The Oak Ridger, with their grossly irresponsible anti-death penalty "journalism", did a great job getting an anti-death penalty ignoramus to inform their readers about the pros and cons of the death penalty.
It appears that Culbert, simply, found a bunch of anti-death penalty material, used it, with no fact checking nor vetting nor critical thinking and avoided all pro-death penalty research and experts.
It is the anti-death penalty standard (1), with the exception that Culbert is, simply, ignorant, I hope, with anti-death penalty experts lying (1).
I detail what Culbert was unaware of or decided to leave out and what the Oak Ridger will, likely, keep from their readers. Also standards.
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Method: I quote Culbert and, then, reply, as Sharp.
1) Culbert: "Bontems was marched to the guillotine for complicity in two murders, neither of which he committed. He had requested a little extra time to comb his hair before meeting his fate."
Sharp: Culbert wants you to think Bontems is less culpable for the two murders, because he did not murder the two innocents, with his bare hands, you know, like Osama bin Laden, who was 10,ooo miles away, for his 3000 murders.
Bontems was a guilty accomplice, co-conspirator, in a prison escape plan, gone bad, with the brutal murders of Nicole Compte, a 35‐year‐ old nurse, mother of two, and Guy Girardot, a 27‐year‐old guard, father to a one year old daughter, details which Culbert thought were unimportant, for readers. Of course.
Why? The norm, anti-death penalty folks care, much more, for guilty murderers than for their innocent victims, as Culbert detailed (2), over and over and over, again.
Culbert forgot to tell us if Nicole and Guy were able to comb their hair, prior to their murders. Culbert?
2) Culbert: "The spectacle and crack of the (execution) blade so haunted (Bontem's) attorney and future French justice minister, Robert Badinter, that he became a staunch champion of abolition."
Sharp: The norm for anti-death penalty folks. It is, only, caring about the guilty murderer, not their innocent victims (2). Not enough screams from Nicole and Guy, or their loved ones?
"As justice minister, Badinter, famously, defied a hostile French public to abolish capital punishment in 1981, revealed that for a long time after Bontem's death, "on waking around dawn, I would obsessively mull over why we had failed", to save Bontem's death.
Obsessively, for a long time, concerned about the murderer's just execution, not the unjust murder of innocents and their surviving loved ones . . . yep, the anti-death penalty norm (2), as they admit, over and over, again (2).
Badinter was very much, just like US Democratic governors, since 1973, who fought for death penalty abolition, against the wishes of their citizens (3).
3) Culbert "recently heard a law professor argue that lethal injection was tantamount to water boarding and fraught with administrative problems."
Sharp: Oh my, Culbert "recently heard" that? Which law professor? Did Culbert fact check and vet it? Of course not. I did. Three years ago.
This regards pulmonary edema, water on the lungs, that was found within autopsies of lethally injected murderers.
There is no evidence that any of those executed were conscious or felt any pain from that condition.
Lethal injections are botched at a rate of 1%, not 7% (4).
False claims of "botched" executions are very common (5) and are repeated, over and over, again, with no fact checking nor vetting, by most in the media (5).
It follows the anti-death penalty norm, "poor murderers, don't mention the innocent murder victims" (2).
4) Culbert: "Brain science tells us that our decision making is mostly the product of competing brain centers that have been trained by our experiences, so it is misguided having a criminal justice system motivated primarily by retribution − itself an atavistic instinctual response."
Sharp: Culbert, unsurprisingly, is, completely, unaware that we have the death penalty for justice, as we do with all other sanctions. Just retribution is the only manner in which we can have a moral and ethical sanction for crime, where we choose a sanction not too lenient and not too harsh, based upon all the elements of the crime, aka justice.
See the pro-death penalty teachings of God (Genesis 9:5-6), Jesus (St. Dismas), the Holy Spirit (Ananias and Sapphira), Saints, theologians, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, C. S. Lewis, and on and on and on (6,7), finding execution just.
Could the Daily Ridger have done worse? Probably.
5) Culbert: "Apologists argue that it is valuable as a deterrent and essential for maintaining public safety." " There is virtually no difference for public safety between life sentences and execution."
Sharp: My apologies - The death penalty protects innocent lives in four ways (really six) better than does a life sentence (8,9) and therefore, should be essential, within the defense of society, which is what laws, law enforcement and sanction are, unless you care not about saving more innocents (2).
Showing, once again, anti-death penalty folks valuing guilty murderers over innocent murder victims (2). They offer no apologies and embrace it (2).
Justice must be primary. We must find the criminal guilty of their crimes and provide sanctions, which are not too severe and not too lenient, for the crimes committed, otherwise known as justice or just retribution.
Deterrence and other causes of saving lives, within criminal justice, are very important outcomes of all sanctions (8,9), but must be, morally and ethically, secondary to justice.
6) Culbert: "The death penalty is often doled out capriciously."
Sharp: Absurd. Such is, never, the case.
The death penalty applies to the fewest of criminal cases, has the greatest of due process protections, from investigations, pre-trial, trial, appeals and the executive branches consideration of commutation, pardon or parole, are the only cases having two trials, one for the verdict and one for the sentence, usually, requires two prosecutors and two defense counsel and needs a 48-0 vote, by the jury, four votes per juror, all on different issues, in order to get the death penalty, all of which are unchallenged, by definition, as the least arbitrary and least capricious of all criminal cases (10,11).
