Lee Boyd , is scheduled to be executed at 2 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2005.

Boyd, 57, was sentenced to death July 14, 1994 in Rockingham County Superior Court for the March 1988 murders of Julie Curry Boyd and Thomas Dillard Curry.

http://www.aoc.state.nc.us/www/public/sc/slip/slip96/547-88-2.html

Boyd’s prison behaviors include: PROFANE LANGUAGE, and DISOBEY ORDER.

Boyd’s convictions include: MURDER FIRST DEGREE (PRINCIPAL), and ABANDONMENT (PRINCIPAL).

Matters of Procedure vs. Political Hacks

2005-09-22T08:45:00.000-04:00

Cries for a study on capital punishment in North Carolina have been driven by an occasional acquittal, pardon, some decisions retry cases or exonerations. Not to resort to legal "nitpicking" but at least one of these cases where doubts of guilt existed still resembles “OJ type innocence” (hardly proven or actual). Come to think of it, no one-armed men were seen running from the crime scene and the victim didn't "murder himself". If the "legal landscape" had been unchanged by all of these events, reasonable persons might wonder if we should expect more of the same. Fortunately, and as a matter of procedure and ongoing review by persons more intimately (professionally) interested and involved in the process, this is not so.

Many of those who advocate for more study chose not to acknowledge that the current appellate process culled these cases where questions about guilt might exist from the “capital stringer” before they were executed (or even scheduled for execution). Equally ignored by moratorium or study sponsors are newly enacted laws requiring all prosecutors to disclose more evidence prior to trial or during the discovery process. Some of the requirements related to disclosure merely documented the existing procedures practiced by DA’s. To be sure, it’s clear that all lawyers (prosecutors and defense) involved in capital trials will now have to abide the same predefined (by law) levels of discovery.

There is no rush to execute those who are condemned and innocent persons are not being executed in our state. It’s arguable that many persons who advocate for an outright moratorium on executions confuse occasional wrongful convictions with wrongful executions. The wrongful execution rate is zero.

Many of those who have requested the proposed study on capital punishment have clients to represent or an agenda that includes abolition of the death penalty. A “fake death penalty” (or policy of moratoria) serves them just as well as (or better than) outright abolition. There’s no arguing with persons who insist on referring to unpublished or incomplete UNC studies that include questionable interpretations of possible racial bias when it comes to sentencing proven murderers. There are others who find it politically convenient to attack the judicial system or delay executions of murderers that truly deserve their sentence. Instead investing careful thought into how the courts work or providing thoughtful suggestions on how the courts might respond more fairly towards minorities, these persons waste little time demanding that the capital process be (temporarily?) shut down.

It’s not new news that a contentious issue such as capital punishment is likely to draw persons who really have no desires to see what some persons call “justice”. The creation of another legislative study commission could create a venue for these persons to grandstand for their causes or engage in self promotion and further erode public confidence in the system. What would moratorium or study sponsors say if the participants in proposed study commissions were required to be “death qualified” in many of the same ways that juries are?

Instead of allowing political hacks and special interests to manipulate the justice system, we should encourage thoughtful review of each criminal case (individually) using the courts as they are intended. Requiring “just another study” would amount to a “one-time review” of the system. Isn’t this redundant because the appellate process already provides multiple levels of mandatory review as a matter of procedure in each and every capital case? Put another way, doesn’t each and every capital case trigger a review of the issues of fairness in the system? What can’t moratorium (or study) sponsors study (on their own?) while executions of the guilty continue? Why should North Carolinians be forced to fund and endure the personal learning curves of moratorium advocates while proven predators escape justice?

Avoiding a lethal Oops...

2005-06-08T15:10:00.000-04:00

The bedwetting alarmists are calling for a moratorium on executions again in the Raleigh News and Disturber. That should come as no surprise to even casual readers of the paper because those on staff there (editors or columnists or some combination of both) have already decided somehow that only a moratorium (on executing the guilty) can be in our best interests.

Imbedded in the “pep talk” to persons who’d support the idea of a halt to executions is another reference to their “poster boy” Alan Gell. No surprise there either. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the N&O to acknowledge that Gell was never even scheduled for an execution and that a working system (minus the new laws relating to disclosure) is what eventually led to his eventual acquittal. Acquittals occur when there’s a weak case state’s against a suspect in a case. Does anyone remember O.J. Simpson, or Ron and Nicole? Nobody at the N&O (or promoting a moratorium) is writing about Allen Ray Jenkins, that’s for sure.

The wheels of justice are surely slow but there are no doubts about the guilt of those who’ve been recently executed and no one is currently scheduled for execution now. So why can’t these alarmists schedule a review while justice runs her course? The answer to that question is apparent, the moratorium (or halt) is the real goal and the study or any potential improvement or constructive suggestion that these persons might have for the system is an afterthought (for moratorium supporters or death penalty foes, in some circles it has been said that these are really the same persons).

Oops, in case no one noticed, the wrongful execution rate is zero. Meanwhile, the number of inmates who have already murdered who could have been executed or who committed additional crimes while behind bars is certainly greater than zero and increasing almost every day.

http://www.doc.state.nc.us/admin/memorial.htm
http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/escList
http://crrp41.doc.state.nc.us/docs/pubdocs/0006461.PDF

Should North Carolinians be encouraged to support a study commission that consists of a league of moratorium supporters? Will other persons who can demonstrate that their interests lie in what's best for all North Carolinians (not just death row inmates) be included? Now there are some questions that need to be asked and answered before Speaker Black considers taking a bill to the floor for a vote or creating any special study commissions!!

Death penalty foes try to buy justice

2005-06-07T14:49:00.000-04:00

Don’t get me wrong, if we can encourage condemned inmates to behave during their time behind bars that’s a good thing. Promotion of constructive behaviors in our prisons can certainly help reduce medical expenses that result from the assaults that are inflicted on other inmates and corrections staff. Good behaviors behind bars don’t make up for past bad deeds though. The Lord knows; families of victims deserve more restitution when/if they can get some.

Should monetary compensation be considered before a condemned inmate is actually executed?

Anti-Death penalty groups seem to be asking that question. It’s quite possible that many death penalty foes have forgotten that in the list of ingredients (aggravating and motivating factors) that got many of these condemned inmates where they are (death row) there is often 1 part “camouflage” for every part “predator”. No murderer can ever make up for the life or lives that they’ve already extinguished (certainly not with money).

Who can say for sure what motivates some inmates to attempt to compensate their victims for the trouble they caused? It’s also worth asking, who can guarantee that many of these same murderers won’t attempt even more violent crimes (additional murders and escape)?

Today’s “poster boy” for “not executing the guilty” seems to be a Jeffrey Kandies whose current residence is Central Prison in North Carolina. Too bad articles about him fail to mention his 9 infraction records behind bars. Most of these infractions are for using profane language or disobeying an order but he was found guilty of possession of a weapon during his incarceration. Obviously, wise persons would never turn their back towards a proven murderer (even this one).

Kandies’ execution seems to be getting closer as his appeals work their way through the courts. His infractions are minor compared to other condemned inmates but one must never lose track of what crime he committed to “earn” his death sentence. Some prosecutors could argue at length that those on death row are no closer to dying than the average citizen. A moratorium on executions could make Kandies’ execution a little less real for him (and for those that remain on death row or others who might consider murdering an innocent victim).

Legislators in North Carolina are currently considering what some persons call a “temporary halt” to executions while they conduct a study of the judicial system. At the same time they fail to explain why they can’t study the system without a moratorium. Moratorium supporters (alarmists?) seem to think that an innocent person might be executed or that the system is unfair. Most families of victims view moratoria as a “legislative continuance with additional uncertainty” (not a judicial one) in an already endless series of reviews (a defense tactic).

What no one is asking is, “what constitutes fairness for those who would be forced to endure the learning curve of the moratorium advocates?” (i.e., families of victims or those that feel threatened by these murderers). No one seems to expect death penalty foes to accept responsibility for any death row inmates who might be executed during the two year “time out” if one stabs another inmate or a corrections staff person. What’s “fair” about that?

When condemned inmates or those that advocate for them actually help victims, it’s admirable but, no one should be tempted into thinking that restitution can make the families of murder victims whole. Justice should never be “For Sale” because some murderers attempt to compensate their victims.

Let’s just hope that our leaders aren’t so simple minded that they will decide right from wrong on this issue based only on the number of phone calls or emails that they get from the alarmists that think a moratorium is necessary.

Lazy Reporting

2005-03-30T22:05:00.000-05:00

Patricia Parker doesn't really know if she wants her brother's killer punished by death. Her brother’s murderer has not been brought to justice and she has not been presented with all of the facts related to the crime. Her first hand qualifications for judging the judicial system don’t exist (yet).

Yet she’s being quoted by news media (as a representative of murder victims or their families?) and advocating for a moratorium on executions as if she really knew or represented all of their best interests? As a relative of a murder victim she’s certainly entitled to her opinions whatever they are on capital punishment (as an individual) but she doesn’t speak for all victims! It’s worth noting that if her brother’s case ever gets tried in “capital” way and the murderer is sentenced to death she stands a good chance of having at least two opportunities (sentencing and clemency) to voice her opinions on what she thinks the appropriate sentence might be (in the proper forums, i.e., not just the media).

Parker doesn’t even speak for the majority of persons who’ve lost a loved one to homicide or a majority of those family members who’ve seen the murderer of their loved one sent to death row. Reality is that District Attorneys are reluctant to pursue a sentence that the family of a murder victim doesn’t support. This doesn’t mean that all murder cases should be treated the same when relatives of murder victims oppose (or support) the execution of a murderer either. Sometimes the best interests of the state require an execution (or clemency) and these interests conflict with the desires of those who are related to the victims. These “conflicts” don’t mean that the death penalty (or an occasion commutation) is wrong.

But that’s what Parker and moratorium advocates are saying. If a moratorium is enacted, and by delaying executions for at least two years, the state will be treating all proven murderers in the same way. Moratorium supporters are engaging outright dismissals of the heinousness, brutality, dangerousness (even behind bars) of the murderers. Juries have said that these crimes scream for or “require a death sentence”. Even the sheer number of victims that some murderers killed (of those who might be executed in those two years) is being dismissed to some extent.

The next murderer scheduled for an execution is Earl Richmond. By all accounts this offender is guilty of no less than four murders. Moratorium supporters would have the state delay his execution so that they might review the fairness of sentences like his. How many murders would Richmond have to commit to be eligible for death or for his death sentence to be “fair”?

The most recent execution was attended by at least two relatives of a victim (Mary Gladden). William “Bugs” Powell bludgeoned Gladden’s head to the point he’d dislodged one of her eyeballs. Despite the dislodged eye and evidence that Powell showed little or no concern for his victim after he was jailed Powell’s lawyers argued that the murder was not premeditated. Unbelievable!

What is believable is the murderers who have been executed in recent years will never cause harm to other persons (corrections staff, other inmates or themselves). The murderers, who were executed, are dead AND THEY WERE GUILTY! There are no looming questions about their guilt either.

Parker and her five friends do not speak for the majority of those who have lost a loved one to homicide. Giving moratorium advocates half the media exposure or half the attention doesn’t give their opinions more weight that others who are right. The arguments of capital punishment should not be reduced to infighting amongst persons who are related to murder victims. Victims should never be pitted against each other like moratorium advocates are attempting to encourage.

Isn’t it apparent that when moratoriums on executions are observed or abolition occurs that only those persons that oppose the idea of an occasional and deserved execution get what they want?

Hopefully the General Assembly won’t turn the moratorium issue into just another political issue. Some of our leaders have already engaged in tactics that include “race baiting” by focusing their observations on perceived racial disparities in prison or death row populations without acknowledging the behaviors (murder, rape, robbery etc), which require the sentences. Favors should not be traded or alliances made (or broken) so that we can protect some guilty and violent murderers from a timely execution. If lawmakers want to study the system or suggest constructive changes that will improve the system for all of those who are accused nothing prevents that. It’s clear that those who support a moratorium are only listening to persons who advocated for the condemned (defense attorneys, relatives of the murderers, prison clergy, pacifist/activists).

