Friday, December 01, 2017

The Sunny Jacobs & Peter Pringle Scam

The Scams of Sunny Jacobs & Peter Pringle
Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom

"(Pringle)
, along with two other men, was convicted of the murder of two gardaí in 1980. Detective John Morley and Garda Henry Byrne had five young children between them when they were shot dead during a robbery in Co Roscommon. The killers were acting under a republican flag of convenience.

Two of them, Colm O’Shea and Pat McCann, were captured in the vicinity. The third man managed to flee the scene, but gardaí believed him to be Pringle. He was arrested in Galway 12 days later after a manhunt. He had shaved off his beard and dyed his hair. He denied any involvement and later claimed he had been on a drunken bender since the day before the robbery." (3)

"The evidence against him was largely circumstantial, including sightings of him in the Roscommon area in the immediate aftermath of the robbery and evidence that he’d been in the company of the other men in the days prior to the robbery, despite claiming he hadn’t seen them in months. There was forensic evidence involving hair and paint samples and gun residue. This was in the days before the development of DNA evidence. The clinching aspect to his conviction was a partial admission while in custody." (3)

"In 1995, Pringle succeeded in an appeal against his conviction. He had discovered evidence about a blood sample of his that had not been examined in his trial. The appeal judges decided that a dispute over the sample between two gardaí may have given rise to a credibility issue of Garda evidence. As such, the conviction was deemed unsafe and it was up to the State to try Pringle again.

Pringle attempted to portray this development as a miscarriage of justice. In a memoir entitled Surviving Ireland’s Death Row, he claimed evidence was “concocted” by retired detective superintendent Tom Connolly. In fact, the appeal judges made a point of noting they were not suggesting any officers had acted anyway dishonestly." (3)

"(The book, published three years ago, prompted Connolly to write his own memoir which included a more detailed account of the case, backed up by records.) The retrial never went ahead because the senior officer who had sanctioned an extension to Pringle’s time in custody 15 years earlier had since died. That was a lucky break for the recently-released Pringle.

"A week after his release, his solicitor wrote to the State demanding £50,000 as an interim payment for wrongful imprisonment. The demand was given short shrift. Since then, Pringle has not initiated any action that could result in obtaining a certificate of miscarriage and a huge compensation payout. Over the last 20 years he has frequently stated that he is still “trying” to get his case into the High Court, but it’s unclear who on earth might be stopping him." (3)
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below sent   11/19/2017


To: The Cast of The Exonerated & Galway Actors Workshop
cc: Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Galway Town Hall Theatre, Galway Advertiser, An Garda Siochana , The Marshall Project
Re: The play, The Exonerated, at Galway Town Hall Theatre, 11/19/2017
Subject: The Exoneration Frauds
From: Dudley Sharp

Fact checking is a requirement.


As these two, just below, are actors in the production:

Sunny Jacobs was on death row for less than 4 years, not 17. She has not been exonerated. She pled guilty to second degree murder and those confessions and legal status remain, as they should. Case detailed below, at 1 & 2.

Peter Pringle states: "I came within 11 days of execution. I spent 20 years on death row and saw 53 of the people around me I knew executed. But I was never afraid to die," Pringle smiled. 
(From: https://www.expressandstar.com/news/crime/2016/03/02/from-death-row-to-wedding-vows-how-one-couple-found-love-after-life-staring-at-execution/#puVBF7pix06heIs3.99)

Such is, complete, utter nonsense.

Pringle was sentenced to death in 1980, spent 6 months on death row and the last execution in Ireland was Michael Manning, in 1954, Pringle was probably laughing at the reporter. See, also 3 Fact checking matters.

