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Thursday, July 03, 2025

Rebuttal - The Slow Death of the Death Penalty: Toward a Postmortem

 originally sent July 3, 2025

To: All at NYU Press
All Staff and Professors, Criminal Justice, Radford U.
All Staff and Professors, Public Policy, Roanoke College

bcc: at bottom

RE: Rebuttal - The Slow Death of the Death Penalty: Toward a Postmortem, Todd C. Peppers, Mary Welek Atwell, Jamie Almallen, editors, 2025, NYU Press

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

Preface

Based upon their disastrous "Secrets of the Killing State", I will guess NYU Press knew, prior to publication, that Slow Death was a quick disaster. Yes? No?

I know the work of some of the authors and have rebutted them, prior, which might suggest that Slow Death is a book of anti-death penalty FEMS (fraud, errors and/or mis-directions).

I hope that NYU Press and the editors will forward a copy so I can write a more detailed book review.

As this is an anti-death penalty book, only, I will use my regular rebuttals.

Method: I use the Slow Death's Table of Content's format and rebut that section and author, based upon the brief description and my knowledge on that topic and/or the author.

Forward by Sister Helen Prejean

Sharp: Sister Helen Prejean: Her Lies, Deceptions and/or Astounding Willful Ignorance? - A Compilation


PART I: SYSTEMIC ISSUES WITH THE DEATH PENALTY    

1 Innocence and the Death Penalty: Transforming the National Debate,   
by FRANK R. BAUMGARTNER  

Sharp: 
a)  The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds 
 71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims, 
Well Known Since 1998
 
b) Three Baumgartner Disasters, herein (2 sent upon request - you'll see)
FULL REBUTTAL: Michael Radelet & Ben Cohen

c) Innocents Much More At Risk Without Death Penalty


2 The Hidden Costs of Capital Punishment: Beyond the Monetary
 RICHARD C. DIETER  

Sharp: a) I created FEMS because of Dieter and The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), as I suspect all the authors and editors are aware. If experts, they must be.

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

c) What a mess - C-Span & The Death Penalty Information Center
Media Disaster
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2024/03/what-mess-c-span-death-penalty.html 


PART II: THE CONDEMNED AND THEIR STORIES  

3 Juveniles and the Death Penalty: A Failure of Law and Morality, 
by BHARAT MALKANI  

Sharp: a) Why Some “Juvenile” Murderers Should Qualify For The Death Penalty: Brain Science and Other Issues

4 Capital Sentencing and Mental Illness: Proportionality and Procedural Fairness,  by RICHARD J. BONNIE  

Sharp: More, after I read the book

a) Texas Death Penalty Procedures: Super Due Process

b) THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS:
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest protections
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-death-penalty-neither-arbitrary-nor.html

5 Gender Matters: The Execution of “Unwomanly” Women, 
by MARY WELEK ATWELL  

Sharp: WOMEN & THE DEATH PENALTY:  ARE WOMEN OVER-REPRESENTED ON DEATH ROW?https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/women-death-penalty-are-women-over.html

6 Discrimination and Capital Punishment: Will Persistent Racism Seal the Fate of the U.S. Death Penalty?, by NGOZI NDULUE   

Sharp:  a) White murderers are twice as likely to be executed as are black murderers 
b) 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.
c) "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."
d) 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.
e) 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
all from
f)  RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS,   http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/07/rebuttal-death-penalty-racism-claims.html

7 Conflicted Justices and a Divided Court: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Death Penalty Jurisprudence, by JOHN D. BESSLER

Sharp:  a)  Justices, very often, depend upon anti-death penalty FEMS, with no fact checking, nor vetting, nor critical thinking, as detailed:

b)  Judicial Disaster: Their Anti-death Penalty Mess


8 Leveling the Playing Field: Quality Representation in the Capital Defense Community, by MAYA PAGNI BARAK and JON B. GOULD  