Moratorium supporters repeatedly (and conveniently) fail to acknowledge the value of a judicial system that has identified cases (including Gell) where guilt was less than absolutely sure and provided relief when it was appropriate. Instead of making constructive suggestions on how to improve the system, they merely promote indecision (delays) and promote one bill. When the system works, all they see is flaws. The moratorium legislation only amounts to an attack on a sentence; it’s not a genuine attempt to improve anything. They have one item on their agenda; no other tangible legislation is on their radar.

When it comes to the arguments about meting out death sentences (fairly); just who are the sponsors and supporters of the moratorium legislation listening to? When moratorium advocates listen to persons whose primary duty is to represent a client (to the exclusion of others), you should wonder how objective these persons could be. There’s no question about it, they will protect the guilty if they can. And the closer you look into their agenda, the less sense they make.

Death penalty opponents or moratorium advocates (some persons say they are the same thing) only understand that “they know what’s best for all murderers” and they really don’t care what the results of any studies are. They just want to steer us all down a course that includes more delays and indecision (not justice?). These persons who propose moratoria are not among those who might be most directly affected if a murderer escapes his prison cell or kills again. Maybe the next time a new prison needs to be built, it should be in “line of sight” of where these moratorium supporters live or work? Maybe then they might understand? Then again, maybe they have been so socially engineered by their precious murderers that they really don’t know or care how much of a danger they might represent to others anymore.

The "report" (by AP or ABC?) wasn't really a genuine attempt to report truth or real news. It represents more of an attempt to inflame (and misinform?) viewers/readers. Some relatives of murder victims might not support the execution of some murderers (Patricia Parker really doesn't know) but these persons don't speak for all friends and family members of homicide victims (nor should they). The "report" was just STAGED AND SPOONFED MORATORIUM PROPAGANDA AND A PRODUCT OF LAZY REPORTING

Execution Date Set for Earl Richmond - May 6th, 2005

2005-03-18T15:01:00.000-05:00

Earl Richmond DOC# 0343602

Richmond was found guilty of the November 2nd, 1991 first-degree rape and the first-degree murder of Helisa Hayes. While at the home of his victim, defendant had "forceful" sex with Helisa, beat her, and strangled her to death. Defendant then took Helisa’s son Phillip into the bathroom, where defendant strangled him with the electrical cord of a curling iron and stabbed him numerous (at least 20!) times in his head and body with a pair of scissors. After killing Phillip, defendant went into Darien's bedroom, sat her up on her bed, and strangled her to death with a curling-iron cord. Ms. Hayes’ father, William Stewart, discovered the bodies of his daughter and two grandchildren on November 4th when, after having not heard
from Ms. Hayes for two days, he became concerned about her safety. During this initial interview, Richmond told police that he had not been to Ms. Hayes’ home during the weekend of the murders. Moreover, Richmond sought to shift attention from himself. Richmond became a suspect when his sister, Andrea Knight, informed police that she had dropped Richmond off near Ms. Hayes’ home on the early morning of November 2nd after they and others attended an all night house party. In light of this information, police requested a suspect rape kit from Richmond, which revealed, through DNA evidence, that the semen found inside of Ms. Hayes’ body belonged to Richmond. Richmond, after initially denying any involvement in the murders of Ms. Hayes and her two children, confessed to having committed the murders.

In the opinion of Dr. John D. Butts, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, the adult victim died as the result of strangulation. She had numerous blunt-force injuries; tears, scrapes, and bruises; abrading of the skin in the entrance to her vagina; and blood over a portion of her brain beneath a bruise on her scalp. Defendant's first-degree rape conviction properly supports his conviction for the first-degree murder of the adult victim under the felony murder theory.

While defendant may have consumed alcohol and cocaine prior to the murders, there is little evidence of the degree of his intoxication at the time of the murders. The evidence, however, suggests that defendant methodically killed everyone in the house, leading one victim into the bathroom and sitting another on the edge of the bed. He also tried to hide his crimes by pouring alcohol on the adult victim's genitals and taking with him the scissors he had used to stab one of the child victims. Such behavior is indicative of a capacity for premeditation and deliberation.

While awaiting trial on these charges, Richmond was charged in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey with the April 4, 1991 murder of Lisa Ann Nadeau, an army dispersing clerk at the Fort Dix military base. On May 28, 1993, Richmond was convicted of Ms. Nadeau’s murder and subsequently sentenced to a term of life imprisonment.

Infractions include: REFUSE SUBMIT/DRUG/BREATH TEST, WEAPON POSSESSION, MISUSE MEDICINE, NO THREAT CONTRABAND, ILLEGAL CLOTHING, and UNAUTHORIZED FUNDS.

Long enough?

2005-01-31T20:37:00.000-05:00

It’s amazing how much information you can glean from a short letter, if you just look. On January 31st, 2004 North Carolina inmate #0215851 had a letter to the editor published in the pages of the Raleigh News and Observer. Obviously offender Gregory H. Jones has too much time on his hands! Maybe he’s not had enough dishes to wash at Odom Correction Institute where he is being held in medium (not close?) custody.

Imagine if you were a relative of Jones’ victim(s?). The idea that the man who murdered your loved one and was supposedly “locked away” where no one would let him invade your lives again in 1978 just had his words delivered to your doorsteps today. Unfortunately, a “life sentence” then really hasn’t changed much today even though the lawyers say its “life without parole” and try to persuade folks that it should be enough. Justice isn’t always fair is she?

Aren’t Jones and other inmates like him who read and then write the papers using the media as a means to conduct further attacks on the families of their victims or others they have some grudge against? Some certainly think so. From the courtroom to the prison, and then they “court the media” from prison, for a life term? Isn’t this what’s happening now? What’s surprising is that Jones didn’t use some space in his editorial to complain about prison food or having to work.

How convenient it was that Jones saw fit to justify his own release stating that he’d served more time than he should have. Doesn’t he understand that he waived any rightful claim to parole after committing the first of his violent 103+ infractions behind bars?

Jones is in prison for 1st degree murder and another set of violent criminal offenses. His next review date is September 20th, 2005. It’s possible that the family and friends of his victims have passed or moved away. He committed his murders in the 1970’s.

Why should an offender like Jones even entertain notions of freedom? He’s certainly not been a model inmate. His 103+ infractions include: ACTIVE RIOTER, ASSAULT STAFF W/WEAPON, SUBSTANCE POSSESSION, ATTEMPT CLASS A OFFENSE, WEAPON POSSESSION, NON THREATENING FIRE, PROVOKE ASSAULT, REFUSE SUBMIT/DRUG/BREATH TEST, ATTEMPT CLASS B OFFENSE, MISUSE MEDICINE, PROFANE LANGUAGE, DISOBEY ORDER, FIGHTING, VERBAL THREAT, BARTER/TRADE/LOAN MONEY, ATTEMPT CLASS C OFFENSE, NO THREAT CONTRABAND, CREATE OFFENSIVE CONDITION, ILLEGAL CLOTHING, PROPERTY TAMPERING, UNAUTHORIZED FUNDS, POSSESSION MONEY, UNKEMPT ROOM, and MISUSE SUPPLIES.

Isn’t this (infraction record and the reason he’s in prison) proof to any reasonable person that Jones is and will remain a danger to himself and to others for the rest of his life? Yet each year he will be reviewed because he is “eligible” for parole. The law requires that parole commissioners review Jones’ case at least once a year now, until he dies in prison or is released.
http://www.doc.state.nc.us/parole/truths.htm

The state changes sides in cases like these. The primary obligation of the state now seems to be to make sure that the offender is granted all of his rights and is protected. He must be protected from other inmates (and himself). He is also allowed to voice his opinions in the news. This is at the expense of the relatives of his victims and other innocent North Carolina taxpayers.

So Jones wants to save the State and taxpayers a fortune. It’s quite likely that once released, Jones would cause harm to another victim and be right back where he is today or on death row in Central Prison. This would almost certainly mean that we would have to endure the extra expense of another indigent client and the costs of victimization to another taxpayer (or worse).

Obviously, we should all think twice before performing executions and use the laws and the courts to ensure that only the guilty and most dangerous offenders are the ones who get executed. Some death penalty foes contend that there is no real proof that capital punishment deters potential killers from committing murder. I’d prefer to believe that Jones represents one example of what deterrence can do. He’s not murdered any corrections staff (not yet anyway), but we continue to play the prison version of Russian roulette to pacify those who didn’t want him executed. Jones represents a loaded pistol with the hammer cocked; we are counting on him not to pull his own trigger and to control himself just enough not to actually harm himself or someone else.

Sometimes, (and despite the best efforts of corrections staff) offenders hurt others or become hurt. What incentive is there for an offender like Jones (who is obviously violent) from committing additional crimes? You can take away his television, visitation privileges, and access to the prison canteen and other things with only minimal effect. The only thing of value that this killer has left is the time he has on earth to eat, drink and breathe. The only thing he cares about is his life (not yours or anyone else’s). The threat of taking his life away is what has kept him from murdering again. A moratorium on executions only emboldens such inmates. When Justice blinks, the murderers abuse her.

31 on probation
277 on parole
182 on death row
5019 serving sentences inside NC Prisons

If justice were truly fair, Jones and inmates like him wouldn’t leave prison except to go to into a cemetery plot, and other inmates would be required to dig the hole. It’s too bad that there are more proven murderers who have served time for 1st degree murder who are on probation or parole than there are on death row. Maybe that’s what has motivated Jones to voice his opinions in the Raleigh News and Observer. It’s also a no-brainer that the N&O is probably one of the more popular newspapers in North Carolina prisons. Could this be because the Raleigh News and Observer more often sides with inmates, or confuses them with being victims? Or do many media sources like the N&O ignore victims and victim issues because their primary sources are those who advocate for the condemned or condemnable? I think it’s a little bit of both.

North Carolina legislators are considering a moratorium on executions. They believe that they might be doing the state a service by reviewing the fairness of sentencing of many murderers. Jones and a lot of other killers didn’t get to make it to death row. Is the General Assembly punishing the relatives of victims because we might not be executing often enough? Maybe...

ref:

Published: Jan 31, 2005Modified: Jan 31, 2005 1:15 AM
Long enoughhttp://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/story/2075907p-8455982c.html
According to your Jan. 8 article "New top-tier prison questioned," the state Department of Correction wants to build another $90 million, 1,000-man prison. Instead, why don't they parole the 2,600 prisoners eligible under the old laws?
The Fair Sentencing Act was in effect from 1980 to 1994. The "pre-fair" laws were before 1980. Some of us have done more than 24 years. I've done 29.
If the state would parole everyone eligible for parole, it wouldn't need new prisons. They could even close a few, and save the state a fortune.
Gregory H. Jones
(The writer, an inmate at Odom Correctional Institution, is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.)

Nice guys on death row?

2005-01-26T16:36:00.000-05:00

In recent days, I’ve noted that ex-death row inmate Allan Gell has made statements to the media implying that condemned inmates are “motivated to behave” or they may find it even more likely to be executed. That generally speaking, “the row” is a less violent place than "general population". Such remarks were made in what is obviously weak attempt to re-humanize death row inmates in the minds of North Carolinians, an effort which is being led by death penalty foes like Gell who say that they are promoting a study of the justice system and at the same time demanding a moratorium on executions. Having never spent time on death row as an inmate, I can’t profess first hand knowledge of what it’s like there or understand all the motivations that drive death row inmates, so I entertained Gell’s comments for a spell.