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Also see the absurd:

Two Wrongful Convictions. One Happy Marriage.“It felt like the universe put us together.”By MAURICE CHAMMAH, The Marshall Project,
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/11/30/two-wrongful-convictions-one-happy-marriage

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600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
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FN
1) Detailed Review of Sunny Jacobs Crime and Guilt, at pages 509-516 within: 
The Myth of Innocence, Josh Marquis, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Volume 95, Issue 2 Winter, Article 4, Winter 2005,
http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7185&context=jclc

2) Play, The Exonerated: Are Any Actually Innocent?http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-play-exonerated-are-any-actually.html

3) Peter Pringle is no death-row poster boy, Michael Clifford, Irish Examiner, September 03, 2016,
http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/michael-clifford/peter-pringle-is-no-death-row-poster-boy-419107.html

4) 
 The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds 
 71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims, 
Well Known Since 1998

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Research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required in a public policy debate
 
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts listed)
 

Pope Francis' Many Problems

Pope Francis' Many Problems
compiled by Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom

editing underway

Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy, Maike Hickson, LIFESITE,  13 Mon May 6, 2019

(4)  Open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church Easter Week, 2019
 
5) IS POPE FRANCIS A HERETIC? by Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap., First Things,  5 . 7 . 19,

What are lost are measured, intelligent, nuanced responses to the present ecclesial crisis and a rational Spirit-filled fortitude to bring truth to light in the midst of deceitful darkness. 

So, while the open letter hopes to be a clarion call to rectify a grievous situation within the Church, it may have unintentionally contributed to making the victory of faith even more difficult.

Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap.

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"Your Holiness (Pope Francis), a chronic confusion seems to mark your pontificate." "The main source of concern is the manner of your teaching." " . . .  your guidance at times seems intentionally ambiguous . . . "." " To teach with such a seemingly intentional lack of clarity inevitably risks sinning against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth." (1)

"The Holy Spirit is given to the Church, and particularly to yourself, to dispel error, not to foster it." (1)

" . . .  (Pope Francis) seems to regard every aspect of the Church’s tradition as a plastic instrument to be stiffened here or relaxed there in accord with ever-changing pastoral judgments." (2).

" . . .  it’s reasonable to think the pontificate (of Pope Francis) will seek to muddy the Church’s teaching . . .". (2) "This papacy’s goal of aligning the Catholic Church with the bourgeois consensus has other dimensions that show how unprincipled this process will be." (2)

" . . . Francis also will denounce where denunciations are wanted. Recently, he declared capital punishment always and everywhere forbidden. " While . . . "this pronouncement is inconsistent with the Church’s two-thousand-year tradition of moral teaching on the matter, . . .  that’s beside the point. The notion of Pope Francis defining any act as intrinsically evil is laughable on its face, given how often he attacks the “doctors of the law” who speak about objective moral norms. And didn’t Fr. Antonio Spadaro very clearly tell us that the time has passed when we can speak of “a norm that stands above all”? (2)

"Moreover, only where there is truth can there be authentic love, for truth is the light that sets women and men free from the blindness of sin, a darkness that kills the life of the soul.  Yet you seem to censor and even mock those who interpret Chapter 8 of "Amoris Laetitia" in accord with Church tradition as Pharisaic stone-throwers who embody a merciless rigorism." (1)

" . . . (Pope Francis) has, by his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, and by other, related, words, deeds and omissions, effectively upheld 7 heretical positions about marriage, the moral life, and the reception of the sacraments, and has caused these heretical opinions to spread in the Catholic Church." "(Pope Francis) has not declared these heretical positions to be definitive teachings of the Church or stated that Catholics must believe them with the assent of faith. The Church teaches no pope can claim that God has revealed some new truth to him, which it would be obligatory for Catholics to believe." "The signatories . . . respectfully insist that he condemn these heresies, which he has directly or indirectly upheld." (3).

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"This kind of calumny is alien to the nature of the Petrine ministry.  Some of your advisors regrettably seem to engage in similar actions.  Such behavior gives the impression that your views cannot survive theological scrutiny, and so must be sustained by "ad hominem" arguments." (2)

"The details don’t matter. Pope Francis and his closest associates have no interest in the sacramental coherence of their positions on matters such as divorce and remarriage, nor do they care one whit about defending the logic of the arguments they put forward." (2).

