To: All Members, The Knesset
Subject: Rebuttal: Anti-death Penalty Nonsense or
Zoosman's Anti-death Penalty Disaster
Re: Rebuttal - 8 Reasons to Vote Against Israel’s Death Penalty Bill this Hanukkah, Cantor Michael J.
Zoosman, MSM, BCC Co-Founder: L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, Blogs, The Times of
Israel, Dec 12, 2025,
From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
Preface
Zoosman's 8 Reasons is a normal anti-death penalty screed, meaning parroting anti-death penalty groups,
with no fact checking, no vetting and no critical thinking and avoiding all pro-death penalty experts or
pretending that is the case, what I call anti-death penalty FEMS (fraud, error and/or mis-directions) (1).
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Method: I quote Zoosman and reply as Sharp
Zoosman uses the death penalty in the US for some of his examples.
1) Zoosman: "The death penalty will increase – not decrease – terrorist attacks."
Sharp: The more dead terrorists the fewer terrorists. Unchallenged. There are countless dead terrorists, now,
all martyred, with no rational that more martyrs will make things worse. Without executions, terrorists have murdered how many Israelis and Jews? Without executions there was October 7th, the worst slaughter of
Jews since WWII.
Anti-Semite terrorists need no additional hatred nor incentive to murder Jews. With or without executions
the terrorist goal is all Jews murdered. Is any of this news to Zoosman? No.
2) a) Zoosman: "The death penalty risks executing the innocent": "The reputable Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) . . . " finds that "since 1973 in the United States, over 200 death-row prisoners have been exonerated . . .".
Sharp: The "reputable" goes to Zoosman's lack of credibility. He did not fact check, nor vet nor use critical thinking. The DPIC frauds of the high number of the "exonerated" and released from death row have been
well known since 1998, at a fraud rate of 71-83%, depending upon study. (2)."
To have any credibility, how did Zoosman not know this? I have no reason to believe Zoosman has more credibility, elsewhere, and we only have to look at what's next:
b) Zoosman "Image: The grave of George Stinney, Jr., a boy executed in 1944 and exonerated in 2014."
Sharp: Stinney was not nor can be exonerated. At the 2014 hearing, the judge, specifically stated that she
was not ruling on guilt or innocence. Again, Zoosman's aversion to credibility.
"At Sumter County courthouse in January, 2014 Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen stressed that her job was not
to establish the guilt or innocence of George Stinney, who "may well have committed this crime", but to determine whether or not he received a fair trial." " . . . George's confession, and a handwritten note from a Clarendon County deputy stating he confessed and had led them to the murder weapon – a 15 in railroad
spike – was proof enough of his guilt." "George Stinney was executed at 14. Can his family now clear his
name?", The Observer, 3/22/2014
Much more here:
George Stinney, Jr.: No Exoneration
3) Zoosman: "Jewish tradition makes the death penalty virtually impossible." "For murders to be eligible for
death, two eyewitnesses needed to have caught them in the act and warned them ahead of time that their
action would result in the death penalty."
Sharp: a) We have many more accurate ways of determining guilt in many crimes, which are much more
accurate than eyewitnesses. All murderers have been warned that the death penalty may be, rarely, given
within murders, therefore, those requirements have been met, plus additional safeguards which go far above Jewish tradition (3).
b) The deterrent effect of severe sanctions and severe negative incentives has never been negated
and cannot be. Execution is the most severe sanction and one of the most severe negative incentives.
Since 1997, 24 studies have confirmed the deterrent effects of the death penalty/executions (4).
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)
4) a) Zoosman: The death penalty would not bring “deterrence.”
Sharp: a) based upon Zoosman's full writings, on deterrence, within the referenced, he has no understanding
of deterrence.
Zoosman writes: "Meta-studies have concluded that when it comes to deterrence, there is no demonstrable link between the presence or absence of the death penalty and murder rates."
Sharp: It's because you can't use murder rates to determine deterrence. Example: If Iceland and its capital Reykjavik have the lowest crime rates in the world, does that mean that every other country and city have no deterrence, because they all have higher crime rates? Of course not (4).
Zoosmman, please start your re-learning curve, here (4). If consistent, he will not.
b) Zoosman: "As renowned anesthesiologist Dr. Joel Zivot has reminded the world, “Israel’s death penalty
would bring darkness, not deterrence.”
Sharp: Why would you use Zivot as an expert on deterrence, which he is not, when he is so bad on other
death penalty topics (5)? FEMS.