Sharp: More, after I read the book

a) Texas Death Penalty Procedures: Super Due Process

b) THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS:
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest protections
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-death-penalty-neither-arbitrary-nor.html


9 Mitigation and the Death Penalty: Successes, Obstacles, and Forced Constraints,  by RUSSELL STETLER  

Sharp: More, after I read the book

a) Texas Death Penalty Procedures: Super Due Process

b) THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS:
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest protections
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-death-penalty-neither-arbitrary-nor.html


10 The Capital Jury as the Community’s Conscience: From Illusion to Reality (and Back Again?), by SCOTT E. SUNDBY  

Sharp: More, after I read the book

a) Texas Death Penalty Procedures: Super Due Process

b)  THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS:
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest protections
THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS

11 The Death and Life of Clemency: Mercy versus Finality, by LAURA SCHAEFER

Sharp:  a) Where is the mercy?
Innocents Much More At Risk Without Death Penalty

b)  The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-death-penalty-mercy-expiation.html

c)  "Judaism's Pro-Death Penalty Tradition", Steven Plaut, PhD, Haifa University, Apr. 23, 2004 article for JewishPress.com
found here:  

PART IV: METHODS OF EXECUTION AND RATIONALE   

12 The Fate of Lethal Injection: Decomposition of the Paradigm and Its Consequences, by AUSTIN SARAT, MATTEA DENNEY, NICOLAS GRABER-MITCHELL, GREENE KO, ROSE MROCZKA and LAUREN PELOSI

Sharp: a)  Rebuttal: Botched Executions

b)  The Untold Secrets of Prof. Corinna Lain  
Her Book: Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection, 
by Corinna Barrett Lain, NYU Press, 2025


13 Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A False Promise, 
by MICHAEL L. RADELET

Sharp:  a) Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A Reply to Radelet and Lacock


e) The modern era death row "exoneration"/"innocent" frauds, errors and/or mis-directions (FEMS) appear to have been inspired by a study by, well, known anti-death penalty activists Bedau and Radelet (1987, Stanford Law Review, vol 40, no 1), both of whom, also, happen to be academics. 

Depending upon category, Bedau and Radelet were, 50%, 60% and 100% in "error" with their claims, as I detailed, on average, where we are today, with anti-death penalty claims.

Cassell and Markman, rebutted their nonsense in 1988 (1988, Stanford Law Review, volume 1, no 1).

In Closing

The HUGE Thing  Missing: The Anti-death Penalty Staple

30 Examples: How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers 
More Than Their Innocent Victims:
AKA - Full Rebuttal of Sir Richard Branson & His Death Penalty Comments

Anti-Victim: Anti-Death Penalty Movement
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/04/anti-victim-anti-death-penalty-movement.html

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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.

The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts listed)

600+ pro death penalty quotes from victim's families &
3300+ pro death penalty quotes, from some of the greatest thinkers in history
http://prodpquotes.info/ 