" . . . too often your manner seems to demean the importance of Church doctrine.  Again and again you portray doctrine as dead and bookish, and far from the pastoral concerns of everyday life.  Your critics have been accused, in your own words, of making doctrine an ideology.  But it is precisely Christian doctrine – including the fine distinctions made with regard to central beliefs like the Trinitarian nature of God; the nature and purpose of the Church; the Incarnation; the Redemption; and the sacraments – that frees people from worldly ideologies and assures that they are actually preaching and teaching the authentic, life-giving Gospel." (1)

"Those who devalue the doctrines of the Church separate themselves from Jesus, the author of truth.  What they then possess, and can only possess, is an ideology – one that conforms to the world of sin and death." (1)

"Christianity orients us upward and toward the divine. Bourgeois religion is horizontal. It takes its cues from the consensus of the moment, the opinions of the good and responsible people. This reduces Christianity to a political religion organized to buttress the status quo. The Francis papacy largely follows this pattern, making it quite predictable." (2)

" . . . faithful Catholics can only be disconcerted by your (Pope Francis') choice of some bishops, men who seem not merely open to those who hold views counter to Christian belief but who support and even defend them.  What scandalizes believers, and even some fellow bishops, is not only your having appointed such men to be shepherds of the Church, but that you also seem silent in the face of their teaching and pastoral practice.  This weakens the zeal of the many women and men who have championed authentic Catholic teaching over long periods of time, often at the risk of their own reputations and well-being.  As a result, many of the faithful, who embody the "sensus fidelium," are losing confidence in their supreme shepherd." (1)

" . . . you are commissioned by the Lord himself to promote and strengthen (Church) unity . .  . your actions and words too often seem intent on doing the opposite".  Encouraging a form of "synodality" that allows and promotes various doctrinal and moral options within the Church can only lead to more theological and pastoral confusion.  Such synodality is unwise and, in practice, works against collegial unity among bishops." (1)

" . . . many have learned from your pontificate is not that you are open to criticism, but that you resent it.  Many bishops are silent because they desire to be loyal to you, and so they do not express – at least publicly; privately is another matter – the concerns that your pontificate raises.  Many fear that if they speak their mind, they will be marginalized or worse." (1)

" . . . your pontificate has given those who hold harmful theological and pastoral views the license and confidence to come into the light and expose their previously hidden darkness.  In recognizing this darkness, the Church will humbly need to renew herself, and so continue to grow in holiness." (1)

"May the Holy Spirit lead you to the light of truth and the life of love so that you can dispel the darkness that now hides the beauty of Jesus’ Church." (1)

More here:

The Pope’s Pedophile?, Andrew Sullivan,  New York Magazine,  June 30, 2017,

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1) Letter found here:

A Theologian Writes To the Pope: There Is Chaos in the Church, and You Are a Cause, L'Espresso, 01 nov, 2017

Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap. July 31, 2017, Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola
http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2017/11/01/a-theologian-writes-to-the-pope-there-is-chaos-in-the-church-and-you-are-a-cause/

Weinandy is among the most eminent theologians, lives in Washington at the College of the Capuchins, the Franciscan order to which he belongs, is a member of the international theological commission, the commission that Paul VI set up alongside the congregation for the doctrine of the faith so that it could avail itself of the cream of the crop among the world’s theologians. He has been a member of this commission since 2014, having been appointed to it by Pope Francis.

(2)  LIBERAL TRADITION, YES; LIBERAL IDEOLOGY, NO, by R. R. Reno, Editor, First Things, December 2017

(3)  Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis (‘A filial correction concerning the propagation of heresies’), July 16th, 2017, Feast of our Lady of Mt Carmel

full summary, here: