Monday, March 07, 2016

Libertarians: Death Penalty Essential to Justice

Libertarians: Death Penalty Essential to Justice
Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom 
 
The Libertarian Party (LP) has chosen to oppose the death penalty, a decision based, almost exclusively, upon the inaccuracies of the anti-death penalty movement, with the LP fact checking/vetting none of it (1), again and again and again (1).

Here is a refresher on the philosophical foundations of Libertarian death penalty support.

 quotes by Murray N. Rothbard - the Godfather of Libertarianism - and Walter E. Block, PhD, well known libertarian, Austrian Economist and The Harold E.  Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics, Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans and Prof. Roy Whitehead

JUSTICE

Murder takes away all your property - your self - and violates the second of the two primary axioms - the murderer violates non-aggression in the worst form - by committing murder.

Murder is, therefore, the greatest violation of libertarianism, with execution representing  justice for that violation.'

" . . . (killing) is not impermissible in self-defense, nor is it to kill those who no longer have entitlement to their own lives. Let the message go out, loud and clear: If you murder, you give up the right to your own life." (2)

"What the murderer has done, essentially, to his victim is, in effect, steal his life away." " . . . the murderer’s life is forfeit now, for justice is timeless." (2)

" . . . an individual's most important and primary  property right consists of his ownership over his own person. To interfere with that right is to engage in an illicit taking . . .  in effect murder is the theft of a life . . ." (3).

" . . .the murderer loses precisely the right of which he has deprived another human being: the right to have one's life preserved from the violence of another person. The murderer therefore deserves to be killed in return." (4)

" . . . the instincts of the public are correct on this issue: namely, that the punishment should fit the crime; i.e., that punishment should be proportional to the crime involved. The theoretical justification for this is that an aggressor loses his rights to the extent that he has violated the rights of another human being." (4)

Victim survivors show 95% death penalty support. When the question to the public is "Do you support the death penalty for murder?" and the responses are -  sometimes - always -  or never - death penalty support is 80% or above (9).

"The libertarian takes his stand for individual rights not merely on the basis of social consequences, but more emphatically on the justice that is due to every individual." (4)

" . . . the libertarian theory of punishment is  one of compensation for the victim;  that is, the perpetrator is punished by forcing him to  compensate the injured party to the extent of the rights violation perpetrated upon him." "The reason for this is that libertarianism is predicated on an attempt to attain justice . . . " (5)

" . . . while it is impossible to place the victim back on the plane of life he was following  before the outrage, justice  consists of at least attempting to do so as far as possible." (6)

"Each libertarian has his own foundation - or none - for private property and non-aggression. What we have in common are just these two axiom." (7) "If (libertarianism) has any one principle, it is that no one should initiate force against non-aggressors." (7)

"It is a crime and a disgrace that such criminals now enjoy air conditioning, television, exercise rooms, etc. They owe a debt to their victims’ heirs, who are now, to add insult to injury, forced to pay again, through taxes, to maintain these miscreants in a relatively luxurious life, compared to what they richly deserve." (2)

See "The Death of Punishment", by Robert Blecker, 2014

DETERRENCE
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 The NY Times, 5/5/14

"Another common liberal complaint is that the death penalty does not deter murder from being committed. While it is impossible to prove the degree of deterrence, it seems indisputable that some murders would be deterred by the death penalty. Sometimes the liberal argument comes perilously close to maintaining that no punishment deters any crime — a manifestly absurd view that could easily be tested by removing all legal penalties for nonpayment of income tax and seeing if there is any reduction in the taxes paid." (Wanna bet?)" (4)

"If the prospect of even a small probability that the death penalty might be imposed for even relatively minor crimes does not put a severe dent in criminal behavior, then nothing will." (8).

"   . economists who ought to know better have found no statistically significant correlation between reducing the murder rate and being or becoming a death penalty state . . . that is only because murderers, like most of the rest of us, pay attention not to dead letter laws, but to actual penalties." (2)

The deterrent effect of the death penalty, as with all other severe sanctions, has never been negated and cannot be (12).

"It is fallacious to regard murderers as irrational: very few conduct their business in police stations." (2)

" When multiple regressions are run on murder rates, not against death penalty status, but with regard to actual executions, the evidence is consistent with the notion that such punishments reduce these crimes. This is entirely compatible with the economic principle of downward sloping demand: the higher the price, the less people wish to access. This holds for all human endeavors: cars, pizza, and, yes, murder too." (2, 12)

There are now 24 US studies finding for death penalty deterrence, since 1996. The studies finding for deterrence are considerably stronger than the criticisms of them. (10, 12)

 "Nor is it possible not to regard murder as a stiffer penalty than life in prison. Were this not so, we would scarcely find the denizens of death row trying desperately to stave off, or better yet overturn, their executions." (3) 

Life is preferred over death and death is feared more than life. What we prefer more, deters less. What we fear more, deters more. Obvious (12).

 St. Thomas Aquinas: "The fact that the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit the fact that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement.  . . .  if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgement that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers." Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, 146.

COST

"As for the costliness of executions, this is entirely a function of present judicial functioning, which can be changed with the stroke of a pen." (2)

Responsibly managed death penalty systems should be less expensive or no more than for life without parole, as detailed (11).

Virginia has executed 70% of her death row murderers since 1976, that being 111 murderers executed within 7 years of full appeals, with not even a hint of an innocent executed. 

Virginia's last execution took place on 10/1/2015, after 5 years of full appeals (11).

The Virginia death penalty protocol would be less expensive in every jurisdiction, than is LWOP, with 40-50 years of incarcerations, with massive costs in geriatric care, plus the cost credit, due on the death penalty side of the ledger, which allows plea bargains to LWOP, only possible with the death penalty (13).
 
=======
FN

1) Some examples

a) Rebuttal to Richard A. Viguerie's "A conservative argues for abolishing the death penalty", 7/09, Dudley Sharp 
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/rebuttal-to-richard-vigueries-when.html 
 
b) More rebuttal to Viguerie in the comment section, as
Dudley Sharp | January 27, 2010 3:32 AM | Reply

c)  See Rebuttal to Ron Paul within
Few Conservatives Embrace Anti Death Penalty Deceptions, 11/2013
 
d) Few Conservatives Embrace Anti Death Penalty Deceptions, 11/2013
 
e) Full Rebuttal: Hannah Cox, National Manager, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCADP), 11/2021
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2021/11/full-rebuttal-conservatives-concerned.html
 
f)  Full Rebuttal: DEMETRIUS MINOR, National Manager, Conservatives Concerned About The Death Penalty, 7/2022
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/07/rebuttal-demetrius-minor-conservatives.html 
 
g) Conservatives Concerned About The Death Penalty:
Just another dishonest anti-death penalty group, 11/2013

h) full rebuttal to Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP) within the comment section of
Government Can’t be Trusted With the Death Penalty, by Marc Hyden, national advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, Mises Daily: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 
My comments were here:
The article was relocated, here, with all comments removed
https://mises.org/mises-daily/government-cant-be-trusted-death-penalty

2) “Death Penalty Essential for Social Justice”, Block, Walter E., The Maroon, 10/10/03, Loyola University (New Orleans)
https://mises.org/library/libertarian-position-capital-punishment

3) p, 245, Whitehead, Roy and Walter E. Block. 2003. “Taking the assets of the criminal to compensate victims of violence: a legal and philosophical approach,” Wayne State University Law School Journal of Law in Society Vol. 5, No. 1, Fall, 2003, pp.229-254;  (death penalty justified) http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block_taking-assets.pdf

4)  The Libertarian Position on Capital Punishment, Murray N. Rothbard, 07/13/2010 
https://mises.org/library/libertarian-position-capital-punishment 
originally appeared as "The Plumb Line: The Capital Punishment Question" in the Libertarian Review, Vol. 7, No. 5 (June 1978), pp. 13–14.