If as Gell says, the mere threat of an impending execution is enough to make at least some inmates think twice before committing additional and obviously violent (or even annoying) infractions, is that not also proof that capital punishment has a deterrent effect on crime? If there are some offenders that can’t be deterred by any sanction, shouldn’t the state consider executing these bad players first (if it can)?

Contrary to Gell’s statements, many death row inmates really are not well behaved. Recently executed murderers on North Carolina’s death row have been known to attack corrections officers and commit a number of different offenses while they sat on the row. If these inmates were moved to general population, there’s no guarantee that these murderers wouldn’t continue with their bad habits or become even more violent. More to the point, without an occasional and deserved execution these already violent felons could become even more violent. Seriously now, without a death penalty, what sanction will have any meaning to an offender who is already serving a life sentence (without parole)? You can’t add any real time to what the courts have already demanded that they serve. Adding a 2 years delay to the cycle only complicates matters and doesn’t come without some additional costs or risks.

How many proven “cop killers” or “kid killers”, wife beaters and robbers do we need to protect from an execution after they’ve already committed the most heinous crime of all (premeditated murder)? The death penalty abolitionists and state paid defense attorneys would have us protect all of them.

Today they are promoting a moratorium on executions. This they say is so that they can study the system and improve it. Supposedly their motivation is to save innocent lives. What about the innocent lives we risk (or lose) when we fail to execute? It slowly becomes more apparent that they intend to protect the guilty (even more than the innocent?).

Have the sponsors of the moratorium legislation actually lived in fear of a murderer who has already snuffed the life out of one of their loved ones? Doubtful. So whom do they represent?

A closer look at the persons who support the moratorium will show that they include persons of the clergy who minister to death row inmates, friends or family members of proven murderers, paid representation for the inmates (trial lawyers), well meaning but misguided students who are attacking a sentence instead of making constructive solutions, or so-called Person’s of Faith who would abolish capital punishment (no matter how violent the murderer).

Most of these moratorium supporters go home each night to a place that’s far away from Central Prison (or any other). They don’t live within line of sight of a corrections facility or a mental institution. They don’t get harassing phone calls from the murderers of their loved ones. They don’t live with the thought that a murderer might escape or disgrace the memory of their loved one even more by committing additional crimes either. Their social experiences include participation in these groups that glorify (or worship) death row inmates.

Due to the efforts and constant supervision of corrections staff, the average moratorium supporter, defense attorney or prison clergyman doesn’t have to worry very much about murderers attacking them when they visit "the row". It shouldn’t come as a surprise that most these murderers are reluctant to "bite the hands that feed them" (for as long as they are fed). Just who is using who more? Maybe that’s something they never considered studying… because they just can’t imagine murder happening to them or someone they love. Maybe one day, one of their "pets" will bite... and only then will one moratorium advocate understand why executions must continue... if for only a short time.

Execution Date Set for William D. Powell

2005-01-25T21:34:00.000-05:00

State officials have announced a March 11th execution date for death row inmate William Powell #0239098.

Powell’s behaviors behind bars include: SUBSTANCE POSSESSION, DISOBEY ORDER, NO THREAT CONTRABAND, FAKE ILLNESS, and MISUSE SUPPLIES.

William Dillard Powell murdered Pantry convenience store clerk Mary Gladden on October 31st, 1991, by beating her on the head and face with a tire tool or lug wrench. Gladden was murdered for about $48 that was stolen from the register. Powell was observed at the crime scene; one eyewitness actually saw Powell inside the store at the approximate time (within 6 minutes) of the murder. Other evidence indicating Powell’s guilt includes taped confessions.

This murder was particularly brutal. The victim had numerous lacerations on her face, with corresponding skull fractures underneath. Part of her left ear was torn off. Her nose was broken on the left side, and her left eye was displaced due to a fracture of the bone behind the eye. The victim also had lacerations on her forearm and hand, indicating that she struggled for her life. Further, she had internal injuries. For example, she had bone fragments embedded in her brain from the numerous fractures. Her brain was torn in some places and protruded from the skull in others. Finally, she had several bruises on her brain and a sub-dural hemorrhage.

Powell has been determined to have an average IQ and normal concentration skills, language functions, sensory ability, and visual ability. Evidence showed that Powell was raised in a loving family, had worked as a jailer and with the fire department, and was well liked and not violent. An expert in psychology and neuropsychology, testified that he performed comprehensive testing of defendant on 22 November 1992. The results showed that defendant's memory, problem-solving skills, and motor functions are impaired. This was the result of using about a half gram of cocaine each day. Until two months prior to the murder the drugs were purchased from cashing social security checks that were meant for the support of his son. Prosecutors argued that Powell’s drug habit and lack of money is what motivated him to rob the grocery.

Two jailers at the Cleveland County jail testified that defendant had adjusted well to life as an inmate and had caused no problems. *Note: This contradicts his prison infraction record.

More information can be found in the State Supreme Court Opinion (Click Here)

When Lawyers Misspeak

2004-12-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

Last September David Hoke and Debra Graves were brought before the North Carolina Bar to answer to their performance (or lack of it) as prosecutors in the initial trial of Alan Gell. The facts surrounding the Gell case have become almost self evident because of the extensive coverage from the Raleigh News and Observer. For those that missed it, evidence was withheld in the first Gell trial and as a result of that and new interpretations of physical (forensic) evidence by medical examiners, the case was subsequently retried and resulted in an eventual acquittal.

Today’s “digression” being offered up by N&O staff reporters (Joseph Neff) is related to some statements made by the state’s senior prosecutor, Jim Coman during a hearing where the NC Bar Association considered what punishment was appropriate for prosecutors Graves and Hoke. At issue is whether or not state prosecutors are intentionally withholding evidence that should be presented to defense attorneys when appeals are considered or prior to trial. It should be noted that recent legislation has been passed (that was inspired by the case in question) that now requires full disclosure of evidence against the accused prior to trial.

Anyone familiar with the Gell case already understands that established disclosure procedures allowed defense attorneys to uncover the questionable statements that were withheld at first trial. Eventually this information was used to impeach or undermine the testimony of witnesses who implicated Gell in the murder of Allen Ray Jenkins. Now media reporters and lawyers for condemned inmates believe they’ve discovered an “odd policy”.

It’s understandable that lawyers (or media persons?) representing condemned inmates should question why prosecutors might not divulge all witness statements before trial. Even still, some testimony or witness statements may seem more relevant to the case at hand than others or some statements resemble “trash”. Sometimes during interrogation or questioning witnesses become agitated or sarcastic and say things that they might later regret. Are prosecutors required to provide evidence or testimony to other lawyers that they believe is not true or just stupid things that angry 15-year-old girls say when they are implicated in a murder? What happened then is now a moot issue. The law now says even when those witnesses “talked trash” it should be shared prior to trial. The lawyers in the Gell trial have since been admonished (or publicly spanked?) for their indiscretions.

None of the statements that impeached witnesses for the state were permanently hidden. All the evidence that existed prior to trial was eventually turned over by the same prosecutors who were eventually admonished. Some would argue that Alan Gell got more consideration in the courts because his case was considered in a “capital way” and that this worked in his favor. Even those who know and love Alan Gell, knew he was no “choir boy” before Jenkins was murdered. If law enforcement and prosecutors were eager to believe in Gell’s guilt it might have been because he’d already impeached himself. These facts or Gell’s history as a felon prior to being accused of murdering Jenkins escapes acknowledgement in the pages of the N&O. Now, who is withholding more or more often?

Missing in the pages of the Raleigh News and Observer is any reference to who (other than Alan Gell) might have murdered Allen Ray Jenkins. In their search for a “story” (not truth?), they’ve focused on attacking officers of the court or faults they think they see in procedure. Suddenly (or not so suddenly) it has become more important to reference information (or digressions) about other unrelated cases (Munsey) instead of the case at hand (Gell). If there is “new news” on the Jenkins murder, when will readers hear about it? Or is it more important to focus on misstatements by state prosecutors?

The courts have spoken on the Gell case (acquittal). The North Carolina Bar Association has admonished the lawyers involved in withholding evidence in the first Gell trial. If defense attorneys suspect that evidence has been wrongfully withheld in individual cases, arguments should be presented in our courts and decided “one by one” based on evidence, testimony, logic and facts, not en-masse or supported only by rumor, hearsay or speculation. If the Attorney General’s office has ever engaged in any “odd policies”, past or present, on other cases, that remains to be seen.

Is the Raleigh News and Observer "reporting" news (as it happens) or manufacturing it? Or is it in the business of creating fear, uncertainty and doubt where there really doesn’t need to be? More importantly, where’s justice for the family of Allen Ray Jenkins? If this really is more than “just another story” to the N&O, maybe they can do more than poke at prosecutors who happen to misspeak.

Lost Generations

2004-12-16T21:53:00.000-05:00

Statistically speaking black men are committing more crimes and face more and longer terms of incarceration. “These lost generations” are not just a racial issue or related to one race. Think of the victims that these young men (of all races) leave in their wake. The impacts are inter-racial and cross generational.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict_v.htm

I consider myself lucky. I grew up in a household where my siblings and me lived with both my mother and father until I was almost 16. Then my parents divorced. Mom wasn’t rich; she was a schoolteacher. My father wasn’t any better off financially speaking. I grew up in South Florida in an area where drugs and bad influences were as common as anywhere else. Trouble was easy to find for those who weren’t afraid of it (or just didn’t care). Nothing prevented me from joining the military in the early 1980’s and I didn’t. I didn’t finish college either; I just went to work. The thought of going to prison was shameful. Taking something that wasn’t mine or harming someone else purposefully was appalling too.

A lot of kids these days don’t have any shame when it comes to criminal activities. Their role models are all eventually imprisoned or accused of some crime. Only a precious few (if any) college or professional athletes have clean records (legal or medical). They grow up with a Nintendo mentality (say “I’m sorry” and everything’s ok). They play Grand Theft Auto on video game machines at home in and in the real world.

Where do today’s youths learn about personal responsibility? Presidents commit adultery on the job, CEO’s are subpoenaed, investigated, convicted and imprisoned every year. When parent’s fail, why should we think it’s just their fault? Let’s face it, when “Junior” ends up in prison for life, it’s too darn late for everyone.

Members of the Saiz family have expressed support for the execution of convicted murderer Dwight McLean. They (Saiz’s) will share a life sentence dreading potential escapes or violent infractions of inmates like McLean. After sentencing, the State represents the offender; they are responsible for his well being now. As far as the State is concerned, the Saiz’s have all the justice they are going to get. It’s “case closed” as far as the courts are concerned. Lawyers say that life without parole means McLean will die in State custody. Lawyers also argue about the definition of the word “is”. No one can personally guarantee that McLean’s last breath of air will be drawn behind prison walls, or that he will never harm another person or never escape. Sad, ain’t it?

WRAL forgot who the victims are here. Yes, McLean was only a kid (17) when he murdered Robert Saiz, but 16 year old kids are given drivers licenses every day by the North Carolina DMV and they are entrusted to make life or death decisions on our roads. McLean committed PREMEDITATED MURDER, not an accidental traffic infraction. McLean wasn’t charged with being careless or stupid. He purposely pulled the trigger on a firearm (during a robbery) and shot his victim from behind (a victim trying to flee).

I don’t blame Dwight McLean’s parents for the murder of Robert Saiz. They didn’t pull the trigger. I blame Dwight McLean. He knew better and murdered anyway. Now he has to live with the consequences. Dwight McLean is not a victim! When we “feel sorry” for these murderers or put them up on a pedestal or glorify them in any way, we enable the next generation to do the same things.

