ProDPinNC: Media Disaster: The Idaho Statesman's Death Penalty Ignorance

Please forward to the families of Kaylee, Madison, Xana and Ethan

Originally sent July 6, 2023, RE-SENT November 19-20,2023 - 4 MONTHS LATER

Has Idaho Statesman continued their lies, deceptions and/or incredible, willful ignorance or decided to be actual journalists? Which?

To: Letters or Op/ed, Idaho Statesman

Editorial Board, Idaho Statesman,

Mary Rohlfing, Boise State, community member of editorial board

Public Radio, Boise State & U of Idaho

Rebecca Tallent, Professor Emeritus, Ethics, School of Journalism and Mass Media, U of Idaho

Professional Standards and Ethics Committee. Society of Professional Journalists

BCC: Idaho Press Club & the Newspaper Assoc of Idaho

Moscow Police Dept, Latah County Sheriff's Dept., Idaho State Police

Idaho Prosecuting Attorneys Assoc.

Governor Brad Little and staff and cabinet

Attorney General Raul Labrador

Idaho Dept. of Corrections

Idaho House & Senate Members, State & Judiciary Committees

Newspaper Assoc. of Idaho, Idaho Press Club and Media throughout Idaho

Law Professor Samuel Newton & U of Idaho Law School

Prof. Greg Hampikian, Innocence Project & the Biology and Criminal Justice Depts, & Administration, Boise State U.

Boise State U, The Blue Review, School of Public Service, Communication & Media Depts. and many others

Students & Student Groups, at those and other Idaho universities

Subject: EDIT: The Death Penalty & The Idaho Statesman's Ignorance

https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2023/07/media-disaster-death-penalty-idaho.html

RE: Let’s be honest about death penalty in Idaho: Revenge killing despite the cost | Opinion BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD, The Idaho Statesman, JULY 04, 2023

From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom

Method: The Idaho Statesman Editorial Board ("Journalists") is quoted, followed by my REPLY.

Title: "The Idaho Statesman's Editorial Board Needs to Get Honest, Informed About The Death Penalty"

1) Journalists: "Idaho hasn’t executed a death row inmate since June 2012, and just two in almost 30 years."

Reply: Journalists might consider why that is the case and what are the major problems and how to fix them, as with any other government programs, investigated by media, but evading all curiosity, within the Journalists op/ed.

Since 1976, Virginia has executed 113 murderers after 7 years of appeals, on average (1).

The Journalists appear incurious why Idaho can't properly manage their own death penalty. Why? It harms justice and the victims' survivors. It is standard anti-death penalty Journalism.

2) Journalists: "The reasons justifying the death penalty continue to get thin."

Reply: That is only the case if you are a dogmatic anti-death penalty person/Journalist who refuses to look at both sides of this topic, as with the Journalists' op/ed, wherein "thin" describes the Journalists lack of critical thinking, research, curiosity, fact checking and vetting, as detailed throughout.

For example:

a) Justice

Justice may be the greatest of all human endeavors (2) and is the goal of all criminal cases. For the Journalists, justice is "thin". For most of us, it is quite important.

b) Saving innocent lives

Saving more innocent lives is, also, important and is a product of the death penalty/execution, in three different ways: Enhanced due process (3), enhanced incapacitation (3) and enhanced deterrence (3,4).

For the Journalists, saving innocent lives is a "thin" reason for death penalty support. That is no anti-death penalty surprise, as detailed (3).

The Journalists ignorance appears willful.

c) The innocents murdered and their loved ones

Also discounted by the Journalists and invisible in their op/ed are the innocents murdered (2) and their loved ones (2). It is a common anti-death penalty omission, a zero, even less than "thin". The victims' survivors, in capital cases, approve of the death penalty/execution, at a rate of 95-99% (5). For most of us, the innocent victims and their survivors are paramount, the reason that we have the death penalty and all other criminal sanctions (2).

The innocents, often, raped, tortured and murdered, and their loved ones, don't even qualify as "thin", by the Journalists. Instead, they are invisible, a zero, in their op/ed.

3) Journalists: "The argument that it’s cheaper to execute someone than it is to house them in prison for the rest of their life doesn’t hold water. As Idaho Statesman reporter Kevin Fixler wrote Sunday in an in-depth story, the costs to have someone on death row exceed the costs to house someone for life in prison. He cited two studies from Washington state and Oregon, each showing that pursuit of a death sentence on average cost taxpayers upward of $1 million more than when prosecutors sought life imprisonment in aggravated first-degree murder cases. And yet, misinformation about cost savings continues to be cited in Idaho to justify the practice."

