Originally sent March 24, 2025, 11:10 am CST
edited for clarity
The Exonerated: Will the U of Notre Dame Deceive, More?
To: Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy,
Notre Dame's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture
Hosts: Notre Dame Law School Exoneration Justice Clinic &
Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights
Co-sponsors: Notre Dame chapter of the American Civil Liberties
Union, the Black Law Students Association, the Exoneration
Project and the Death Penalty Abolition Society
bcc many more at bottom
Subject: The Exonerated: Will the U of Notre Dame Deceive, More?
RE: Death Penalty Abolition Week at Notre Dame. March 2025
From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death
penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
Preface
The anti-death penalty movement has a huge problem, which
I have labeled FEMS (frauds, errors and/or misdirections),
as revealed, again:
1) Jimmy Gurulé, professor of law and director of Notre
Dame's Exoneration Justice Clinic, said. “To date, 200 death
row inmates have been exonerated." “But for the work of innocence
projects, law school clinics and pro bono lawyers, these individuals
could have been tragically executed by the state for a crime they
did not commit. I can’t imagine a more compelling argument
for the abolition of the death penalty.”. (1)
Sharp: Is there a more compelling reason for Gurulé to look in
the mirror and say "ETHICS!"
2024 The 200 "exonerated" comes from The Death Penalty
Information Center (DPIC) (para 7, fn 2), which has, simply,
redefined both "innocent" and "exonerated", as if redefining lie
as truth, and stuffed a bunch of cases into those perverted
definitions, as detailed (para 7, fn 2).
All death penalty experts have known this for decades and
Gurulé cannot deny it (2).
Depending upon many reviews (2), the DPIC
"innocent"/"exonerations" claims have a fraud/error rate from
71-83%, bringing the number of true exonerations, the factually
innocent, defined as proof of no involvement in the crime, down to
a range of 34-58, an average of 0.5% (Para 2, fn 2).
PROOF A selected few, from (2).
1998 The first, most obvious and semi honest public
confirmation of the modern era "innocent"/"exonerated"
FEMS occurred, when Northwestern U. Prof. Lawrence
Marshall, the organizer of the 1998 Wrongfully Convicted
on Death Row Conference in Chicago, stated that "In a
good half of these 75 cases, the exoneration is so
complete that it erases any doubt whatsoever."
2002: A case by case look at DPIC deceptions. "If the
Quinones court's analysis of the DPIC list is combined with
this critique's analysis , only 17 defendants should be on the List,
not the 102 defendants currently listed, an 83% error/fraud rate,
as with Florida and Texas. (para 10, fn 2).
2005, New York Times justice reporter Adam Liptak, now
their US Supreme Court reporter, found from 30-40 may be
innocent, when DPIC said 119, meaning a 71% fraud/error rate,
using the average 35 innocent.
2006 SCOTUS' Justice Scalia found a 0.5% actual innocence
rate from death row (para 17, fn 2)., which is about 45, today, for a
78% fraud/error rate, using the 200 number.
2011 The Innocence Project (IP), knowingly, uses that DPIC
FEMS (3), just as IP made up false, false confessions and a false
DNA innocence claim (para 22&3, fn 2).
2011 The DPIC stated that there had been 23 "exonerated"
death row inmates, in Florida. The Florida Commission on Capital
Cases, reviewed all of those cases and found 4 may be actually innocent,
an 83% fraud/error rate by DPIC. (para 4, fn 3)
Much, much more (2,3). Media? Academia?
2) Schedule and Rebuttal for the Death Penalty Abolition
Week at Notre Dame
a) Monday (March 24) • Yusef Salaam, Central Park Five
exoneree
Rebuttal: The Absurdity of the "Exonerated Five":
The very obvious frauds of the Central Park Five
b) Tuesday (March 25)
Ohio death row exoneree Lamont Hunter
Rebuttal: ND tells you in the write up: "To obtain his freedom,
(Hunter) pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to
time served."
ND, now, defines "exoneree" as one who took a plea to a lesser
charge. Really. About 90% of all criminal cases take a plea.
See how this works.
His plea was guilty to "involuntary manslaughter" and
"child endangering", in the death of "(Hunter's) 3-year-old
son, Trustin . . ." . Hunter pled guilty. He cannot be exonerated.
