The Death Penalty:Conservatives Concerned (About Hiding the Truth)
To: a) All at Conservatives Concerned (About the Death Penalty) (CCADP), 2025 Owned and controlled by the liberal Equal Justice USAb) The conservative anti-death penalty "Voices" at the CCADP websiteTheir comments have all been rebutted, prior, and/or herein.c) Media and lawmakers
Re: "Government Can’t be Trusted With the Death Penalty", Marc Hyden, national advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCADP), Mises Daily, Mises Institute, 10/29/2013
Subject: Conservatives Concerned (About Hiding the Truth)
From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
Preface
I posted a full rebuttal of this article in 2013, at the Mises site. It vanished. Here is a redo.
It is Hyden and CCADP that cannot be trusted.
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Method: I quote Hyden and reply as Sharp.
1) Hyden: "Carlos DeLuna was executed using no forensic evidence, sloppy crime scene investigation, and essentially one eyewitness account who later said he was 50 percent sure DeLuna was the perpetrator. Claude Jones was put to death in 2000 based, in part, on the analysis of a hair found at the crime scene. This hair analysis has since been shown not to be scientific, and recently, DNA evidence revealed that it was not Jones’s hair after all. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 primarily after local investigators testified that arson was the cause of the fire that killed his three young daughters. This “evidence” has since been debunked by nine fire experts who have examined the case and determined that it was a tragic accident, not arson".
Sharp: Classic anti-death penalty FEMS (fraud, error and/or misdirection).
Texas has a post conviction innocence law, which provides an additional review by prosecutors and judges to find cases of actual innocence that will be compensated for the years of undeserved incarceration and/or execution (1).
So far, none of these cases qualified, after a decade or more, even though "actual innocence" can, now, be defined, lyingly, within that law, by a belief opinion and not a fact issue, with a belief standard, of course, incapable of establishing actual innocence (1), unless in Texas.
So far, none of those three cases qualified, after a decade, or more, based upon either fact issues and/or a belief opinion standard. Undisputed.
an example:
A Complete Compilation: Cameron Todd Willingham: Media Meltdown & the Death Penalty
When Media & Anti-death Penalty Advocates Are the Same
and
A Repudiation of Journalism, by Journalists?
The Society of Professional Journalists & The Sigma Delta Chi Award
2) Hyden: "The average cost for a death penalty case in 1992 in Texas was $2.3 million as opposed to $750,000 for a case involving a life sentence."
Sharp: The "study" compared pre trial, trial, appellate and incarceration costs of the death penalty to, only, incarceration costs of a life sentence, which Texas did not have at the time of the "study". An academic fact check of that "study" found that, with confirmed costs, life was more expensive than the death penalty (see Texas fn 2).
3) Hyden; "Jasper County, Texas was forced to raise property taxes by nearly 7 percent just to pay for one death penalty trial. A single capital punishment case, in part, led Gray County, Texas to withhold county employees’ raises and to increase county taxes."
Sharp: Very odd. The state of Texas aids counties, in capital cases, with additional funds so that such problems can be avoided. Why Jasper and Gray County did not take advantage of that assistance is a mystery.
4) Hyden: "Nationally, more than 140 people have been wrongfully convicted and released from death rows since 1976 while many others were most likely wrongfully executed."
Sharp: The anti-death penalty movements fraudulent and inflated "innocent"/"exonerated", from death row, has been well know since 1998, when it was admitted by an anti-death penalty leader. Depending upon review (3), there is a 71-83% fraud rate in, such claims (3).
5) Hyden: "(The death penalty) comes at a cost that greatly exceeds life-without-parole. Too often this increased cost is passed down to citizens in the form of additional taxation or public debt." "The cost on the local, state, and federal levels are a heavy burden on the taxpayers . . .".
Sharp: a) Based upon Hyden's and CCADP's gross ignorance, I am sure Hyden has, never, fact checked nor vetted any of the cost studies. I have (2). Read California, Nebraska, Nevada and Maryland, first, then move on (2).
b) The death penalty is, very likely, the smallest item in state and federal budgets, as well as the smallest of cost items within criminal justice. Currently (2013), there are 2979 on death row, with 6 million incarcerated, on parole or on probation, all requiring massive supervision, with death row 0.05% of the total.
6) Hyden: "Judicial decisions and legislation have lengthened the appeals process, tried to limit the arbitrariness of the death penalty, and even created an additional sentencing trial only available in capital cases."
Sharp: Hyden, clueless.
a) Since 1976, Virginia has executed 113 murderers, after 7 years of appeals, on average. How? Responsible judges. Judges are the case managers. Any responsible protocols can do that: 2-3 years at the state supreme court, 2 years at the federal district court and 2-3 years at the federal circuit court, with direct and writ appeals going through at the same time. Scotus, rarely, accepts these cases.
b) Factually and obviously, the death penalty is the least arbitrary and least capricious of all criminal sanctions (4), by a huge margin.