Rothbard's Profile
 
5) p 243, ibid footnote 2

6) p 244, ibid, footnote 2

7) "Libertarianism vs Objectivism; A Response to Peter  Schwartz", Walter Block,   pg 41, 42, Reason Papers Vol. 26 39, Loyola University, New Orleans

8) p  248, ibid footnote 2

9) 86% Death Penalty Support: Highest Ever - April 2013

95% of Murder Victim's Family Members Support Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/11/86-death-penalty-support-highest-ever.html

10) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html 

 11)  See Virginia and Utah within
Saving Costs with The Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html

12)  Deterrence, Death Penalties & Executions
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2019/04/deterrence-death-penalties-executions.html 

13)  Death Penalty Costs vs Life Without Parole Costs: Study Protocol
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2015/05/death-penalty-cost-study-protocol.html 
 
======
600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
http://prodpquotes.info/ 
====== 
======
 
Research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required in a public policy debate
 
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts listed)

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Friday, March 04, 2016

Death Penalty Costs: Utah

3/4/2016

Problems: Utah Death Penalty Cost Study
Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom

 To: Governor Gary Herbert and staff
Utah House, Senate and staff
Attorney General Sean Reyes and staff
Utah Prosecution Council
Utah Sheriffs' Association
Media throughout Utah

 Re: Problems: Utah Death Penalty Cost Study

 From: Dudley Sharp

 Utah's death penalty cost study (1) has some problems.
1) No Evaluation of Actual LWOP or Death Penalty Costs

The study is based upon calculating the differences in costs between the death penalty and life without parole, without establishing the specific costs of either the death penalty or of life without parole ("LWOP", being the relevant capital murder cases).

 The study did this by, allegedly, looking at all the things that Utah has to do in a death penalty case and in a LWOP case and calculating ONLY the costs of the, alleged, differences between the two, wherein this study found $1.6 million more costs in a death penalty case.

 Because of errors in methodology, we know this to be, wildly, inaccurate.
2) How Problematic

 This process had several identifiable problems:

 a) Gary Syphus, the fiscal analyst who did the death penalty vs LWOP cost study, stated: "To be clear I did not estimate LWOP costs" (2).

 We are precluded from fact checking a detailed look at both death penalty and LWOP costs, which are, totally, absent from the study, thereby lowering any confidence in its conclusions

 added 11/21/16 -- To be very clear, the methodology of the study, as detailed, and Syphus' conclusions must be very inaccurate.

 b) confidence, further lowered, because the study excluded 1) the increased costs of medical and geriatric care,  for LWOP and  2) possibly excluded an increase of costs of higher security for LWOP capital murderers; 3) excluded the increased costs of the additional appellate LWOP costs; and 4) the cost savings of plea bargains to LWOP, only possible with the death penalty option and a cost credit which is applied to the death penalty side of the ledger and which can be a huge number, dramatically lowering death penalty costs, depending upon the number of LWOP pleas.

 This study provides zero information for all of those calculations, wrongly excludes them, because none were looked at, establishing many errors, undermining any confidence in the study.
3) UNDERESTIMATING LWOP COSTS

 According to Syphus, the "study" used the average incarceration costs per year for THE ENTIRE PRISON POPULATION and applied those to LWOP (2).

 Such underestimates LWOP costs.

 a) Medical Costs

 LWOP murderers will die in prison and will have a higher average costs for medical care, because, as per Syphus, the average Utah LWOP inmate will live to 76, which incurs geriatric care costs, WHICH Syphus averaged out over the ENTIRE PRISON POPULATION, instead of applying it to LWOP, only (2).

 As an example, the study averages costs inclusive of, say, a 20 year old, healthy inmate who gets a 1 year prison sentence for assault and has $0 medical costs per year and an 85 year old inmate, on kidney dialysis, who received a LWOP sentence for capital murder, at age 45, with medical costs at $348,000 per year.

 This methodology destroys any confidence in the study and results in, totally, unreliable numbers, as is conceded.

 In 2012, in Utah Dept. of Corrections (UDC) found that:

 "About 9 percent of the state's total prison population is older than 55. (UDC) estimates health care costs of those inmates are 12 times more expensive than those of younger inmates." (3)

 Syphus averaged out those 12 times more expensive geriatric LWOP cases, over the ENTIRE PRISON POPULATION, lowering the real, true geriatric LWOP medical costs and destroying any confidence in the study's findings, as all reality was destroyed, as conceded.

 Based upon Syphus' average expected age of 76, the average LWOP prisoner will have about 26 years of geriatric care which for prisoners starts at ages 50- 55, and, in Utah, averages about additional $22,000 per year (4), or $572,000 per inmate for those additional 26 years, costs which Syphus nullified by averaging the costs over the ENTIRE PRISON POPULATION.

 Added to that will be 5 more years of increased medical care, maybe an additional $11,000 or so per LWOP prisoner/yr., $55,000, total, to add up to the 31 years Syphus calculated as the additional years for LWOP over a death row inmate, or an estimated $627,000 total, more per LWOP inmate (4), which was excluded in the study (4).

 Because of the way Syphus calculated the study, it is possible that this error could be double, or $1.254 million, as the $627,000 was excluded from the baseline of LWOP, as would apply to all other cost issues, to follow.

 Utah's medical/geriatric prisoner costs are at a low level compared to many other states, as detailed (4).

 For example, the renal failure unit at the Federal Medical Center (Devens) costs $348,000/PER YEAR/PER INMATE for their 115 aging inmates, at $4 million per year for that unit, EXCLUDING MEDICATION COSTS (5).

 b)  Higher security costs

 As a rule, LWOP capital murderers will be in higher security than general population inmates, and such will be more costly. 

 However, the spokesperson for UDC, unofficially, says that increased security in Utah does not cost more.

 Such is an astounding management of costs, if accurate. (Later note: Obviously, "increased" security, by definition, has to cost more).

 For example, one of California's maximum security units costs $172,000/PER YEAR/PER INMATE (6).

 As per Syphus, Utah's average prisoner cost is about $27,000/yr/inmate (2).

 It appears that Utah does a better job at controlling incarceration costs than most states. But we will still have to wait on UDC's specific cost statement, which I have been waiting on since 3/1/16 and, as of 6/2/16, have not received.

Feb., 2022 - still waiting.

 c) Inaccurate Appellate Costs

 Syphus states that the legal appeals costs are within the average for the incarceration costs for the ENTIRE PRISON POPULATION, as with medical costs, which indicates a highly inaccurate and strange way to arrive at very wrong numbers for LWOP costs (2).

 Syphus claims that appellate costs are part of the incarceration cost average (2), which makes no sense, further lowering our confidence and, if true, indicates the same problem of averaging over the ENTIRE PRISON POPULATION and, again, dramatically, lowering LWOP appellate costs.

 For example, one would be averaging appellate costs of all inmates who plea bargained and have $0 appellate costs with those LWOP capital murderers who did not plea and have years of appeals, again, an averaging which, vastly, underestimates LWOP appellate costs, again, a lost cause for confidence.
4)  OVERESTIMATING DEATH PENALTY COSTS

 Plea bargains to LWOP

 With no detailed pre-trial, trial and appeals costs of the LWOP cases, there is no way to calculate the actual cost credit of a LWOP plea, a cost credit only possible with the death penalty option and a plea which can create significant cost savings, which shows as a cost credit to the death penalty and which was not calculated in this study.  further destroying any confidence in the study.

 No death penalty = no plea to LWOP.

 Depending upon 1) how many LWOP cases are the result of a plea; 2) the cost savings of those pleas and 3) how many death row cases a state has, there is a scenario whereby the plea cost savings eradicate any alleged excessive costs of the death penalty, if there are any, and/or which would make the death penalty less costly than LWOP.

 But, we are left guessing, as the study leaves out all of those important details.

 Conclusion

 The death penalty debate is rife with horribly inaccurate and/or misleading death penalty costs studies, some intentionally and obviously fraudulent (6), and Utah's is, not unexpectedly, just another example of that major problem.

 The many problems with Utah's study cannot be clarified and/or corrected without a detailed review of both death penalty and LWOP costs, wherein, LWOP costs will rise, possibly dramatically, just as death penalty costs will go down, also, possibly, dramatically.

 NOTE: These study problems are not the fault of Syphus, but of the parameters given to him by the authority requesting the study. It is unfortunate he didn't detail the problems of the study and that I had to do so.

 ALTERNATE STUDY PARAMETERS

 1) The easy route:

 Ask all relevant entities how many people they will lay off with death penalty repeal. Likely, none, meaning death penalty repeal will have no known budgetary effect, nullifying the need for a specific, detailed cost review.

 2) Detailed route:

 A complete, detailed, specific study of all financial and cost aspects of both death penalty and LWOP cases, inclusive of only capital murderers in the LWOP category.

 Here is a suggested protocol for such a study (7).

 UTAH'S DEATH PENALTY MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS

 I have been told that Utah averages about 20 years of appeals, prior to execution.

 That is not a death penalty problem. That is a management problem.

 The average time for appeals, prior to execution, is 11 years, nationally, and 7 years, in Virginia.

 Virginia has executed 111 murderers, since 1976, within an average of 7 years of full appeals. Their last execution, 10/1/2015, occurred after 5 years of full appeals (see Virginia within footnote 6).

 If Virginia can do it, Utah can.

 As a rule, there is no legal or rational reason for appeals to take longer than 6-10 years, on average, that being 2-3.3 years, each, at the state supreme court, federal district court and federal circuit court levels. Cases accepted by SCOTUS are rare.

 Utah needs to fix her mismanagement problem.

 Sincerely, Dudley Sharp



1) see page 2 of document, titled "Incremental Impact for One Death Penalty Offender to Execution -  State and Local, http://le.utah.gov/interim/2012/pdf/00002860.pdf
sent to me by Gary Syphus, Utah Fiscal Analyst, on 2/10/16

 2) From email correspondence between myself and Gary Syphus, 2/15/16

 3) "Utah one of 4 states whose inmate health care costs doubled",  Brooke Adams, The Salt Lake Tribune, October 29, 2013

 4)  My cost numbers are based upon UDC published material in footnotes 3 and 4 and are, most likely, very close to the real numbers.

 I have estimated $22,000/yr for geriatric LWOP prisoners (10% of prisoners) and a $1800/yr average for all those younger than geriatric (90% of prisoners), for an average cost of about $3700/yr/inmate, as per UDC (link, hereto) and an approximate 12 times greater cost for geriatric inmates than for the younger prisoners, also as per UDC in (3).

 See Health Care Costs, Costs in Comparisons, UDC,
http://corrections.utah.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=2&Itemid=119&limitstart=60

 5) "The Painful Price of Aging Prisons", Washington Post, May 2, 2015

 6) See Death Penalty Costs: California within
Saving Costs with The Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html

 7) Death Penalty Costs vs Life Without Parole Costs: Study Protocol


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Saturday, January 30, 2016

Child Rape & The Death Penalty

2008
Kennedy, Child Rape, The Death Penalty & the Supremes
Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
 

 In Kennedy v Louisiana, SCOTUS makes this blunder: “the court rested its condemnation of executing the rapists of children largely on what it described as a trend away from the use of death to punish such crimes both here and abroad.”

Just the opposite is true.