Obvious and very well known.
7) Culbert: "The National Academy of Sciences concludes that (the death penalty/executions) role as a deterrent is ambiguous."
Sharp: If we are speaking of the same study (12), which is likely, we know Culbert didn't read it. The paper's primary author is an anti-death penalty academic, who sits in an academic chair, funded by an anti-death penalty trust.
Sadly, The National Academy of Sciences published it. It's a disaster. Reviewed here (12).
The deterrent effects of the death penalty/execution, any other severe sanction, any possible severe negative outcome or any severe negative incentive have never been negated and cannot be, as known for millenia (8,9).
From potential murderers who stated they were deterred, to the, at least, 24 US based studies finding for death penalty/execution deterrence, since 1996 (8,9), to this:
Nobel Prize Laureate (Economics) Gary Becker:
“the evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.” (NY Times, 11/18/07),
"(Becker) is the most important social scientist in the past 50 years (NY Times, 5/5/14) (8,9).
Does Culbert or The Oak Ridger care? They probably care enough not to present it to their readers.
The anti-death penalty norm is to care more about guilty murderers than they do about their innocent victims, a very common anti-death penalty malady, as detailed (2).
8) Culbert and costs: "It usually takes many years or even decades to bring someone to an execution stage."
Sharp: Since 1976, Virginia has executed 113 murderers, within 7 years of appeals, on average. How? Responsible judges and responsible protocols (13). Maybe other states should try that.
There is zero doubt, such would cost less, in all jurisdictions, than LWOP, which has 40-60 years of maximum security cell costs, appeals and massive geriatric care costs (13).
Not only do I believe that Culbert did not fact check nor vet any of the cost studies, I doubt he even read them.
I did all three (13).
Culbert, start with Maryland, California, Nevada and Nebraska, then move on. I know, nothing, about costs in Tennessee. What I do know, is that there has never been an apples-to-apples cost comparison of the death penalty vs life without parole (LWOP). Never.
Here is a thorough cost study protocol, for that (14). My guess, the Oak Ridger could care less.
9) Culbert: "In Tennessee, federally prosecuted capital trials where the death penalty is sought cost about 50% more than those where it is not, and 29% of these sentences are overturned on appeal."
Sharp: Typical anti-death penalty misdirection. Federal cases are a tiny percentage of all death penalty cases, with Culbert, only, mentioning prosecution costs, not LWOP's 40-60 years of maximum-security cells, not appeals and not huge geriatric care costs (13,14).
10) Culbert: "Even if the convict is ultimately released, the rate of violent crime recidivism drops significantly in older age."
Sharp: It drops "significantly" but is not zero, meaning Culbert forgot to mention the many more innocents harmed, raped, otherwise assaulted, robbed and murdered. Why? You know (2).
11) Culbert: "If 80% of all homicides in the U.S. are committed with guns and most of these crimes are committed with the types of guns that are designed to kill people − 25% of all gun deaths are from 9 mm handguns − then why not tightly regulate these types of guns?"
Sharp: I prefer to stick with the death penalty debate, but I'll give it a go.
Some studies have shown that guns are used, overwhelmingly, to save innocent lives, to a degree far above those innocents lost to murder. As, only, the law abiding will pay attention to regulations, your proposal will cause many more innocent deaths. I see a pattern, here.
Chicago, as many other cities, have the strictest of gun laws, with criminals, circumventing those, with ease. Weapons are, currently, flowing over our southern border, as are countless criminals and terrorists, with the blessings of our own government.
Note: We have the same ability to stop guns, as we do drugs.
The presence of ghost guns has become a huge problem and 3D printer guns will get more and more sophisticated, until criminal organizations will be able to print them, in house, which may be, already, occurring.
Culbert, do your own fact checking and let us see it. I have done none. These were, all, my understanding, over years, from various media, which can distort anything.
12) Culbert: "Unfortunately, there is a human tendency for someone to double down on bad policy instead of admitting to themselves or others that they are wrong."
More " . . . state-sanctioned killings do not represent any form of moral high ground and will never make us safer."
Sharp: Culbert's tendency is to speak on a topic that he has no clue about and who doubles down on his own ignorance.
In closing
Oak Ridger. Nice going.
You will hide this from your readers. Today's "journalism".
FN
1) 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.
Most will realize that the media has been using only anti-death penalty claims and, then, failed to fact check, vet, not use critical thinking, with that research, while avoiding all pro-death penalty research and experts. How do I know most will realize this? Because they wouldn't have seen any of this, prior:
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts listed)
2) 30 Examples: How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers More Than Their Innocent Victims:AKA - Full Rebuttal of Sir Richard Branson & His Death Penalty Comments
and
Anti-Victim: Anti-Death Penalty Movement
3) Death Penalty Polling86% Death Penalty Support, Depending Upon Crime Committed
95-99% Support From Victim Survivors in Death Penalty Cases
4) Rebuttal: Botched Executions
5) Lethal Injection & Nitrogen Hypoxia: Controversies Resolved
Many more upon request
6) Religion and The Death Penalty
7) 600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
10) THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS SANCTION
12) Death Penalty Deterrence: Defended & Advanced
14) Death Penalty Costs vs Life Without Parole Costs: Study Protocol
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Partial CV
bcc The Rev. Stacy Rector, executive director, Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP).Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP), staff & board