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BCC:   Book Reviewers, Book Tour Hosts and others: 
Mark Joseph Stern, all others, at SLATE, with Stern the host at Politics and Prose Bookstore, Disarming Leviathan: Missionary to Christian Nationalists, Weller Book Works, Talking with Donato. C-SPAN, All Good Books (Columbia, South Carolina), South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, French Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Longreads, Charlotte E. Rosen (historian, writer, and editor), All at (U of) Richmond Law Magazine. Prof. Lawrence B. Solum (research specialist, U of Virginia Law School & Legal Theory Blog), The Baffler, All Good Books (Columbia, South Carolina), Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael, Patty Roberts (Dean, St. Mary's University School of Law and All Students, Staff and Professors at the law school and  the Criminal Justice and Criminology Dept., St. Mary's U, & Host, Aspen Leading Edge Podcast), Libraries in Oklahoma and Tennessee, All at Good Faith Media/Good Faith Weekly, Many throughout Oak Ridge, Tn (Public Library, Govt, Media, others), Carolyn Dipboye (President, League of Women Voters/Oak Ridge, TN), Ronald J. Bacigal (Reporter for the Virginia Court of Appeals), Maria Jankowski (Executive Director, Virginia Indigent Defense Commission), Law Professor Omavi Shukur, Law Professor Nicholas Kahn-Fogel, all federal district court clerks in Ohio (for Magistrate Judge Michael Merz), National Books Critics Circle (Board Members), Corinna Lain's Substack page, All of those at Legal Talk Network, Library Journal,  National Association for Public Defense, History News Network, Making Worlds Books, U of Richmond Alumni Office, Lewis F. Powell Jr. American Inn of Court, GOODREADS, JSTOR, Turn The Page Bookshop, Washington Independent Review of Books, Legal Theory Blog, The Arts Fuse,  NewsBreak, Fulton Street Books & Coffee, Linkedin, The Texas Observer, Texas Public Radio, Houston Public Radio, Laura Di Giovine on X, PageBound, THREADS, , KGOU (NPR Oklahoma), Above The Law, CRIMEREADS, KOSU (NPR), WYPR (NPR), Possible Futures Books (New Haven), Faithful Politics Podcast, Baltimore Republic Media, Page One Media, NetGalley, Many at ABA (American Bar Assn.), ABA Journal, Mississippi Public Broadcasting (NPR), Brooklyn Public Library, New Orleans Public Radio (NPR), Dorf on Law, Project MUSE, Style Weekly, City Lights, Bookanon, Bunk History, Seminary Co-Op, HighBridge, Waterstones, Red Emma's, Politics & Prose Bookstore, William Engels (History of Philosophy Podcast), SoundCloud, more as found

NY Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, Wall Street Journal, The Conversation, Kansas City Star, Baltimore Sun, Associated Press, POLITICO, Chicago Sun-Times, AP, NEWSWEEK, The Marshall Project,VICE, The Texas Tribune, The New Republic, Texas Monthly, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Texas Tribune, Austin-American Statesman, San Antonio Express News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Lufkin Daily News, WFAA, Houston Public Media, KHOU CBS TV (Houston), KPRC NBC TV (Houston), Texas Public Radio, Catholic News Agency (CNA), Texas Standard, KERA, KUT, KSTX, KUHF, TV 8, Spectrum News (Austin), La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin), [[ News programs/reporters/producers: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC]] , in US and Intl., and many more
 
UK: The Times & Sunday Times (UK), The Spectator, SKY News, Belfast Telegraph, Irish Times, The Scotsman, Irish Examiner,  Byline Times, An Garda Siochana, Connacht Tribune, LADBIBLE, The Journal, Student Independent News, Galway Bay FM, FLIR FM, ThisIsGalway.ie,  Galway Town Hall Theatre, Galway Advertiser,  The Cast of The Exonerated & Galway Actors Workshop, and many more
 
Sent to various states, in the same fashion, when deemed needed:

To: Tennessee Voices for Victims
Governor Bill Lee and staff
Lt. Governor Randy McNally and staff
Tennessee House, Senate & their Staffs
Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti  and Staff
Dept. of Corrections (Vicitm Services & others)
Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference 
The Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association 
Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police 
Jasmine Woodson. Director & all staff, Tennessee Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (TCCADP). 
All staff, editors and reporters The Tennessean. The Commercial Appeal, USA Today, etc.  All leadership at New Media Investment Group, Gannett Co. and Gannett Media Corp.,  Reverend Stacy Rector, executive director, and staff, board & advisory board Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP). National and Tennessee NAACP media throughout Tennessee, incl abc24, Knox news, wpln, many others 

City of Oak Ridge, Tn.,  OR League of Women Voters, The Oak Ridger,  Mayor, Mayor Pro-tem, City Council, City Manager's Office, City Clerk, Court Clerks, Oak Ridge PD, OR Public Library, Senior Center, Planning and Development. OR Chamber of Commerce (the Team & Board)

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