Saturday, March 09, 2024

Death Penalty & Rev. Cheryl Lindsay

 To: Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay , staff and leadership, Slatersville Congregational  Church (UCC)

bcc: Governor Mike DeWine, staff and cabinet 
Lt. Governor John Husted
Attorney General Dave Yost
Ohio House and Senate
Ohio Legislative Support Commission
Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association
Ohio Association of Police Chiefs
Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Association
All Archdiocese/Diocese of Ohio 
Ohio Right to Life
Association of United Church Educators
Editors & Reporters. Media in Ohio
bcc: many more, at bottom
 
RE: Full Rebuttal: Ohio’s death penalty is broken beyond repair, Other Views, Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, cleveland.com, Feb. 16, 2024
 
From:  Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
 
Method: I rebut (as Sharp) all of Rev. Lindsay's claims (Rev. Lindsay).
 
Rev. Lindsay's referenced is a very common anti-death penalty rant, lacking any fact checking, any vetting nor any critical thinking, as detailed. I will be happy to respond, publicly, to any questions you may have.
 
1) Sharp: We know the Ohio's death penalty cannot be "beyond repair" The death penalty is not broken, human management is and can be changed, improved and replaced, as with all mismanaged human endeavors. It is normal anti-death penalty non-thinking, like saying church leadership is beyond repair, when it, never, is. Obvious.
 
2) Sharp: For example, there is no issue to be resolved "regarding the current issues (in not) obtaining drugs for lethal injection. Fentanyl has, always, been easy to obtain, with bushels of fentanyl available in police evidence rooms, with not all needed for trial, with, only, a tiny amount needed for execution, with quick and painless deaths, as very well known, with, only, testing needed prior to use, with zero reasons not to use it (1), except for bad management, for years.
 
3) Sharp: Yes, nitrogen gas for executions would be fine, as well, with 60 years of nitrogen hypoxia deaths, via suicides and industrial accidents, as well as testing to determine how quick until unconsciousness - 16-20 seconds (1).
 
4) Rev. Lindsay : "the actual issues they should be focused on are the systemic problems already plaguing the death penalty."
 
Sharp reply: The alleged "systemic problems" are all rebutted here (2), with fact checking and vetting, with all sources provided, combined with critical thinking (2).
 
4)  Rev. Lindsay: reality, racial biases negatively impact sentencing outcomes, along with arbitrary factors such as county-by-county prosecutorial discretion in sentencing and legal representation."
 
Sharp: Complete utter nonsense:
 
a) Race:  White murderers are twice as likely to be executed as are black murderers." " From 1977-2012, white death row murderers have been executed at a rate 41% higher than are black death row murderers, 19.3% vs 13.7%, respectively." "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." (3)

"For the White–Black comparisons, the Black level is 12.7 times greater than the White level for homicide, 15.6 times greater for robbery, 6.7 times greater for rape, and 4.5 times greater for aggravated assault." (3)

"As robbery/murder and rape/murder are, by far, the most common death penalty eligible murders, the multiples will be even greater, as one would expect." (3)
 
b) Arbitrary; There is no sanction which has fewer crimes that qualify for it, than does the death penalty; nor is there any sanction with greater limitations on its application; nor one that has greater consideration in pre trial and at trial; nor one with greater care in jury selection; nor one that has two separate trials - one for the verdict, the other for punishment; nor any sanction with more thorough and extensive appeals and more consideration within the executive branch, for commutation, clemency or pardons. MUCH MORE HERE:  (4)

None of this is in dispute. All of which establishes that the death penalty as the least arbitrary and capricious sanction, well known by any observer of death penalty jurisprudence and its impact.
 
c) County by County:  There are 3144 counties (aka as parishes & others) (5).. If we look at the 2% of the counties, with the highest number of death penalty convictions in death penalty states I suspect we will be in the ballpark of having a majority (51%) of the nation's capital murders, in death penalty states, - The most obvious, as detailed:
 
In 2002, the 75 largest counties had 51% of murders and non-negligent manslaughters, 61% of robberies and 36% of forcible rapes, nationally (5), which is in the ballpark of 60-70% of what we know as capital, death penalty eligible murders, with robbery/murders and rape/murders, police murders, multiple and serial murders, in death penalty eligible counties.

75 is nearly 2.4% of all counties, both death penalty eligible and not.

In other words, we should expect that 2% of US counties would account for 51% of the executions. (6)
 
5)  Rev. Lindsay: "in Ohio alone, 11 individuals have been exonerated from death row."
 