The courts said that executing Dwight McLean might be the wrong thing to do; as a result, he was sentenced to “life”. Whose life? Only time will tell if he doesn’t harm a corrections officer, another offender or commit suicide. Things happen in prisons that are crueler than taking a nap on a gurney. There are no questions concerning guilt in McLean’s case. He’s not been in prison for all that long and he’s already committed a few “minor infractions”. Let us all hope that Saiz family's concerns about a mere life sentence or justifications for an execution are not confirmed. Dwight’s probably got another 50 years to go before this is over…

http://www.wral.com/news/3976105/detail.html

Laws, Lawyers and the Lawless

2004-12-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

The New York Times recently published an extensive piece regarding some cases that the Supreme Court of the United States has rebuked (or might reverse) from the State of Texas. By some accounts recent reversals are supposed to send a message to the Fifth Circuit Court, that they need to focus on the principals of appellate law or previous Supreme Court decisions.

One of the arguments being made in the Supreme Court involves some Texas cases where white jurists and black defendants may have been involved in some sort of unfairness. What’s being implied (but not said, in as many words) is that some form of bias is the reason is why juries agreed on a death sentence, instead of life without parole. If these claims can be substantiated with proof of bias, that remains to been seen. On the surface, it looks like some defense attorneys think it is unreasonable to believe that a mostly white jury is capable of an impartial and objective decision for as long as the victim or defendant are not also white. How convenient?

Arguments are that these death sentences couldn’t have been a result of a jury’s impartial assessment of guilt or a defendant’s confirmed and established behaviors based on evidence, testimony, logic and facts, which were presented in court. Not when you ask a defense attorney, that’s for sure. I don’t usually read claims of unfairness aloud in a nasal tone for entertainment. Please excuse my sarcasm and disbelief. This doesn’t mean that claims of prejudice should be dismissed without due consideration or that they are considered flippantly.

One should not be surprised if some (or most) of these claims are just another series of weak boilerplate arguments that defense attorneys made on behalf of their clients . In many cases the racial bias claims are false ones. If bias does exist in an individual cases and jurists really have based their decisions on some prejudice, it should be argued, but with some kind of proof or witness testimony, not supposition. The courts should not be burdened with guesses or arguments that are made for the sake of arguing. Frivolous claims should result in some kind of disciplinary action but unfortunately, that’s not usually the case when baseless claims are made.

The purpose of playing the “racial card” is to shift blame for a verdict to other persons when juries decide that an execution is appropriate. The more desperate the client or the defense, the more likely there will be an attack on the courts. To some extent, trial lawyers are sometimes “professionally suicidal” when they sabotage their clients defense in some way (as drunken or sleepy lawyers) or are revealed to have used some arguably ineffective strategy. Another defense tactic is to attack the credibility of witnesses or jurists or other officers of the courts (judges or prosecutors).

A tendency for defense attorneys or media persons (or Hollywood actors) sensitive to the interests of death row inmates to reduce court arguments to “politics” (or ideology) is often observed as well. When prosecutors serve in higher (appellate) courts, it’s perceived to be an injustice to persons who are convicted by defense attorneys or advocates for the condemned. These justices serve at the pleasure of the public. When confidence in these persons is lost, they can be (and often are) replaced. If there are faults with decisions made in appellate courts, the Supreme Court of the United States has proven itself (repeatedly) capable of reversing decisions or admonishing inferior court decisions when they see error. For some reason, these persons who represent the condemned who find fault with appellate courts don’t find fault with public defenders that seek employment with private firms. Is that fair, or objective?

Oftentimes, the goal of the defense team is to reverse or re-try a case until a more satisfactory (for the accused) sentence or verdict (not guilty?) is reached. The defense’s first obligation is to their client or what they believe to be in the best interests of their client. That’s their perception of justice. It’s a necessary part of the judicial process and how adversarial parties achieve what some persons call “fairness”. If a criminal is wrongfully released because of an error, that is not "their problem" either. Really!

Part of the problem (undermined confidence in our courts) is founded in myth or ignorance. For instance, if all a person knew about trial lawyers or the courts was what they read in certain papers or anti-death penalty websites, justice could never be trusted. Contrary to popular belief, the requirements for passing State Bar exams or for becoming a lawyer don’t include alcohol related problems or some condition that makes a person a complete dolt or morally bankrupt. Rarely do advocates for the condemned describe their peers as professional or even remotely competent.

Reality is not TV; most trial lawyers (defense, prosecutors or judges) look and sound like normal persons. They are not actors or actresses who recite from scripts written by Hollywood’s best scriptwriters. In fact, many court proceedings are quite boring to most citizens.

Some cases are just made less boring. The media often “spins” cases in such a way that they can stimulate fear or uncertainty in even the most blatantly one-sided trials or decisions. When they (media) create doubt, it sure doesn’t hurt ratings (or revenue). The media is quick to point out that when prosecutors withhold evidence (even unintentionally), or when defense attorneys might have made a mistake. They remind the public that they should be wary. Yet, the media regularly withholds information about some murderers that makes many murder cases less controversial (offender infraction records during incarceration, prior offenses or convictions etc). Lies of omission are played for all they are worth, sometimes.

The goal of these persons who are advocating for condemned murderers is to undermine the faith that others (media, officers of the court, or the public) have in executions. The race card argument has nothing to do with the actual guilt or innocence of the client, and claim concerning prejudice are in many cases, nothing but a digression. Lawyers are using racial arguments as justification for postponements, these lawyers are engaging in “delay tactics”. These arguments are intended to avoid “the inevitable”, (delay and deny) for as long as possible. It should come as no surprise that many who represent indigent clients are compensated by the number of hours that they put into a case. So it should be even less of a shock when it’s made clear that many of the best arguments made on a clients behalf aren’t made until the last minute or until after an execution is actually scheduled.

Using racially charged arguments serves another purpose for defense attorneys. “Promotion of their client” is the politically correct term by these lawyers. When claims of racial bias are made without justification, reasonable persons have to wonder if they are also motivated by a desired to engage in a very public form of self-promotion (for the benefit of the trial lawyer, not the accused). In such cases the accused is reduced to a prop. In other cases, lawyers have actually "bonded" in some way with their clients. In one case in North Carolina, a death row inmate professed his love for one of his attorneys shortly before his execution. If arguments for a condemned murderer become too personal or failure to save a client more heartbreaking than usual, its possible that an attorney got too close to a client or involved in a case.

Now that states such as Texas have executed many of the offenders who were more violent, had cases that were more easily proven or those that were less defendable, it should come as no surprise that a number of cases have been rebuked or reversed because of some technicality. Should that encourage doubts in persons who support executions or encourage persons who oppose capital punishment to become more vocal? I don’t think so.

I think we should encourage the courts to focus on making quality decisions and enforcing the will of juries. Implementing and abiding known best practices actually works in everyone’s best interests. If some of us know enough to complain about the judicial system, we should challenge ourselves to propose tangible and reasonable solutions that can be implemented by sensible people. We shouldn't whine or encourage whining. We certainly shouldn’t limit ourselves to a defense attorney’s definition of the word “fair” when it comes to capital punishment. Such a thing probably won’t happen in Texas. Some prosecutors could argue at length that those on death row, even in Texas, aren’t any closer to dying than the average citizen. Especially in states like California or New York.

One thing is for sure, for as long as the courts tolerate frivolous claims, frivolous claims will be made. Part of determining the merit of these claims (specious or real) is hearing them in court. So don’t hold your breath waiting for things to change. When our courts or advocates for the condemned go “above and beyond the call of duty, to circumvent the will of a jury”, I think it should be done sparingly and with care (within the limits of the law). If problems with individual cases exist, they should be addressed one by one with quality arguments or evidence, not personal attacks or supposition. Just because a court affirms a sentence or a claim is determined to be unverified or an error is determined to be harmless, this doesn’t mean that the defense is entitled to retry case in the media. If we are not going to abide the will of our juries and enforce the sanctions they recommend, why do we have courts or laws? Isn’t that just another form of lawlessness (with a false perception of due process)?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/national/05texas.html?hp&ex=1102309200&amp;amp;amp;amp;en=cb3c23993931bdaa&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Charles Walker's execution stayed.

2004-12-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

Charles Walker's execution date was stayed on December 2nd, 2004.

http://www.doc.state.nc.us/dop/deathpenalty/walker_chronology.htm
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1895086p-8230821c.html

Walker has at least two convictions in his record, one for the first-degree murder and another for conspiracy to commit murder of Elmon Tito Davidson, Jr. He was in disciplinary segregation (10/16/2004) at Central Prison in Raleigh.

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/offend1?DOCNUM=0420511&SENTENCEINFO=yes&SHOWPHOTO=yes&numtimesin=2

On 12 August 1992, Walker, Sabrina Wilson, Antonio Wrenn, Pamela Haizlip, Rashar Darden, and Jesse (Jay) Thompson were at Nicki Summers' apartment, directly across from Haizlip's apartment. Summers and Wilson told Walker and Haizlip that Davidson attempted to take money and drugs from Haizlip's apartment the preceding night. Walker told Haizlip to lure Davidson into her apartment and keep him there. Thereafter, Walker, Darden, and Thompson entered Haizlip's apartment through the back door and found Davidson sitting on the couch. As they entered, Walker said that they were going to kill Davidson. Walker and Darden were armed with pistols, and Walker told Haizlip to leave.

Walker and Darden then pulled their guns, pointed them at Davidson, and made him sit down on the floor. Thompson tied Davidson's hands with duct tape and radio wire. Walker talked to Davidson; then Davidson's mouth was taped, and his feet were tied with rope or string. Walker hit Davidson on his kneecaps at least three times with a hammer. Davidson's hands came loose and were then secured by handcuffs. Walker gave a .380-caliber pistol to Thompson and left the apartment. Davidson was laid on the floor. Thompson cut Davidson's throat three times and then shot him through a pillow in the little finger and in the arm. Darden also shot Davidson several times with a .22-caliber pistol. Afterwards, Darden left and talked with Walker at Summers' apartment. Darden told Walker, "He ain't dying." Walker then reentered Haizlip's apartment, took the gun from Thompson, and shot Davidson in the neck. After the shooting and when Davidson ceased to move, Walker left the apartment.

North Carolina Supreme Court Opinion
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=nc&vol=1996%5Csupreme0510%5C&invol=walker

Fourth Circuit Court Opinion
http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/0311.U.pdf

Walker’s infraction record during his incarceration includes at least 94 infractions, which include:

FIGHT INVOLVING WEAPONS, SUBSTANCE POSSESSION, INVOLVEMENT W/GANG OR STG, ATTEMPT CLASS A OFFENSE, WEAPON POSSESSION, PROVOKE ASSAULT, HIGH RISK ACT, DAMAGE STATE/ANOTHERS PROPERTY, UNWANTED COMMUNICATE W/VICTIMS, ATTEMPT CLASS B OFFENSE, MISUSE MEDICINE, PROFANE LANGUAGE, DISOBEY ORDER, FIGHTING, OFFER/ACCEPT BRIBE ANOTHER, VERBAL THREAT, THEFT OF PROPERTY, BARTER/TRADE/LOAN MONEY, MISUSE/UNAUTH-USE PHONE/MAIL, THREATEN TO HARM/INJURE STAFF, ATTEMPT CLASS C OFFENSE, NO THREAT CONTRABAND, ILLEGAL CLOTHING, PROPERTY TAMPERING, UNAUTHORIZED FUNDS, and ATTEMPT CLASS D OFFENSE.

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/raw1?DOCNUM=0420511&INMV9CF1=on&SEARCH=Search

Currently his attorneys claim that no physical evidence links Walker to the 1992 murder and that no body, blood or forensic evidence links their client to a crime. They also attack the credibility of witnesses who testified against him.

WRALTV: Attorneys: No Evidence To Link Client To Murder, http://www.wral.com/news/3939581/detail.html Viewed on the Internet November 22nd, 2004

Raleigh News and Observer, Former justices urge mercy, Andrea Weigl, November 24th, 2004.

http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1858025p-8192406c.html

Former N.C. chief justice James G. Exum Jr. and former justice J. Phil Carlton have asked Easley to grant a life sentence for Walker based on his history of paranoid schizophrenia..
Exum's letter said that Walker's mental illness made him unable to fully understand the consequences of rejecting a plea bargain.