7) Hyden: "In fact, systemic failures persist and are abundant, which has prompted 18 states to repeal the death penalty."
Sharp: Untrue as detailed and sourced, herein. Reality: 18 (vastly, 17 majority Democrats) legislatures wanted to make sure all rapist/robbery/murderers lived, even though the majority of their state populations supported the death penalty (5).
8) Hyden: "The framework that governs the death penalty guarantees dysfunction. Elected prosecutors are given broad discretion to decide to seek a death sentence or not — regardless of the wishes of the victim or victim’s family members."
Sharp: a) The framework is known as "super due process" (6), as per SCOTUS, with no other sanction having that. By definition prosecutors have discretion, with all cases. That is their job.
b) 95-99% of those who lost their innocent loved ones in a capital murder support the death penalty/execution. Highly credible, knowing that 86% of the general public support the death penalty/executions, in scientific polling (5).
8) Hyden: "Political, rather than moral or legal, considerations sometimes drive elected officials to pursue a death sentence. Even the juries are designed to support the death penalty. If a prosecutor seeks capital punishment, then a person who opposes the death penalty is generally not permitted to serve on that jury."
Sharp: a) Only 1% of murderers receive the death penalty, with only 0.17% executed, likely the smallest of political influences, meaning it is sought for justice, as with all trials, as determined by the judge or jury, not the prosecutor.
b) you cannot be on any jury, for any case, if you cannot agree to consider all range of sanctions, within the law, for that case. Obvious and rational. No wonder CCADP missed it.
9) Hyden: " . . . the appeals process that is currently in place is there not to introduce new evidence but to ensure the convicted was given a fair initial trial. It remains incredibly difficult to introduce new evidence. This framework favors the death penalty and the will of the government over protecting the rights of the people."
Sharp: Hyden's complete utter ignorance and/or deception. The death penalty has the greatest of super due process, for the defendant/convicted party, in pretrial, trial, appeals and consideration of executive branch with pardon or commutation. Well know and not in dispute (6). If credible, new evidence is admitted all the time.
10) Hyden: "The current system not only has permitted junk science to be used as evidence, but the government’s willingness to accept, use, and defend unscientific evidence and unreliable expert testimony is appalling."
Sharp: All states and the federal government have protocols for reviewing more accurate, updated developments in scientific based evidence. All new developments apply to investigations, pre trial, trial appeals and executive considerations. Hyden is unaware, of course.
11) Hyden: "the government’s monopoly on criminal justice proceedings and its insulation from responsibility when the system fails, are at the root of the system’s failures. If we wish to limit the power of the state, the state’s death penalty may be a good place to start."
Sharp: Could Hyden/CCADP be more of an ignoramus?
a) Who but government has responsibility for criminal justice? Methinks CCADP prefers anarchy. For, about, 4000 years, all civilizations have, rationally, determined that criminal justice is a government responsibility.
b) In death penalty cases, there is a 99.6% accuracy rate in guilty findings, with the 0.4% found actually innocent released (3). Is there a more accurate system? Likely not.
12) Hyden: ". . . the death penalty fails to deter crime."
Sharp: Hyden used no thinking, no research, nor fact checking, nor vetting, a CCADP norm.
The deterrent effect of all severe sanctions, all severe negative outcomes and all severe negative incentives have, never, been negated and cannot be (7), with the death penalty/executions saving and protecting innocents, in six ways, more than a life sentence (7).
Here is a full rebuttal of Hyden's footnote (8), an article he, likely, didn't read, much less fact check nor vet nor use critical thinking.
Since 1996, there have been, at least, 24 US based studies finding for death penalty/execution deterrence, much more credible than their detractors and which contributed 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)
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FN
1) "Innocents" & Texas' Death Row: The "Exoneration" Frauds Continue
2) See Texas, first, then California, Nebraska, Nevada, Maryland, then, the rest
3) Read para 7, firstThe Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds 71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims,
Well Known Since 1998
4) THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS SANCTION
5 a) August 16, 2021 86% Death Penalty Support, Depending Upon Crime Committed
New Evidence of Broad Support for Death Penalty | RealClearPolicy
Joseph M. Bessette & J. Andrew Sinclair, RealClearPolicy August 16, 2021
These polls, above and below, reflect well known polls, for the last 15 years, showing much higher death penalty support than by the oft quoted, much less accurate Gallup, as even, Gallup shows (see Gallup's McVeigh poll (below) vs their standard poll)
b) Death Penalty Polling
updated 3/2023
86% Death Penalty Support, Depending Upon Crime Committed
95-99% Support From Victim Survivors in Death Penalty Cases
c) 86% Death Penalty Support: Highest Ever - April 2013
World Support Remains High
95% of Murder Victim's Family Members Support Death Penalty
86% Death Penalty Support: Highest Ever - April 2013
6) Texas Death Penalty Procedures 7) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Livesand
8) Nagin: Death Penalty Deterrence: Defended & Advanced
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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.
a) The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
b) Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts are included)
600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
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Partial CV