This is how the "exonerated" numbers are so inflated. The norm.
Hunter could have murdered Trustin. No one but Hunter will
ever know, just as ND has no facts to support the claim that Trustin
"accidently" fell down the stairs.
So, what does Notre Dame do? Falsely calls Hunter exonerated.
Do I believe Hunter is guilty of murder? No. Belief is not fact. He
can, never, be exonerated.
c) Wednesday (March 26) • Syl Schieber, “When the Death
Penalty Gets Personal,”
First, I am very sorry for the loss of your daughter, Shannon.
Horrendous and incredibly sad. God bless you all.
Rebuttal: I found some of your speeches and interviews and
these should rebut all of your points.
1) The death penalty/executions protect and save innocents,
in six ways, better than does life without parole (LWOP) (5).
2) The death penalty was first demanded for murderers, within
Genesis 9:5-6 (6), within the Noahic Covenant, which is for all
peoples and for all times. The principle is based upon the Imago
Dei, the reverence for the image of God, in which man was made
and for which the murderer had no respect for that human life
nor for the Imago Dei, for which the murderer "shall" be executed
(6), and which encompasses the ultimate respect for life, as God
demands, in very clear language, for which nearly 100% of
commentators agree (6), as well as the vast majority of Catholic
Popes, Saints, Doctors and Fathers of the Church, philosophers,
biblical and theological scholars (6), until . . . 2018, when the
Church attempted, but failed, to erase all of that, with the, already,
highly flawed 1997 amendment (6), made, even, worse with the 2018
amendments to CCC 2267 (6).The 1997/2018 amendments to the
CCC 2267, inclusive of John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae (6), introduced
13 (15) factual and rational errors into 2267, as detailed (6). The
amendments biblical and theological errors are more difficult and
I defer to those scholars (6).
3) As detailed, you misinterpreted John 8 (6).
4) The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
5) Nationally, white murderers are twice as likely to be executed,
as are black murderers, with whites executed at a rate 41% higher
than blacks (7). I don't know what studies you relied on in Pa. What
were they? I suspect they were corrected, here (7).
6) If I missed something, just let me know and I will
address it and, likely, have here (9).
d) Thursday (March 27) • Sister Helen Prejean, “The Sanctity of
Life,”
How long can the Church put up with her nonsense? Decades, it seems.
2022 Does Truth Matter? Sr. Prejean, The Church & U of Notre Dame
and
2003 and forward Sister Helen Prejean: Her Lies, Deceptions . . .
and/or Astounding Willful Ignorance? - A Compilation
In Closing
How does this happen? Fundamentally, when one has greater
respect and empathy for the unjust aggressor than for their innocent
victims, just as the Church had done, for nearly 80 years (6,8).
With regard to some Catholic anti-death penalty statements,
Catholic theologian Steven Long places the arrow:
" . . . (it) is symptomatic of a society that can garner more
" . . . (it) is symptomatic of a society that can garner more
support to spare the guilty than to save the innocent."
"The crowd still wants Barrabas."
"The crowd still wants Barrabas."
======
FN
1) Opponents, exonerees to take part in inaugural Death Penalty
Abolition Week at Notre Dame, Erin Blasko, Notre Dame News,
March 21, 2025
2)The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds
71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims,
Well Known Since 1998
EXTRA
2019 Deception: The DPIC "Exonerated"/"Innocence" List
3) Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
4) "Innocence and the Death Penalty", The Innocence Project
5) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
and
Deterrence, Death Penalties & Executions
6) Religion and The Death Penalty
7) RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE
RACISM CLAIMS
8) 30 Examples: How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers
More Than Their Innocent Victims:
and
Anti-Victim: Anti-Death Penalty Movement
9) Research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking,
as required of everyone in a public policy debate and which rebut
all anti-death penalty claims.
The media/academic norm is to use anti-death penalty material,
refuse to fact check or vet it and avoid all pro-death penalty
research and experts. How will you know that is true? You haven't
seen this material, prior.
a) The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
b) Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts are included)
c) 600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families
& 3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
======
Victim Services
=====
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