In a letter to The News & Observer in 2003, Walker proclaimed his innocence and volunteered to take a lie-detector test, which his lawyer, Megerian said hasn't occurred. Walker has consistently denied any involvement in the crime.

Carlton and Exum both favor a moratorium on executions.

Walker qualified for the death penalty on two factors: his prior conviction for attempted murder and the violence of the killing. Davidson was shot, beaten and had his throat slit with a Ginzu knife. The jury further determined that Walker did not personally commit the killing, though it was convinced that he had prompted it.

In issuing the stay, Guilford County Superior Court Judge John Craig found the case unusual and wrote that "a fundamental miscarriage of justice would result from the court's failure to consider these claims." Prosecutors and defense lawyers are crafting further arguments on issues related to the reliabitity of witness testimony and Walker's role in the cruelty of the murder which will be explored in more detail next year.

Retreat from Capital Punishment…

2004-11-29T13:11:00.000-05:00

It should come as no surprise that advocates for condemned murderers respond to “red herrings” offered by the Associated Press that reference downward trends in the number of killers sentenced to death. The gross numbers by themselves don’t mean much. The missing part of the story is the reduction in the total number of truly capital crimes or those that lead up to such things. For instance, consider some other violent crimes that are often the precursors to aggravated murder (i.e. rape robbery). It’s not “new news” that violent crime in general is on a downward trend. So it might also be reasonable to expect that capital murders would also decline in number.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

If fewer persons are sentenced to death there might also some reasonable explanations that death penaly foes or defense attorneys (some say these persons are the same) don't acknowledge.

How about prosecutorial discretion? Consider cases where the closest relatives of a victim don’t want to pursue an execution (many murder cases involve other immediate family members), or they (relatives of victims) don’t want to bear the burden of a prolonged appellate process.

Why find fault in a reduced number of capital sentences? If for the sake of argument, jurists have “raised the bar” in terms of what they are willing to consider to be “reasonable evidence” when they decide on guilt or recommend a death sentence today, then that doesn’t mean that decisions made using a lower standard of proof are necessarily wrong. Trial lawyers aren't prevented from demanding clemency for condemned inmates in cases where known technologies or increased standards of proof (i.e. use of DNA or other forensic evidence/technologies) might prove possible innocence. Laws already require that such evidence be processed where it might free a convicted murderer. These increased burdens on prosecutors to prove a case should represent at least some comfort to persons who question guilt in individual cases.

So yes, the option of using some “prosecutorial discretion” might encourage some prosecutors to try fewer cases capitally. This often occurs where the evidence establishes guilt but does not justify an execution in some strong way. Since when is a decision based on efficacy, also biased or unfair? Isn’t this also a more efficient use of our courts and jurists?

The bottom line on statistics is that, they "might mean more to us" if all murders were committed in the same manner, by the same kinds of offenders and the victims were all equal in every respect, but this is not so. Not all cases are equally strong in terms of proving the heinousness of the crime or their motivations. Each murderer represents a unique risk to themself and to others persons (or inmates and corrections staff). Imprisonment means something different for each convicted murderer. Each crime is in fact unique. This is why juries make the decisions when it is time to consider an occasional (but deserved) death sentence. In the end, the statistics are just statistics.

So if polls show no appreciable changes regarding the overall support for capital punishment, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. If Americans continue to support the concept of capital punishment yet recommend the execution of fewer murderers, this should not be cause for concern either. Especially, if Americans are being more careful in recommending just who, gets executed.

Yes, occasional wrongful convictions should make us all more careful and demanding when it comes to meting out death sentences. Few persons acknowledge the fact that in the majority of cases where a supposedly wrongfully convicted murderer was released, that strong evidence indicating guilt usually still exists. This is a far cry from the “actual innocence” standard that death penalty foes would encourage persons to believe when a rare case is retried, or results in a acquittal, gets reversed, remanded or an error is found. If anything this proves how reluctant the courts are to follow up with an execution when a case against a condemned murderer is in fact, a weak one.

Concluding that the results of local elections reflect a change how the public views capital punishment would be short sighted too. America just re-elected an ex-Texas Governor to the presidency. He is a man with a strong background indicating support for capital punishment, in case no one noticed.

If some of us seem to take occasional (and public) joy in a death sentence that should be discouraged. Death sentences mean that the system has failed a victim by preventing a brutal murder. Make no mistake about it; murderers on death row are not to be confused with being victims. “Premeditated or 1st degree murder” means they had choices and did wrong. It's also worth mentioning that the effectiveness of counsel is considered for every condemned murderer as a part of normal procedure not happenstance.

If evidence is wrongfully withheld it should be considered in our courts. If an occasional or rare case demonstrates that these things have happened in the past, it also demonstrates that the courts threw the verdicts out when the circumstances called for it. The appellate process is there to root out all such errors and validate prior decisions in the courts. Yet some only find fault in the process when it actually works.

Death penalty foes even find fault in our leaders when they occasionally commute or overrule a death sentence. North Carolina’s Governor has commuted two condemned murderers sentences to life without parole. This demonstrates that compassion and leniency can be argued for on his watch. If lawyers are going to find fault with individual decisions the Governnor has made they had better substantiate such things with evidence, testimony, logic and facts, not supposition or statistics (or other weak arguments and whining).

So legislatively speaking, if the polls indicate that North Carolinians still overwhelmingly support capital punishment and from an evidentiary standpoint, we know that all of the murderers who have been executed were in fact guilty, why should we seek a moratorium on executions? Certainly not just because many advocates for death row inmates object to all executions! It makes no matter to them how heinous the crime or dangerous the murderer. Many of those who advocate for condemned murderers have a primary obligation to their clients and/or are paid to object to executions. So, when these persons voice their objections to the occasional and deserved execution we should consider just whom (or what) they are advocating for. Shouldn't we?!

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/story/1884679p-8213758c.html

Shades of Gray...

2004-11-22T11:25:00.000-05:00

On November 21st, 2004 an article was published in a local newspaper that included some statements from various persons on different sides of the issue of capital punishment. No news article, study or resource can ever fully accomplish the task of explaining why some cases are tried capitally while others are not. In the end, District Attorneys have been given the authority to use some discretion in what penalties to pursue and juries make a decision after guilt is established about whether or not an execution is appropriate.

Some persons object to the idea of an execution no matter how heinous the crime or violent the murderer might be. These persons who advocate for condemned murderers often associate a punishment for another crime or equate an execution with another murder. They also demonstrate what is arguably an “abbreviated attention span for facts” or lack of appreciation for the system even when it works to the benefit of a condemned murderer. When an occasional case is reversed or remanded or results in an acquittal after a new trial, they only find fault. Some persons never distinguish between presumed (or assumed) innocence and proven (or actual) innocence. The idea that our courts might occasionally be overly conservative, careful or cautious, and as a result wrongfully release murderers, escapes their attention.

Many factors are considered prior to trial when officers of the court decide on which punishment to pursue. The issue concerning what punishment a defendant might deserve really should lie with a jury. This does not mean that allowing at least some prosecutorial discretion is wrong. District Attorney’s have a first responsibility to do what they believe is in the best interest of the State. They hold elected positions and can be replaced if their performance is less than the public expects.

The State’s (or District Attorney’s) interests can conflict at times with the needs or desires of the friends or family members of homicide victims, but that does not mean that they are not considered (or shouldn’t be) when a case goes to trial. If a jury recommends a death sentence or "life without parole" in an individual case or there appears to be some unrelated pattern of increasing or decreasing death sentences (or other statistics), or some persons merely find these events/observations to be amusing, it doesn't mean they deserve special notice. Each case should be decided on it's own merits. All of these verdicts and sentencing recommendations deserve the reverence of the public. If additional evidence or facts happen to "change things", we should be supportive of the judicial process, not merely attack it. The public deserves to be notified too.

The idea of offering up disparate (and very recent and real) high profile cases as examples of the decisions that prosecutors face when deciding whether or not to try a case capitally is not necessarily new (Ann Miller-Kontz, Matthew Grant, Scott Peterson). The different sentences or prosecution strategies don’t indicate intentional or obvious unfairness. Persons, who object to instances where an execution was or was not considered, question if the process is fair for different reasons. Efficacy of prosecution is only one factor that should be considered before going to trial. Each case presents its own unique set of facts, circumstances and evidence; all have different levels of quality or present-ability in court. If prosecutors are influenced by the likelihood of a conviction and the efficacy of attaining an actual death sentence, that notion is not "new" either.

Attorneys who represent condemned or condemnable defendants work for the State, as do the prosecutors, on the other side of the courtroom. What makes them different from prosecutors is their primary task is to provide for the best interests of their clients (murderers?). This is a necessary part of the process. An effective and vigorous defense is required to maintain fairness (or that perception) in our courts. If a defense attorney conceded that any murder case deserves to be tried capitally, it might be perceived as a sign of weakness (by his or her peers, or those who depend on their services). So an occasional and public conclusion that a murder case doesn’t demand to be considered in a “capital way” should be considered with at least some reservation when made by certain trial lawyers (defending death row inmates). One should note that such persons rarely miss an opportunity to promote their clients and often engage in pubic appraisals of the judicial system or law enforcement, especially when their cases are particularly weak. One has to wonder how some of these persons sleep at night.

Even the most avid supporters of capital punishment wouldn’t propose to execute every single murderer, yet execution abolitionists believe that all murderers should be treated the same. If all murders and murderers are unique, how can sentencing all murderers to life without parole be considered fair?

Persons who support and oppose executions agree and disagree on almost every other issue. Each victim and defendant is unique. Each crime is unique. To treat all convicted murderers the same dismisses the notion that each murderer represents a unique risk to other persons (or himself) and that each victim represents a different kind of loss. Yes, all murder victims are “equally dead”, but victims all endure different pains and humiliation as they die. These are factors for jurists to consider, along with the desires of the friends and family members of the victims, not just the attorneys.

It’s a logical assumption that the primary issues of deciding whether or not to pursue a case capitally revolve around guilt and culpability, and strength of presentable evidence in terms of proving such things. The conclusion that a jury would “call it quits” or that unreasonable doubts might somehow become “reasonable” in capital cases because a death sentence is considered, fails to account for the fact that sentencing and guilt phases in murder trials are separate events. Special attention given to sentencing is evident in every capital case not just by a jury at trial but later on in the courts (appellate process).

The special attentions that condemned murderers receive are often criticized. Family members of victims are confronted with a State that frequently assumes an almost adversarial role by protecting an offender’s best interests first. Family members of the condemned demand more access to their loved ones, among other things. The fact that many victims and perpetrators are poor indicates some of the motivations that are behind the crimes, which require the ultimate punishment. “Righteous victims” are less prevalent in these populations too. This does not mean that victims or the condemned are being discriminated against in the courts.

If a family chooses not to repeatedly (and publicly) endure the disclosure of the checkered past of their loved one (or victim) and decides not to support pursuing an execution, one shouldn’t find fault with a prosecutor who respects those needs and desires. This doesn’t demonstrate that some families love the ones they’ve lost any less than others who support executions. At times, victims and defendants are closely related and families often wish to preserve what remains of their family, despite what has happened. Some surviving family members of murder victims seek executions because they feel threatened by the murderer. These needs and desires, whatever they are, should be respected.

Murder cases aren’t to be compared with games (playing horsehoes) or gamesmanship. They involve real persons who should be treated (and sentenced) individually. Arguments relating to such things, as “affirmative action” don’t apply to capital murder or executions. Statistical disparities should not be mistaken for actual bias. Issues of bias should be addressed based on logic and fact (not supposition or statistics). The murderers who happen to be on death row are there as a result of their proven behaviors and the results of a process that deserves more respect.

