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Subject: Media/Academic Disaster - Death Penalty - East Idaho News
RE: A closer look at the history of the Idaho death penalty, Kaitlyn Hart, EastIdahoNews.com, March 23, 2023
From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, Houston, Texas, CV at bottom
Preface
This is a, fairly, typical media/academic anti-death penalty disaster, with, only, anti-death penalty experts, with zero balance, with a non-fact checking/vetting, compliant reporter/editor, as detailed:
Format: The anti-death penalty position is quoted or paraphrased, then, my rebuttal.
1) Prof. Hampikian, Innocence Project, biology & criminal justice, Boise State: " . . .since 1973, at least 190 people who have been sentenced to death in the United States have been exonerated after proving their innocence."
Rebuttal: Absurd.a) It has been very well known, since 2000, that the fraud rate, in the claims of the factually "innocent"/"exonerated" released from death row, ranges from 71-83%, depending upon review (1), meaning that in 50 years of intense scrutiny, we have a 99.6% accuracy rate in factually guilty findings, with the 0.4% factually innocent being released, likely, the most accurate of sanctions, as we would expect with the only sanction with super due process (1).
Death penalty opponents, simply, redefined both "innocent" and "exonerated" as if they had redefined lie as truth, then stuffed a bunch of cases into those fraudulent definitions.
This is not in dispute and is, very easily, fact checked/vetted (1), for those interested. Hart?b) The death penalty/executions protect innocents, in three ways, better than does LWOP - enhanced due process and enhanced incapacitation, both of which are unchallenged. Enhanced deterrence is challenged, but survives thorough research, with fact checking and vetting, all with critical thinking (2).
2) Reporter Hart states that Furman v Georgia (1972) found the death penalty unconstitutional.
Rebuttal: Untrue.The death penalty has, never, been found unconstitutional. Furman found the statutory enforcement unconstitutional, not the death penalty, itself. Huge difference.
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The Death Penalty: A Repudiation of Journalism, by Journalists?
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3) Prof. Hampikian calls the death penalty revenge.
Rebuttal: Neither the judges nor jurors can have any connection to the individuals or circumstances of the murders, must presume the defendant innocent, until (or if) proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, with laws and sanctions that existed prior to the murders, laws outside the control of the judge or jurors, within a system that provides super due process, in pre trial, trial, appeals and executive consideration within pardons or commutation, offering greater protections and safeguards than with any other sanction, with the jury having to vote 48-0 (4 votes for the 12 jurors), 100%, against the defendant/murderer in order to get a death penalty, but only 1 out of that 48, or 2%, needed to be for the defendant/murderer, to evade the death penalty, all of which exclude a revenge component (3), as is obvious.
4) Prof. Hampikian appears to equate revenge and an eye for an eye.
Rebuttal: Instead, biblicly and rationally. it is based upon fair and proportional sanctions, replacing the disproportionately severe sanctions of the past, making the sanctions not too harsh and not too lenient (4), as we would all like them to be - fair justice.
Reporter Hart agrees with the revenge moniker.
5) Law Professor Samuel Newton, U of Idaho: "There are different perspectives . . . people that will say justice, there are people that will say racist, rushed, superficial, vengeance, bloodthirsty."
Newton provides one - justice - for proponents, but 5 for death penalty opposition.
Rebuttal:
Racist:White murderers are twice as likely to be executed as are black murderers and are executed 41% more often than black death row inmates, with much more, here (5).
Rushed: Executions might occur within 20 years of appeals, on average, today. It was about 6.6 years in the mid 1980s. Neither, rushed. Obvious.
Superficial: Absurd, impossible, opposite the known facts, for any consideration.
Vengeance: Rebutted in para 3&4.
Bloodthirsty: We have executed some 1600 murderers, from 1973-2023, about 31/yr, during a period in which we have had about 900,000 murders, some 17,500 murders/yr. As in para 1, above, it is death penalty opponents who wish to guarantee more innocents murdered (2).
6) Sharp: Within criminal justice where are a) the most catastrophic errors committed? b) the innocents most at risk?
Since 1973, In the US, some
20,000 ADDITIONAL innocents were murdered by those KNOWN murderers that we allowed to murder, again - recidivist murderers (2);
500,000 ADDITIONAL innocents were murdered by those KNOWN criminals that we allowed to harm, again - recidivist criminals (2);
3.5 million ADDITIONAL innocents were raped, otherwise assaulted and/or robbed by those KNOWN criminals that we allowed to harm, again - recidivist criminals (2),
No Innocence Projects for them. Why?
Possibly, we MIGHT have proof of factually innocents executed, as recently as 1915.
5,000 persons die/yr within criminal custody, of which 31 (0.6%) are executions.
Conclusion
Do reporters/editors and professors care? Yes, they care, very, much, which is why pro death penalty experts (6) were excluded.
Bonus: Reporter Hart - ask the professors if they teach the SCOTUS case, McClesky vs Kemp, accurately, which will require research, fact checking and vetting, on your part.
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FN
1) The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds
71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims,
Well Known Since 2000
2) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
Deterrence, Death Penalties & Executions
3) Texas Death Penalty Procedures
4) Religion and The Death Penalty
5) RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS
6) Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