The discussion is about those who are deterred, not those not deterred.
5) Zoosman: "The death penalty is racist.: "75 percent of the cases involve the murder of white victims, even though about half of all homicide victims in America are black."
Sharp: Typical nonsense. How? Why? Willful ignorance or FEMS. Either seem to work well with Zoosman. White victims are the dominant group in capital, death penalty eligible murders (6). Zoosman is unaware that
"all homicides" are not death penalty eligible (6). No surprise. About 1% of murders result in a death
sentence, in the US.
6) Zoosman: "The death penalty often results in physical torture, and always is psychological torture for individuals counting down to their execution day."
Sharp: Possibly, 1% of lethal injections are botched (7), with less than that, feeling any pain.
Any psychological torture is the fear of death, which is, totally, the fault of the murderer and is just
Zoosman providing more proof why the death penalty is more of a deterrent than a life sentence (4). Life is preferred over death and death is feared more than life, What we prefer more, deters less. What we fear
more, deters more. Unchallenged (4).
c) Zoosman: "Telling a human being the date and time on which she or he is to be put to death is a level of inhumanity and torture without comparison in this world."
Sharp: The opposite is the case and Zoosman reveals the anti-death penalty norm, that they value murderers
more than their innocent victims (8,4).
Quaker biblical scholar Dr. Gervas A. Carey: “. . . a secondary measure of the love of God may be said to
appear. For capital punishment provides the murderer with incentive to repentance which the ordinary man
does not have, that is a definite date on which he is to meet his God. It is as if God thus providentially
granted him a special inducement to repentance out of consideration of the enormity of his crime . . . the
law grants to the condemned an opportunity which he did not grant to his victim, the opportunity to prepare
to meet his God. Even divine justice here may be said to be tempered with mercy.” synopsis: “A Bible
Study”, from Essays on the Death Penalty, T. Robert Ingram, ed., St. Thomas Press, Houston, 1963, 1992.
Dr. Carey was a Professor of Bible and past President of George Fox College.
d) Zoosman: "Albert Camus concluded: “But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated
of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared?"
Sharp: Camus' idiocy. It is as if Camus never heard of the premeditated murders of millions, with Mao,
Stalin, Hitler (8).
Camus calls execution premeditated murder, meaning he has no moral understanding. Legal
executions are no more murders than legal incarcerations are kidnappings, legal fines are theft and
legal community service is slavery, meaning, of course, not at all (8).
The premeditation is known as the due process of law, which Camus condemns (8). Of course.
7) Zoosman: "Many execution methods are direct Nazi legacies, including firing squad, gassing, and lethal injection."
Sharp: Zoosman is, totally, unaware, that it is not the method of execution, but why it takes place. Blind. The
Nazis murdered 11 million innocent "undesirables". The US, in the modern era, 1973-2025, has executed
1600 guilty murderers. Zoosman appears to see no moral distinction (8).
8) Zoosman: "Executions inevitably become a political tool, creating a recipe for moral disaster for any
so-called “civilized” society."
Sharp: The US has executed 0.2% of her murderers in the past 53 years, likely the most invisible tool in the political toolbox.
9) Zoosman: "The death penalty violates the human right to life. As outlined in the Third Article of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.”
Sharp: Zoosman's non thinking, again. Only those who obey the social contract, the laws, have those rights.
All countries incarcerate those who violate the social contract, so liberty may be taken away, without
violating the Declaration, just as taking life with executions. As we all know, the security of the person
cannot exist without law and order, laws, law enforcement and sanctions, which often means taking away
the life and/or liberty of those who violate the social contract, the laws.
In Closing
Zoosman has the ethical obligation to present this to the membership of his organization,
L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.
Will he?
FN
1) 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 or pretend that is the case. How will you know that is
true? Read on.
a) The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
b) Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts are included)
and
600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
2) The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds
71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims,
Well Known Since 1998
3) Texas Death Penalty Procedures
and
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
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
4) Deterrence, Death Penalties & Executions
and
The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html
and
Death Penalty Deterrence: Defended and Advanced
5) Dr. Joel Zivot's Anti-Death Penalty Nonsense: A Compilation
6) RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS
7) Rebuttal: Botched Executions
and
Much more detail, here:
Academic Disaster: Law Professor Corinna Barrett Lain
aka Do Ethics Matter: The University of Richmond?
8) 30 Examples: How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers
More Than Their Innocent Victims:
AKA - Full Rebuttal of Sir Richard Branson & His Death Penalty Comments
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