Yes, there are many shades of gray... and when readers, columnists or advocates for the condemned turn the issue into "blacks and whites" or "blacks versus whites" (with no "grays") consider what that means in terms of getting justice. Wouldn't it be wise to consider the motivations that influence these things? Don't we owe it to ourselves to decide each case individually based on the facts (evidence and testimony) on hand and not to mix them all up into indistiguishable shades of gray?

Raleigh News and Observer, Capital cases offer shades of gray, say prosecutors, Oren Dorrell, http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1849211p-8175977c.html , Viewed Online November 22, 2004.

Columnist misunderstands Miller case

2004-11-18T20:04:00.000-05:00

Re: Educated suspects get break
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1839325p-8158108c.html

Once again Sheehan “gets it all wrong”. As president of the “Death Row Inmates Have Feelings, Too, Club” readers reasonably expected that Ruth Sheehan would vehemently oppose any efforts to give jurists an opportunity to sentence Ann Miller-Kontz to death. Instead she threw readers a curve ball and some twisted logic. Sheehan’s feigned astonishment that the State did not seek an execution for Eric Miller’s accused murderer only confirms her lack of understanding of capital punishment. Whatever Sheehan’s “education” might happen to be on this subject (or murder cases in general), it surely doesn’t pass for knowledge.

Was Sheehan’s comparison of Miller-Kontz (a petite female with no criminal record to speak of) to Matthew Grant (a young man on probation that displayed an escalating pattern of criminal behaviors at the time he murdered a law enforcement officer) fair or objective? I don’t think so.

Grant acted alone when he pulled the trigger on Mark Tucker and even though he had help afterwards, that is more or less irrelevant. The two murders were committed for different reasons and by different persons. Each perpetrator has presented their own unique risks to the public in the past (even before the murders) and capacity to commit future violent crime (after their conviction).

The full story of Miller-Kontz may never be known because one suspect in that murder committed suicide and can’t be interviewed. Questions about culpability might not be so clear in the case of Eric Miller’s murder, when you compare them to a case that is more clear cut like Mark Tucker’s. If prosecutors are occasionally conservative in the way they handle certain cases it might also be related to how much strong and convincing evidence could be presented to a jury, and what they might NOT do. Not all murder cases can be tried capitally. If a District Attorney reasonably believes that a jury will not recommend an execution (based on the facts of the case) he can pursue a life without parole sentence.

If Sheehan believes that the accused/alleged murderer in the Miller case is equally eligible for a death sentence when compared to Matthew Grant, she is dead wrong. If reasonable persons compare Matthew Grant to Michael Peterson, it’s obvious that Peterson would be more likely to die of natural causes behind bars (Mike Peterson isn’t physically comparable to a 19 year old punk who’d have a lot more opportunity to escape, kill another inmate or corrections officer or commit additional crimes during his incarceration) before he might ever be executed.

Prosecutors are often forced to make their decisions on how to prosecute a case based on efficacy, yet Sheehan doesn’t understand this (obviously). In her mind, all murders and murderers are the same. Would she use the same logic if the murderer or victim were one of her own? I don’t think so. While we’re talking about reasons why a prosecutor might seek an execution in one case and not in others, why shouldn’t Sheehan consider the desires of the families of the murder victims? I suspect that thought never crossed her little mind. She hasn’t respected that notion in the past.

So if Sheehan faults prosecutors, she’s entitled to her opinions. That doesn’t mean her thoughts on the subject stand up to the facts related to each of these cases or that her “attention deficit” for these things should be overlooked. Maybe readers should consider that she’s just not qualified to comment on this subject (and others) and that her last column proves her irrelevance (or lack of education?).

http://www.wral.com/news/3922945/detail.html

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/offend1?DOCNUM=0816932&SENTENCEINFO=no&SHOWPHOTO=yes&numtimesin=1

Hostility House

2004-11-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

Why would persons representing a religious group (I won’t say what faith or denomination, but you can probably guess who), decide to set up a “hospitality house” for the purpose of comforting friends and family members of condemned murderers within walking of a state prison (where executions are performed) and not do the same kind of thing for families and friends of victims of other violent crimes?

It’s hard to be sure what possesses or motivates some persons to do the things they do. Some choices we humans make are signs of wisdom. Other choices that certain persons or groups tend to make are indicative of indifference, desperation, and ignorance or are just plain unfortunate or misguided. It’s not good judgment or wisdom that drives persons to do bad deeds or reward bad behaviors that much is sure. And “meaning to do well” is not an excuse for a poor performance as a human being or lapse in judgment. As the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. It’s also worth saying that “some folks just take a different road”.

Obviously the decision to set up a “hospitality house” only for family members and friends of convicted murderers (to the exclusion of other deserving and disadvantaged persons and groups) has to be driven by something, but what? It’s easy to see that there is a need for persons to visit and communicate with convicted felons (not just murderers on death row) so what is it about a death sentence that makes it more “special”? Murderers sentenced to “life without parole” have friends and family who wish to visit them? Why no offers of “hospitality" for them too? It is also self evident that all of us, who are alive today, will die one day and inmates who die naturally in prison are just as dead as those who are executed. So have these persons, who created a “hospitality house” excluded otherwise deserving persons from their thought processes or dismissed their needs? Perhaps, but maybe the real motivation behind their veil of “hospitality” is to make a statement against a punishment (death penalty), by not providing a service to others they know to have a real need. It’s the exclusion of certain persons who might disagree with them that sends the message they really want to communicate, not the service they promise to provide to persons who are related to condemned murderers. Maybe “hospitality house” is a misnomer and “hostility house”, more appropriate?

Does anything prevent these persons from offering “hospitality” as they see fit? No. Nor is anyone proposing to actively protest their actions or shut them down. They are entitled to express their views anyway that they wish, as long as it remains within the law. They are acting out what they perceive to be their faith when they offer their “hospitality” to persons they choose to advocate for (with morality strings attached).

These persons offering “hospitality” are not really in the business of helping those that they claim to. Their efforts are really a passive form of hostility to the families and friends of victims who support the execution of their loved ones murderer. The alternative to saying what they mean in more simple terms might require some additional justification. They’d just be competing for the same attentions (and money) that other groups who oppose capital punishment do too.

If there is any comfort to come from these passive but hostile actions by this supposedly religious group (even holy scriptures support an occasional and deserved execution), it’s in dismissal. Yes, this group has dismissed the families of real victims in their quest to oppose executions. This doesn’t mean that in other ways that persons who oppose their point of view won’t get the same kind of support from another source. Persons who happen to support executions or advocate for real victims can dismiss these so-called “hospitality houses” and what they really stand for (hostility) because in the end, their existence is irrelevant.

The Carrboro Contingency

2004-11-12T13:54:00.000-05:00

Recent news articles say “Woman’s killer is executed” and remind readers that a defenseless 92-year-old widow was brutally struck in the head during an attempted robbery. No questions of guilt surround the murder of Doris Poore. Frank Ray Chandler murdered her, that much is certain.

The courts determined that Chandler’s execution should stand and Governor Easley didn’t get in the way of what the jury prescribed for an obviously violent felon. Yet some persons clung to a desperate hope that clemency might be granted in this case. One has to wonder why?

Among those clinging to a desperate hope is the “Carrboro Contingency” which claims that the death sentence should not have stood because a key witness collected a $2500 reward for his damning testimony. These objections don’t include any evidence that indicates that the witness in question was untruthful in court. Also according to the “Contingency”, persons who defended Chandler claim that they used drugs with this same key witness. Are such claims a ”double stab” of sorts at attempting to claim ineffective counsel or undermine a witness’s credibility or a “win at all costs” (even at the expense of the truth), to save a client, kind of defense strategy? Unrelated actions by a prosecutor are brought into the argument to defend Chandler too. Such wild claims make one wonder about who makes them on behalf of condemned murderers and what motivates such persons.

According to certain death penalty opponents, “Governor Easley has gone beyond all reason” when he allowed the execution to proceed as scheduled. If so, the governor is in good company because a jury unanimously recommended death for Chandler and the courts did too, if only by a majority of opinion. That’s what makes recent statements by former State Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr the argument de’ jour. Obviously the Justice Orr stands by his previous dissention and he is entitled to his opinions (even more than most on this issue), but the foundations of our courts are nestled in majority opinions. Even Orr would have to agree, that the execution (dissention and all) was lawfully performed. That Chandler in fact got access to the process he was due. Many thoughtful persons deliberated over his fate. Reasonable and learned persons will disagree on many "little things", but Chandler didn't deserve to be spared over a percieved technicality (that other justices disagree with).

Chandler by all accounts led a very troubled life. No one disputes that notion, but that doesn’t excuse what he did to Doris Poore. Ms. Poore’s relatives did not stand in the way of Chandler’s execution. The “Carrboro Contingency” paid them little notice.

Years of appellate process documented the effectiveness of Chandler’s counsel. If they missed something that was unreasonable during trial it didn’t merit special attention on appeal. Since Chandler’s incarceration began, he proved again (and again) just how violent of an offender he was. Make no mistake about it; Chandler represented a danger to himself and to others for as long as he would be allowed to live. And now he isn’t (alive).

Chandler expressed remorse for his crimes through the Governor before his execution. Like many things, this was too small an effort and much too late for it to amount to anything. It wouldn’t have been required if Chandler had passed up the notion of breaking into a house and breaking a widow’s head wide open during the process. The murder of Doris Poore was no accident and if Chandler got little or no sympathy from a lot of other North Carolinians for what he did, that was probably no accident either. What he did to his victim was unforgivable. If Chandler receives forgiveness, that’s between him and God.

The “Carrboro Contingency” opposed this execution like they do all others. There is no middle ground for them. They said, that our governor couldn’t be reasonable, when he didn’t see it their way. Obviously they didn’t consult the majority of North Carolinians for their opinion on the matter or the families of real victims.

More information about Chandler and his case can be found at:
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2004/11/frank-chandler-11122004.html

Frank Chandler 11/12/2004

2004-11-04T19:54:00.000-05:00

Nov. 12, 2004 set as the execution date for Frank Chandler

http://www.doc.state.nc.us/dop/deathpenalty/chandler_chronology.htm

7/20/1993 - Frank Chandler was sentenced to death in Surry County Superior Court for the first-degree murder of Doris Poore a 92-year-old widow who was killed during a burglary of her home on December 11th, 1992. Attached to this murder charge was an attempted larceny of over $200.

Chandler was tried before a jury, which found him guilty of the first-degree murder of Doris Poore under the felony murder rule, with first-degree burglary as the underlying felony. The jury also found him guilty of attempted larceny, but not guilty of attempted first-degree rape or first-degree sexual offense. After a separate capital sentencing proceeding, the jury recommended and the trial court imposed a sentence of death for the first-degree murder conviction and a three-year prison sentence for the attempted larceny conviction.

The victim was lying on the bed with her pajama top open and her body was nude from the waist down; smeared bloody fingerprints were on her abdomen. A pair of pajama bottoms and a pair of panties was wadded together at the foot of the bed between the victim's legs, but slightly beneath her right foot. Mrs. Poore died from a single "massive blow" to the head. The blow resulted in a hinge fracture to the scalp, which effectively caused the skull to snap in two resulting in extensive swelling and hemorrhaging of the brain. Mrs. Poore had numerous abrasions, lacerations, and bruises.

Chandler’s palm and fingerprints were found on the wooden door leading into the kitchen. He has an average-range IQ and was competent to stand trial.

Defendant, in this case, broke into and entered the home of an elderly woman who lived alone, seeking either marijuana or money. Based on defendant's testimony, if believed, as he walked through the house, he heard Mrs. Poore. Upon hearing her, he struck her in the head with such force as to break her skull in two. Thereafter, he carried her to her bed and wiped his bloody hands on her stomach. He then removed her pajama bottoms and underpants. He told his cellmate Jeffrey Kyle Wilson that he did this because he wanted to see what an old woman's "pussy" looked like. He then covered her up and proceeded to search the house for her purse. Unable to find it, he left the house and returned to his aunt's house and went to sleep. Defendant never attempted to seek medical attention for Mrs. Poore after he struck her, but instead left her in her bed in a pool of blood to die.