Sharp reply: Since 1998, and through 2024, it has been well known that the high numbers of "innocent"/"exonerated" from death row have been 71-83% fraudulent, depending upon study, with anti-death penalty folks, themselves, telling us that, at least, 50% of the claims had no such proof (7).
 
Reality finds that there is a 99.6% accuracy rate in guilty findings, on death row, with the 0.4% proven factually innocent all released (7), likely, the most accurate of all criminal sanctions, as we would expect from the only sanction with super due process (7).
 
Innocents are better protected in three ways, with the death penalty, than with lesser sanctions, meaning, of course that death penalty repeal will spare more murderers while sacrificing more innocents (8). No surprise. Favoring guilty murderers over their innocent victims has been an anti-death penalty staple, forever (9).
 
6) Rev. Lindsay: Morally, ethically, and practically, the death penalty is not the answer,"
 
Sharp reply: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Immanuel Kant, and countless others, with immense, moral, ethical, philosophical, intellectual, biblical and theological respect disagree with you (10).
 
7) Rev. Lindsay: "recent polling even suggests that the majority of Ohioans agree. It’s time to join the 20-plus other states that have already outlawed this unjust, expensive, inhumane practice."
 
Sharp reply:  Did you fact check and vet the "expensive" part? Of course not. You fact checked/vetted nothing of any anti-death penalty claims.
 
It's way past time for Rev. Lindsay to be responsible. Look at California, Nebraska and Nevada, first (11), and then move on to the rest.
 
BCC: Many more
Xavier U, All Deans and Dept. Chairs, Xavier U Dept. of Theology, Pre-Law Program, Pre-Law Society, the Psi/Chi Psychology club
and the Criminal Justice Society, James and Delrose Eigel and all staff Eigel Center, Xavier U and
All Eigel Center Mini-Grant Recipients, 2019-2022
Ignite Peace
St. Xavier High School, Cincinnati
1N5
Ohio's SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE,
House Criminal Justice Committee,
SENATE COMMUNITY REVITALIZATION COMMITTEE,
House Finance Subcommittee on Public Safety, 
Joint Correctional Institution Inspection Committee
Ohio Right to Life
Ohio Crime Victim Justice Center
Parents of Murdered Children  (Central & Northwest Ohio & Greater Cincinnati Chapters
Associated Press Society of Ohio
Press Club of Cleveland
Ohioans to Stop Executions, Board of Directors & Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan Jr.
Cincinnati NAACP
Law faculty, Law emeritus and visiting faculty, U of Akron, School of Law
Other Colleges and Universities
Ohio Justice and Policy Center
Swing State Strategies
YWCA Cincinnati
 
FN
 
(1)  Nitrogen Gas; Flawless, proven, peaceful, unrestricted method of execution
and
Lethal Injection & Nitrogen Hypoxia: Controversies Resolved
and
 
2) Research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required of anyone within a public policy debate and which rebut all anti-death penalty claims.
 
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts listed)
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/01/students-death-penalty-research.html
 
3) RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS
 
4)  THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS SANCTION
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest of protections
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-death-penalty-neither-arbitrary-nor.html
 
5) Highlights, page 1, State Court Processing Statistics, 1990-2002, Violent Felons in Large Urban Counties, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice,  July 2006, NCJ 205289, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/vfluc.txt
and
List of the most populous counties in the United States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_populous_counties_in_the_United_States
and
Capital Punishment, 2012, Bureau of Justice Statistics, last edited 11/3/14,  Table 17, Number sentenced to death and number of removals, by jurisdiction and reason for removal, 1973–2012
and
and
Judges as Jackasses: The Death Penalty
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2016/11/judges-as-jackasses_4.html
 
6) Capital Punishment, 2013 – Statistical Tables, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Table 11, Number of inmates executed, by race and Hispanic origin,  1977–2013, 
 
7)  The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds 
 71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims,
Well Known Since 1998
 
 
 9) 30 Examples: How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers More Than Their Innocent Victims:
AKA - Full Rebuttal of Sir Richard Branson & His Death Penalty Comments
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2023/04/full-rebuttal-of-sir-richard-branson.html
and
Anti-Victim: Anti-Death Penalty Movement
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/04/anti-victim-anti-death-penalty-movement.html
 
10)  Religion and The Death Penalty
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/03/religion-death-penalty.html
and
600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
http://prodpquotes.info/

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