The state laws imposing the death penalty option on child rape cases were relatively new and a number of states were actively considering passing such laws in their states, as well.

In other words, we were seeing a new trend to pass such laws, instead of a trend away from them.

By outlawing such new laws, it was SCOTUS that was, wrongly and intentionally, stopping a new trend. This is a horrible precedent –  SCOTUS was, knowingly, stopping new laws which may become the evolving standard and, quite possibly, preventing a national consensus towards having the death penalty for child rapists.

Is the newest “constitutional” guide for SCOTUS preemptive trend stopping? Maybe.

SCOTUS’ evolving standards doctrine and the national consensus “standards” are both prone to this type of constitutional perversion – the alchemy of highly strained legal arguments derived from personal opinion.

In fact, the national consensus was for the death penalty for child rape cases.

See Jim Lindgren’s, A National Consensus in Favor of the Death Penalty for Child Rapists”
http://volokh.com/posts/1214447764.shtml

And a July, 2008 National Poll

By a 55 – 38 percent margin, voters favor the death penalty for a person convicted of raping a child. Women and men are consistent in their support.  http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1194

Another excellent example of this type of phony consensus and evolving standards doctrine improperly used by SCOTUS is this,

A phony ‘consensus’ on youthful killers
by Jeff Jacoby in a Boston Globe op/ed
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/03/06/a_phony_consensus_on_youthful_killers/

As a firm adherent to the reality that incentives matter to most people, including criminals, I was concerned that if the sanction options were equal for child rape and child murder that some rapists would be more prone to murder their victims. Therefore, I was not a proponent of the death penalty for child rape.
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Juveniles & The Death Penalty

Why Some “Juvenile” Murderers Should Qualify For The Death Penalty:
Brain Science and Other Issues
Dudley Sharp, 10/2/04

There are a number of inadequate issues raised in opposition to 16-17 year old murderers being culpable for the death penalty — Brain science and other arguments are either weak or false.

BRAIN SCIENCE & JUVENILE DEATH PENALTY — NO HOLY GRAIL (1)

“The brain data don't show that adolescents typically have reduced legal culpability for crimes.” Harvard University psychologist Jerome Kagan.

UCLA’s Elizabeth Sowell, another prominent brain-development researcher, takes a dim view of the movement to apply neuroscience to the law. She says that no current research connects specific brain traits of typical teenagers to any mental or behavioral problems.

“The scientific data aren't ready to be used by the judicial system,” she remarks. “The hardest thing [for neuroscientists to do] is to bring brain research into real-life contexts.”

The ambiguities of science don't mix with social and political causes, contends neuroscientist Bradley S. Peterson of the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. For instance, it’s impossible to say at what age teenagers become biologically mature because the brain continues to develop in crucial ways well into adulthood, he argues.

Such findings underscore the lack of any sharp transition in brain development that signals maturity, according to neuroscientist William T. Greenough of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Definitions of adulthood change depending on social circumstances, Greenough points out. Only 200 years ago, Western societies regarded 16-year-olds as adults.

“Brain science offers no simple take-home message about adolescents,” says B.J. Casey of Cornell University’s Weill Medical College in New York City. “It’s amazing how little we know about the developing brain.”

Brain-scanning techniques, including the popular MRI, remain a “crude level of analysis,” Casey notes. What’s more, many critical brain-cell responses are too fast for MRI to track.

Brain data, particularly those on delayed frontal-lobe growth in adolescents, also need to be put in a cultural and historical perspective, Harvard’s Kagan asserts. Frontal-lobe development presumably proceeds at roughly the same pace in teenagers everywhere. Yet current rates of teen violence and murder vary from remarkably low to alarmingly high from country to country, he notes.

“Something about cultural context must be critical here,” Kagan says. “Under the right conditions, 15-year-olds can control their impulses without having fully developed frontal lobes.”

If incomplete brains automatically reduce adolescents’ capacity to restrain their darker urges, “we should be having Columbine incidents every week,” he adds.