After the murder, defendant immediately began a failed attempt to establish an alibi. He lied to the police. He tried to convince his cousin to lie to the police and to say that he never left the house on the morning of the murder. He also tried to destroy his fingerprint cards after the police obtained them. He told Wilson that he would try to avoid conviction and would "play crazy." Defendant's lack of remorse is evident.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=nc&vol=1996%5Csupreme0308%5C&invol=chandler

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/offend1?DOCNUM=0072498&SENTENCEINFO=no&SHOWPHOTO=yes&numtimesin=1

Chandler has committed no less that 26 infractions during his incarceration, they include:
SUBSTANCE POSSESSION, WEAPON POSSESSION, LOCK TAMPERING, SEXUAL ACT, MISUSE MEDICINE, PROFANE LANGUAGE, DISOBEY ORDER, VERBAL THREAT, THEFT OF PROPERTY, THREATEN TO HARM/INJURE STAFF, and UNAUTHORIZED LOCATION.

Chandler record of prior incarcerations includes: B & E VEHICLES (PRINCIPAL), B & E (FEL/MISD) (PRINCIPAL), and MISC MOTOR VEHICLE VIOLATION (PRINCIPAL).

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/raw1?DOCNUM=0072498&INMV9CF1=on&SEARCH=Search

Persons who support Chandler say that Doris Poore’s murder was “accidental”. This claim conflicts with the findings of a jury, which made its decisions based on evidence, testimony, logic and facts. These persons or groups who defend Chandler also claim that Chandler did not premeditate the killing without any specific reference to the court documents that they supposedly quote.

Defenders of Chandler also claim that his counsel used illegal drugs prior to trial and as a result he was ineffectively defended. Obviously no one else noticed this at trial (judges, witnesses, prosecutors, jurists, bailiffs, reporters etc). The lawyer’s subsequent behaviors (post-trial) and disbarment have nothing to do with how well Chandler was represented at trial. Chander’s case has been argued at various levels in the appellate courts and confirmed the effectiveness of his trial counsels representation of him. Claims of potential conflicts of interest with his attorneys do not include any specific complaints about what was (or not) said or done which prevented him from getting the assistance he was entitled to. If the appellate courts find no wrong with the representation he’s gotten so far or that any errors that might have occurred are harmless this means that an execution should proceed as scheduled.

Chandler’s supporters have found fault with the prosecutors who handled the trial. Those financial issues that they had have not been linked in any way to the trial or the handling of this case are irrelevant.

Persons who defend Chandler has also attacked the credibility of witnesses who testified against him without providing proof that any of their testimony was false. These claims represent speculation, not fact. Courts should not base their decisons on their imagination. If evidence indicates that false testimony exists, it has not been presented in the proper forum (court). What seems more likely is that when this case was lost in the courts, it was taken to the media so that what their pleas could be heard there (and conclusions would be made on speculation and supposition?).

If judges have dissented over the case, it’s been over technicalities. Chandler is in fact guilty of murder. He murdered a defenseless, old woman and defiled her memory and body after she was dead.

In short, the weakest of arguments have been made to spare Chandler from an execution. This is not due to lack of effort or because qualified persons were not involved in his defense, it is because that is what they are “weak”. These persons are entitled to their beliefs that life without parole might be an appropriate sentence (in their minds). Those arguments however conflict with common sense, the expressed decision of a jury when they recommended sentencing (or death), and with Chandler’s history of behavior on death room. These are not arguments of strength nor do they indicate innocence in any reasonable way. When one considers real facts and arguments, these requests or false justifications for clemency represent a series of digressions or an outright dimissal of what should be justice in this case.

It is clear that Chandler represents a danger to himself and to others. He will remain a danger for as long as he is allowed to live. For these and other reasons, this execution should be allowed to proceed as scheduled.

Ballroom full of lawyers

2004-10-31T18:39:00.000-05:00

re: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/story/1784509p-8076141c.html

Someone heard a “ballroom full of lawyers” laugh the other day and decided that it could only characterize an instant dismissal of the seriousness of the occasion. Yes, laughter is usually associated with a comedic atmosphere but you have to consider “the laughers” for what they really are. Steve Ford didn’t consider that trial lawyers (most of the laughers were in fact lawyers) in some ways often resemble hyenas. Hyenas are usually associated with being scavengers but they are completely capable of predatory behaviors, even with their own kind. The sounds that hyenas make are often mistaken for laughter, but make no mistake about it, when they start circling a carcass (or something soon to be dead), they aren’t really laughing and many take equal joy in the spoils (living or dead) for as long as they aren’t the meal. Ford didn’t share that observation with readers because it is beyond his imagination. I suppose that the fact that his wife is a trial lawyer has nothing at all to do with that too. Another thing to consider is that every animal (hyena or lawyer) has his place in the food chain. It's understood that each serves it's own unique purpose, so "hyena" is not meant to evoke disrespect for them. They are what they are, they can't help it. One can't argue with what lawyers are. As in any profession, there are many good ones and others many agree need "a good spanking".

One shortsighted observation usually deserves another and Ford didn’t let readers down in that respect. Ford can’t “let go of Gell” and attacked the North Carolina Bar Association or persons entrusted to discipline lawyers for bad performance. It’s an easy guess that this pattern (and associated revenue stream?) will continue.

No one knows better than Debra Graves and David Hoke about their personal knowledge (or what they didn’t know) of case files or about the murder of Allen Ray Jenkins in Gell’s first trial. They’ve claimed to not know about all of the withheld evidence. Ford isn’t buying it. Maybe some other folks aren’t either. One can’t argue with the fact that this disagreement has resulted in continuous employment for a number of N&O reporters and columnists and that uncertainty and doom trigger ratings and revenue. Gell has been used as a prop for persons who oppose capital punishment.

Hoke and Graves (to their credit) have not disputed that the evidence in question was withheld from defense attorneys in the first trial. Had they known about the existence of it, it’s possible that their prosecution strategy would have been different too. Some might even wonder if the case would have even gone to trial a first time. That kind of speculation is only possible if you acknowledge what they have said and accept that they weren’t aware of the conflicting evidence.

To conclude that some kind of conspiracy was concocted solely for the purposes of securing a conviction would be “just plain stupid”. It contradicts what has already been reported. If Hoke and Graves were really trying to get a conviction “at all costs”, they wouldn’t have left exculpatory evidence in the Gell case files. Evidence that might have conflicted with the verdict would have “disappeared”. But it didn’t.

Obviously, Steve Ford and some other persons are clairvoyants. These skeptics (or mystics) seem to know more about what Hoke and Graves knew prior to the end of the first trial. Meanwhile, the North Carolina Bar had to make a decision on disciplinary action based on evidence, testimony, logic and facts (not clairvoyance). Ultimately, no one (not even Ford) could prove that Hoke and Graves lied about the prosecution of Gell.

It’s doubtful that skeptics (like Ford) will ever be silenced. The thought that what some persons now call a wrongful conviction may have resulted in an actual improvement to the judicial process is too much for them to handle. Forget mentioning that new laws have since been enacted to require full disclosure of evidence before trial (not after).

Don’t be fooled by Ford’s digressions into thinking that the hearing concerning Hoke and Graves’ performance was anything about what happened (or might have happened) to Gell. It was all about their performance (or lack of it) as lawyers. In the strictest sense of what the Bar was considering that day, they were not concerned about Gell at all. They were there to address a performance issue (at trial) with two of its lawyers. Ford knows this was not the forum for Gell to “play victim”, but he played that card in his column. Gell’s presence at the occasion was expected and by all rights, he should have been there. If no one asked what the personal consequences of the first trial were for Gell, it was not because they didn’t care. It’s worth mentioning that all persons involved in the disciplinary action understand that the case was initially a capital one (some facts are now self evident). It’s also worth mentioning that some persons in the media have almost forgotten about the Jenkins family and what they deserve in terms of justice. The real victim is in a grave.

It’s entirely possible that Hoke and Graves did their job to the best of their knowledge and provided a zealous prosecution (to a fault). They missed the exculpatory information in their own review of the evidence (and admit as much). Appellate review resulted in extra eyes and understanding of the case, and resulted in a second trial (as it should have).

It’s a shame that the folks at the News and Observer haven’t put as much effort into other cases that resulted in early or wrongful releases of known predators. They haven’t looked more closely into who actually murdered Allen Ray Jenkins, have they? That could mean that a case might be closed, Lady Justice might be satisfied, and revenues (and gloom and doom effect) would be reduced. Wise readers probably shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for a conviction on the Jenkins (not Gell) case, should they? One might as well ask when the killer of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson will be convicted.

Yes, some persons will look at recent events and snort and giggle. To some extent, this amounts to unbecoming or disrespectful conduct (as lawyers, columnists or citizens at large) concerning the decisions leaders make on important issues, one must be prepared to live with it (and learn to love it). Ford and other persons who disagree (or giggle) with the Bar are entitled to their opinions, but if they cannot accept that the buck has to actually stop somewhere (or nothing gets done on any case), perhaps they should consider a different kind of employment (where life is more black and white and all of their issues will be more simple). If the issue has been turned into a “fiasco” they have only themselves to blame. One could just as easily conclude that the abuse of power is occurring at a more public bully pulpit (a.k.a. Raleigh News and Observer?).

The next week’s (election) decisions will require us all to separate such wheat from the chaff. Maybe that’s the real agenda of the N&O, to support the election of candidates that loathe or disrespect the system (along with them)? Or perhaps folks at the N&O will refer to this court case as “The Jenkins Case” (which is still unresolved)? Jenkins happens to be the name of the real victim(s). That family and their loss should not be forgotten.

Yes, the prosecutor’s said “My bad” and they’ve accepted the shame and ridicule (and warning from the Bar) that goes along with it. They've been publicly "spanked". Changes have been made to the process to prevent such things from happening again too. Don’t expect to read much more about it in the N&O or from Steve Ford (unless they find fault with it).

Kerry can't have it both ways on executions...

2004-10-29T20:16:00.000-04:00

Terminator or Vaccillator?

It’s election season again and make no mistake about it, capital punishment is the law in the majority of our “united states” and it remains a punishment that the federal government reserves for certain murderers. The urge to politicize the death penalty is something that reasonable persons should resist. Sometimes we fail.

Murderers are not usually in the habit of choosing their victims by their politics. They don’t ask for voter’s registrations. There are exceptions like the men who murdered the Kennedy brothers years ago. Some try to assassinate political types to gain attention (John Hinkley). And not executing a proven predator has it’s own set of consequences that are unique in every case, just as executing murderers on occasion does. None of these exceptions or conditions (alone or combined) makes politicizing capital punishment right. A jury should decide each case, and when executions are conducted the will of the jury (at the time of sentencing) is demonstrated.

Registered voters in 2004 are faced with one candidate that has an unwavering track record of support for capital punishment and another who has voiced only a tepid support for an occasional and deserved execution. George W. Bush as governor of Texas saw many executions and saw a few more as president. 1 John Kerry on the other hand has listened to persons who would halt executions while family members of victims endure the learning curve of lawyers who want to make sure capital punishment is dealt out fairly.