Reply: a) Did Fixler fact check and vet the Oregon and Washington state studies or the assertion by "A death penalty expert (that) told Fixler widely held beliefs that lifetime imprisonment is costlier than death sentences has been proved wrong time and again?

My guess? No (1). Read what I sent Fixler and others, re those two studies, as well as this (1).

b) Have the Journalists done a thorough" apples-to-apples" cost analysis of the death penalty vs life without parole (LWOP) (6) in Idaho. No. So how do the Journalists know about "cost misinformation" in Idaho? They don't, as is obvious. They made it up by presuming "facts".

c) Washington nor Oregon are Idaho. Journalists?

d) IF an "apples-to-apples" study (6) found it cost $500, 000 more for a death penalty case than for an equivalent LWOP case, in Idaho, that would be 0.025 cents more per year per Idaho citizen, for a 10 year period, the reasonable time to complete death penalty appeals.

0.025 cents/yr./Idaho citizen. Journalists?

e) LWOP can last 40-60 years, with maximum security costs up to $180,000/inmate/yr, with 20-40 years of medical/geriatric care costing over $80,000/inmate/yr., in California (7). Oh, California is not Idaho. What would those costs be, in Idaho? Journalists?

f) When fact checking/vetting many of the cost studies, it was found that they were nonsensical, incomplete and/or fraudulent (1). Were the Journalists aware of that? No. Do they care? Denno?

g) Some of the studies, that found the death penalty more expensive than LWOP, when fact checked and vetted, showed the reverse (1). Did the Journalists know that? No. Do they care? Denno?

h) Did the Journalists investigate all that, prior to writing their op/ed? No. Do they care? No, or they would have.

4) Journalists: “It’s public misinformation,” said Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor. “I don’t know how anybody could possibly argue with these statistics or even question them at all. It’s across the board, across the country, different states, but across different times, too, given the length-of-time cost studies conducted.”

Reply: One argues with/researches the statistics and questions them, based upon, fact checking and vetting, as the anti-death penalty professor, should know. Possibly, Denno might consider fact checking and vetting the studies (1), which I HOPE she has not done. I am sending this letter/op/ed to Denno. Journalists? Denno?

Possibly, the Journalists will, next time, speak with and quote pro-death penalty experts (8), not, only, anti-death penalty academics. Readers and the Journalists will be more informed (9), which seems not to be of interest, to the Journalists. We'll see.

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

https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2023/11/media-disaster-repudiation-of.html

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5) Journalists: "Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador suggested the solution to the high cost of the death penalty might be to cut down on the legal avenues available to someone on death row, in spite of the clear evidence that those legal avenues have at times exonerated those wrongly convicted and sentenced to death."

Reply: It's not about reducing legal avenues, but about having responsible protocols and responsible judges. With some exceptions, there is no legal reason that appeals should take longer than 2-3 years at the state supreme court level, 2-3 years at the federal district court level and 2-3 years at the federal circuit court level, or 6-9 years, total, with direct appeals and the writ heard and decided, in unison, without reducing legal avenues. SCOTUS, rarely, hears these cases. Journalists?

If there are legal avenues, that are not constitutionally, required, why would Idaho waste time and money on them? Journalists? Labrador?

If Virginia can do it, well, we know that Idaho can. Correct? Journalists? Labrador? If not, why not? The Journalists incurious. Why? How?

The Journalists used Washington and Oregon as examples, for Idaho. Why not Virginia? Because Washington and Oregon support the Journalists anti-death penalty position. Virginia does not.

6) Journalists: "Part of the reason, of course, is that the death row inmates will routinely engage in abusive litigation, dragging out the process over decades,” Labrador said.

Reply: That is where responsible protocols and responsible judges are required, as Virginia has done. Abusive litigation is no problem if you have responsible judges, to shut it down. Often, we done't have responsible judges (10). Journalists seem not to be curious about that, as a possible problem. Why?

7) Journalists: "We could save some money, even if it means a couple of innocent people might get executed and we trample on people’s constitutional rights."

Reply: a) Journalists, your sarcasm and idiocy are not needed. We might have proof of innocents executed as recently as 1915. The modern, completely different, super due process, death penalty, constitutional protocols began in 1976, sixty one years later. Review (11).

b) The courts do not allow "trampling on people’s constitutional rights." (11). Journalists, are you not aware?