Science News summarizes these positions: ” . . .brain science doesn’t belong in court because there’s no evidence linking specific characteristics of teens’ brains to any legally relevant condition, such as impaired moral judgment or an inability to control murderous impulses. ”

AGE, ALONE, CANNOT DICTATE CULPABILITY

No one, including psychiatrists, psychologists and brain specialists, disputes that some 16-17 year olds are as mature, or more mature, than some of those 18 and older. US Supreme Court Justices, Nobel Peace Prize winners, the American Medical Association and the European Union agree.

Therefore, the argument against executing some 16-17 year old murderers is without merit, when it is based upon age, alone.

Is a murderer less culpable solely because they murdered someone one-second, one minute, one week, one month or one year before their 18th birthday? Of course not.

US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor writes:

“Furthermore, granting the premise that adolescents are generally less blameworthy than adults who commit similar crimes, it does not necessarily follow that all 15-year-olds are incapable of the moral culpability that would justify the imposition of capital punishment. Nor is there evidence that 15-year-olds as a class are inherently incapable of being deterred from major crimes by the prospect of the death penalty.” (2)

It is argued that because people have to be older to drink, vote, marry, etc., that it is hypocritical to say that some 16-17 year olds are mature enough to be death eligible for committing capital murder.
 
If society so wished we could individually evaluate 16-17 years olds (just as we do within the criminal justice system) to determine which of those were as mature as 18-21 year olds and allow those to participate in those responsibilities and privileges. No one doubts that many would qualify. Furthermore, there is a major difference between a social privilege and culpability for capital murder.

MacArthur Juvenile Competence Study: “The study did not find differences between juveniles aged 16 and 17 and young adults (18-24) in abilities relevant to their competence to stand trial.” (3)

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION

Those who claim that the death penalty is a human rights violation have failed to make their case.

It is presented that some US states are equal with a number of less democratic nations that execute those who were under age 18 when they committed their murder(s).
 
First, the US criminal justice system is quite different from those nations. Second, as no one disputes that many 16-17 year olds are as mature as some 18-21 year olds, this argument means nothing.

In terms of proportionality, execution cannot be viewed as disproportionately severe in relation to the crime. The innocent murder victim did not earn or deserve their fate, whereas the murderer voluntarily took the lives of the innocent and thereby volunteered for the punishment available within that jurisdiction.

see A phony ‘consensus’ on youthful killers
by Jeff Jacoby in a Boston Globe op/ed
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/03/06/a_phony_consensus_on_youthful_killers/

======

(1) excerpts from “Teen Brains on Trial”, Bruce Bower, Science News, 5/8/04, vol. 165, No. 19, p.299
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040508/bob9.asp

(2) Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988) (USSC) at
www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[group+487+u!2Es!2E+815!3A]!28[group+edited!3A]!7C[level++case+citation!3A]!29/doc/{@1}/hit_headings/words=4/hits_only?

(3) from Study Summary, ” MacArthur Juvenile Competence Study”,www.mac-adoldev-juvjustice.org/competence%20study%20summary.pdf
Full Study, Results, http://www.mac-adoldev-juvjustice.org/page23.html

 
NOTE: the study was partially funded by the Open Society Institute, one of the Soros Foundations, a product of George Soros, who may be he largest financier of anti death penalty efforts, worldwide.
 

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Saturday, January 23, 2016

Sister Helen Prejean: Does Truth Matter?

Sister Helen Prejean: Does Truth Matter?:
Dead Man Walking & The Death Penalty
Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
 
1) The parents of rape/torture/murder victim Loretta Bourque, a "Dead Man Walking" Case

 " . . .makes you realize the Dead Man Walking truly belongs on the shelf in the library in the Fiction category."