Whatever your feelings about executions and the appropriateness of capital punishment happen to be, you can’t be just a little bit for it or a little bit against it. Only lawyers would come up with means to measure murder in degrees or different kinds of so called “life sentences” (murder victims aren’t dead in degrees, they either are, or they aren’t). No legislator, law enforcement officer or presidential candidate can personally guarantee that once a murder is sentenced to “life” or “life without parole” that the murderer will never cause harm to others, escape or maybe murder again. So it’s no small wonder that the candidates don’t run on a simple platform that identifies them as either “for” or “against” the death penalty and just that. This year one could say that both candidates understand that executions are the law (but only one, Bush, has had a real opportunity to demonstrate his resolve on the issue). 2

Capital punishment is no tricky issue. You demonstrate your faith in the system when you exercise the will of juries. John Kerry seems to be playing for votes by saying he supports the idea of an occasional execution but also supports a halt to executions while persons review fairness or claiming that he supports executions of terrorists (but not murderers?). 3 He can’t have “this issue both ways” like he has tried to with others. Duplicity and evasiveness shouldn’t work in our courts and semantic disguises shouldn’t work in the court of public opinion. Voters deserve to know if a candidate is really “for” or “against” capital punishment. How long will Kerry deliberate on this issue or others? Should Kerry’s resolve to do what he thinks is right (whatever his position really is), be dictated by the number of votes it might get him at the polls? I don’t think so.

1.United States Bureau of Prisons,” Executions of Federal Prisoners Since 1927” , http://www.bop.gov/ipapg/ipaexechart.html
2.Texas Coalition to abolish the Death Penalty, “Executions Under George W. Bush”, http://www.tcadp.org/bush.html
3.Jeff Jacoby, ”

Tweaking the Protocol (not a cocktail)

2004-10-29T12:36:00.000-04:00

Re: http://newsobserver.com/opinion/ford/story/1719161p-7979808c.html

More information about the process can be found at:

http://www.doc.state.nc.us/dop/deathpenalty/method.htm

It’s striking how dismissive some columnists can be when they refer to lethal injection (a punishment for a heinous and brutal murder) as a “cocktail”. Steve Ford’s article on October 10th came dangerously close to crossing a line in terms of dismissing the families and friends of the real victims or little seven year old girls who are raped before their existence on this earth is permanently snuffed out. Do such persons care more for murderers than they do for victims or innocent lives that might still be in danger for as long as the murderer is allowed to live? This reader wonders about that sometimes.

Ford and other advocates for murderers on North Carolina’s death row seem obsessed with the protocol or the combination of drugs that are administered when executions are allowed to proceed. It’s a shame that the time and energy that these persons waste on saving proven murderers from some perceived (or imaginary?) pain isn’t spent on more useful things such as job creation or education. Perkins was in fact violent at times during his incarceration. Was Sammy Perkins or any of the other recently executed predators really worth Ford’s attentions? I guess only God knows now.

More information about Perkins' case can be found at:
http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/0225.U.pdf

Why do the columnists and trial lawyers entertain such notions or state that the procedure “might be” cruel or unusual? Those who are executed certainly aren’t complaining! I’ve not seen Mr. Ford (or trial lawyers or any other persons/organizations that represent murderers) mention anything about what Lashenna "Jo Jo" Moore might have endured in her final moments compared to her murderer (Sammy Perkins) when he laid down on the gurney and “took a nap”. Where’s the fairness there? The terms “cruel or unusual” applies to the crime (murder), not the punishment (execution) and thank goodness the Supreme Court of the United States saw that, as did Governor Easley. Perkins’ execution resulted in justice. For those who take the time to read the constitution, murderers aren’t entitled to a “serene execution”.

Foes of lethal injection (like Ford) object to “the process” no matter how it is administered. One can easily see why such persons only find fault when the warden altered the North Carolina protocol to mirror other states. Obviously these persons never considered that the dosages administered during executions pretty much ensure that the murderer is already dead before the final drugs enter his system. If a lethal dose times ten is given with the new procedure and the old protocol delivered only half of that, the “honoree” at the execution would still be equally dead. I doubt Ford, the trial lawyers or other death penalty foes would consider lying down on the gurney for a “half dose” and not because “it might be painful”, but because the result is the same (a quick death).

Perhaps what upsets death penalty foes most about North Carolina’s execution protocol is not the fact that it mirrors other states today. It’s that they have “less to haggle about in court”, or elsewhere (in the media?) now that it’s not so different. That’s probably why death penalty foes don’t t take the warden for his word and what motivates them to fault the courts, when their point of view is overriden there.

*** Notes ***

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/offend1?DOCNUM=0319156&SENTENCEINFO=yes&SHOWPHOTO=yes&numtimesin=2

Perkins committed at least 13 infractions during his incarceration including : ACTIVE RIOTER, SEXUAL ACT, PROFANE LANGUAGE, DISOBEY ORDER, FIGHTING, VERBAL THREAT, NO THREAT CONTRABAND, and GAMBLING. Obviously keeping such an inmate under close custody or even on death row did not slow Perkins down in terms of harming others or breaking laws.

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/raw1?DOCNUM=0319156&INMV9CF1=on&SEARCH=Search

Cooper made the right decision on Gell case

2004-10-28T16:31:00.000-04:00

News and Observer is wrong again!

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/story/1774181p-8061471c.html

In a column published on October 28th, 2004, the News and Observer criticized Attorney General Roy Cooper for his decision to try Alan Gell a second time for the murder of Allen Ray Jenkins. The case ultimately resulted in exoneration after the second trial was conducted (with the benefits of new evidence and testimony that was withheld in the first trial). Attorney General Cooper’s decision to retry the case amounts to a display of his confidence in the system. It’s also worth noting that a jury made the final decision concerning Gell’s ultimate release from prison, not just one person (an Attorney General, prosecutor or a judge).

A jury’s decision should have more meaning for all of those involved. Many who advocate for condemned murderers didn’t consider that notion. Who at the N&O is more qualified to acquit Gell (or anyone else) that might be wrongfully convicted than a jury? It’s just as arguable that Cooper’s decision represented an opportunity for the system work the way that it should and that it did. Objective readers might have different views about actual innocence or guilt in that case, but the N&O's criticisms of Attorney General Roy Cooper concerning the Gell case are dead wrong.

More information about North Carolina's Attorney General Roy Cooper can be found at:

http://www.ncdoj.com/about/about_ag_bio.jsp

State perpetuates insanity - allows murderer to sire children

2004-10-23T10:11:00.000-04:00

Dix staff seeking off-campus employment for four-time murderer Michael Hayes.

Many of the Dix Hospital residents are employed in off-campus jobs in preparation for their return to society. A usually reliable source has related that the hospital staff has met with resistance from off-campus employers when they were told of Michael Hayes’ “sanitized” history.

On 17 July 1988, Michael Hayes assaulted 24 people with a firearm, 9 were wounded, 4 fatally. At trial, Michael Hayes was advantaged by the jury’s anti-death penalty mind-set well before the issue became a popular cause celebre. To avoid a decision on the death penalty the jury opted for the verdict Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity and he was committed to Dorothea Dix Hospital.

The Dix psychiatric staff has been endeavoring to advance “forensic” unit residents, principally Michael Hayes and Wendell Williamson, through a hospital designed program which will lead to their eventual release. Williamson’s advance was somewhat compromised by his recent conjugal absence. The hospital’s psychiatric spokesman hopes to have Hayes employed off-campus for one, two or three months, so that he can testify to a Superior Court Judge that Hayes has been mingling with society for that period of time and has not killed anyone and that is proof that it is safe to release him

The Dix staff has historically resisted housing insanity acquitees in a restricted forensic environment, complaining that “it was too much like a prison”. Preferring instead to house the sociopaths in wards with more benign residents.

From his commitment in 1988 to November 1991, Michel Hayes enjoyed a more beneficial lifestyle than he had ever known. Endowed with a Social Security Disability allowance – since discontinued - and a salary from his job in the hospital canteen Hayes lived the life of the fabled Riley. Weekly off-campus technician escorted shopping trips and meals in Cameron Village financed by his constantly overdrawn account at the bank there. On the Saturday of Armistice Day weekend, with his hospital-married second wife providing transportation, Hayes absented himself from the Dix campus for the entire day. Some low level employee alerted the Raleigh police, resulting in a statewide brouhaha. The adverse publicity prompted the AG’s office to caution the Mental Health administration about the potential liability to which the State was being exposed. The then Secretary of Human Resources issued a memorandum ordering that, henceforth, forensic residents would be allowed off-campus only by the explicit order of a Superior Court Judge.

The hospital’s catering to Hayes allowed him to sire two illegitimate children on the hospital grounds. This impropriety was revealed to the Court at his annual rehearing by other sources while the Dix staff was representing him to be a model citizen. Periodically during Hayes’ tenure at Dix outside evaluators have determined, mainly through the Minnesota Mutifacic Personality Inventory test, that he is mentally ill, according to the North Carolina statute, and subsequently dangerous.

rbnicholson@earthlink.net

More information about this case can be found at:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=nc&vol=appeals2000/appeals0718/&invol=hayes

An Industry Thrives on Tragedy.

2004-10-23T09:38:00.000-04:00

Brinkhous-Bullit houses the NC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner

Buzzards

Some things are inevitable or unpreventable, like death and taxes. Everyone dies, that’s a fact of life. Conception requires death some day. We live, if we are blessed we love and are loved, and then one day we die. For some death can be a blessing, a release from pain and suffering or life of hard work maybe loneliness. A cemetery I know of comes to mind, one with a sign over an entrance that says something like “That which is so universal, must also be a blessing”. It’s meant to bring comfort for all must go through those gates one day.

Many depart this life long before their time, at the hands of a predator. 1 Friends and family, or those who are left behind, grieve for and honor their dead. Many murders are motivated by greed and selfishness. Some acts or bad actors are motivated by evil in its purest form. The motives for murder are as individual as the assassin. Some seek money, others do what they do because they feel betrayed, and some are clearly delusional or deranged. The impacts on society are unique in every case in that each victim represents a different loss to every family and friend left behind. Each victim leaves their own mark on our world while they are here, and their memory leaves a unique impression or sense of loss.

Once a murder is committed, many things become necessary and are irreversible. A body usually becomes instant evidence. Records, samplings, transcripts and pictures are presented in courts and to strangers. An autopsy reveals a cause, and a manner of death. The event is recorded for posterity in the papers and a certificate is issued. The public is informed and debts are eventually settled, most of the time anyway. Some evidence is kept forever. What represents a lifetime of accomplishments is reduced to boxes, stories and records. Each murder results in a unique decision calculus and a set of dispositions or artifacts.

For a number of persons, it’s “a job”. A mini-industry thrives on tragedy. For some the victim and the accused represent a story to tell or a picture to take. The undertaker and Medical Examiner usually see each and every victim (and many murderers) eventually. The lawyers fight over right and wrong, what might be “fair” and who gets what for those that are left behind, that is if they aren’t already dead. The first group of buzzards circles the living and the lifeless. The “search for truth” or “sifting of lies” has become both a science, and an art form of sorts. The murder, murderer or the victim are transformed into some sick or twisted “entertainment” for a day… or two. Events are reduced to temporary diversions from what seems “normal”. Everything becomes more detached and a little less human for as long as it’s not one of yours or in your back yard. The illusion of safety exists for those who think they can keep the rest of the world at arms length (or further) away.

“The story” isn’t over until the predator is laid to rest after getting the last word. The families leave the buzzards to do their “work”. 2 Some confuse the murderer with being a victim and forget the circumstances, which require a punishment. When does accountability start, when should it end? 3 What does one do to prevent a proven predator from harming other innocents? 4 What makes the lawyers and media any different than buzzards? They always seem to be there to pick through the “bones” or engage in some form of self-promotion.

Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide trends in the U.S. (1992), http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm
Charlotte Observer, NC Executes a man who kills 6, (10/22/04), http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/breaking_news/9986483.htm
North Carolina Department of Corrections, Inmate Infraction Detail, http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/raw1?DOCNUM=0345539&INMV9CF1=on&SEARCH=Search
North Carolina Department of Corrections, Inmate Summary, http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/offender/offend1?DOCNUM=0345539&SENTENCEINFO=yes&SHOWPHOTO=yes&numtimesin=2