8) Journalists: "Bringing back the firing squad, in particular, which passed and became law in Idaho on Saturday, highlights the barbarity of the death penalty."

Reply: Note that the Journalists never - never brought up the barbarity of the slaughter of the innocent murder victims (2). Why? Because their care is for the murderers, not their innocent victims . . . very common in the anti-death penalty world, as detailed (12).

9) Journalists: "the state estimated it will spend $750,000 to build a special firing squad facility that might never get used, bringing into question whether it’s worth the added expense."

Reply: It never entered the Journalists mind that the firing squad is not necessary. Why?

The firing squad was chosen because the state claimed that they couldn't get the execution drugs, for lethal injection executions. How did the Journalists and the state not know they, already, have plenty of execution drugs?

Fentanyl is overflowing in police evidence rooms, with not all needed for trial, with only tiny amounts needed for executions, with only testing needed, prior to use, obviously effective, already in the protocols in Nevada and Nebraska and, by the reasoning in the SCOTUS decision, Glossip v Gross, will, certainly, pass constitutional review.

Journalists? Labrador? Corrections? Governor? No one paying attention, to the obvious? How? Why?

10) Journalists: "Labrador cited. “Capital punishment brings closure to victims of crimes and serves a deterrent effect,” Labrador said. Multiple studies have shown no deterrent effect of the death penalty, regardless of the method of execution. Labrador’s suggestion that the death penalty brings “closure” for the families also is debatable. Does a guilty verdict and life sentence without the possibility of parole not provide “closure” for families? Or does an execution really just fulfill a sense of vengeance for victims’ families?

Reply: Closure

There are many types of closure that victim survivors get from the death penalty/execution. The Journalists, simply, had no interest in learning what they are (13). Standard anti-death penalty, of no interest, to the Journalists.

Deterrence and how the death penalty protects innocents better than does LWOP

a) The enhanced due process and enhanced incapacitation of the death penalty/execution are unchallenged (9) in their ability to protect innocents better than LWOP (3).

b) Enhanced deterrence is challenged, but prevails with fact checking and vetting (3,4).

The Journalists prefer saving more murderers lives, thus bringing more harm and deaths to the innocent (2-5, 8-15).

11) Journalists: "Skaug is being honest when he calls it what it is: retribution. “The victims and their surviving families deserve to see the retribution that Idaho has deemed appropriate,”

Reply: Of course. Just retribution is what is known as justice, within a system such as that in the US. We want and seek sanctions that are not to harsh and not to lenient, based upon all the factors in the cases, which is known, in the US, as justice or just retribution.

The Journalists confuse that with revenge, which cannot be the case, with any sanction, within the US (14), as is well known, by fact, reason and critical thinking, as detailed (14).

12) Journalists: "A valid argument can be made that the death penalty is simply immoral, particularly if you count yourself among those who claim to be “pro-life.”

Reply: The Journalist forgot to reveal their "valid argument".

The Journalists are unaware that the pro-life argument has been supportive of the death penalty (15), since Genesis 9:6. Capital punishment has been interpreted as the required sanction, "shall", for guilty murderers for taking the lives of their innocent victims. In addition, as detailed, innocents are better protected by the death penalty, making it, factually, pro-life, as detailed (2-5, 8-15).

All sanctions are given because we value that which is taken away. Whether it be fines, freedom or lives, in every case, we take things away, as legal sanction, it is because we value that which is taken away.

How can it be a sanction, if we do not value that which is taken away? It can't.

13) Journalists: " Idaho can and should have a debate about the death penalty. But let’s at least have an honest, informed debate."

Reply: I and others (8) would be happy to debate the Journalists.

Possibly, the Journalists will, next time, consider an honest, informed op/ed (1-15), and will speak with and quote pro death penalty experts (8) and victim survivors (2), not only anti-death penalty academics.

The Journalists and their readers will be much more informed. (1-15), again, it seems, so far, what the Journalists do not want, for themselves or their readers.

1) Saving Costs with The Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html

2) NOTE to Journalists, with curiosity and research, you should find these, today, within Idaho.

600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &

3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history

http://prodpquotes.info/

and

Victims' Voices

https://www.marsyslaw.us/victims_voices

3) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html

4) Deterrence, Death Penalties & Executions
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2019/04/deterrence-death-penalties-executions.html

5) Poll: Death Penalty