 "Being devout Catholics, 'the norm' would be to look to the church for support and healing. Again, this need for spiritual stability was stolen by Sister Prejean." (1)

 “On November 5, 1977, the Bourque’s teenage daughter, Loretta, was found murdered in a  trash pile near the city of New Iberia, Louisiana lying side by side near her boyfriend–with three well-placed bullet holes behind each head.”

 2) Case Detective Michael Vernado, in the rape/torture/murder of Faith Hathaway, a Dead Man Walking Case 

 "I wouldn't have had as much trouble with (Prejean's) views if she would have told the truth . . ." " . . . (Sr. Prejean) based her book on what was in I guess a defense file and what (rapist/murderer) Robert Willie telling her." (1)

 " . . . she's trying to mislead people in the book. And that's something that she's going have to work out with herself." "(Sr. Prejean's) certainly not after giving anybody spiritual advice to try to save their soul." (1)

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Read Victims of Dead Man Walking, the true story of the rape and murder of Faith Hathaway by Robert Lee Willie and Joe Vaccaro, by the case Detective Mike Varnado,
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 3) DEATH OF TRUTH (3)

 Book Review: "Sister Prejean's Lack of Credibility: Review of "The Death of Innocents", by Thomas M. McKenna (New Oxford Review, 12/05) (3)

 "The book is moreover riddled with factual errors and misrepresentations."

 "Williams had confessed to repeatedly stabbing his victim, Sonya Knippers."

 "This DNA test was performed by an independent lab in Dallas, which concluded that there was a one in nearly four billion chance that the blood could have been someone's other than Williams's." 

 " . . . despite repeated claims that (Prejean) cares about crime victims, (she) implies that the victim's husband was a more likely suspect but was overlooked because the authorities wanted to convict a black man."

 " . . . a Federal District Court . . . stated that 'the evidence against Williams was overwhelming.' " "The same court also did "not find any evidence of racial bias specific to this case."

 Prejean's speculation (lying?) is grotesque.

 See three more reviews of this book/fraud, here:
Sister Helen Prejean & the death penalty: A Critical Review
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/09/sister-helen-prejean-death-penalty.html 

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2018 CCC 2267 amendment: 12 Factual Errors
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/02/7-factual-errors-2018-ccc-2267-amendment.htm
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 4) Prejean finds that THERE IS NO GREATER SUFEERING, MENTALLY, THAN BEING A GUILTY MURDERER ON DEATH ROW (1)

 Sharp reply: Did she consider the mental suffering of a parent who lost their innocent daughter to a rape/murder or, possibly, the mental (and physical) suffering of that girl, as she was being raped and murdered?

 Of course, the sister considered it and she made her choice - the murderer.

 5) "(Sr. Prejean) remains convinced that if people could see the brutality of killing a human being, they might reconsider their support for the death penalty." (4)

 Sharp reply: See the pattern? Sr. Prejean is talking of the peaceful execution of the guilty murderers, not the incredible brutality of the murder of the innocent victims (4).

 6) Sr. Prejean: “It is abundantly clear that the Bible depicts murder as a capital crime for which death is considered the appropriate punishment, and one is hard pressed to find a biblical ‘proof text’ in either the Hebrew Testament or the New Testament which unequivocally refutes this. Even Jesus’ admonition ‘Let him without sin cast the first stone,’ when He was asked the appropriate punishment for an adulteress (John 8:7) – the Mosaic Law prescribed death – should be read in its proper context. This passage is an ‘entrapment’ story, which sought to show Jesus’ wisdom in besting His adversaries. It is not an ethical pronouncement about capital punishment.” Dead Man Walking (2)

 Sharp reply: Has she just forgotten all of this? Of course not. She decided to reverse reality.

 Sister Prejean rightly cautions: “Many people sift through the Scriptures and select truth according to their own templates.” (Progressive, 1/96). 

 Sadly, Sister Prejean appears to do much worse. The sister now uses that very same biblical text “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone” as proof of Jesus’ “unequivocal” rejection of capital punishment as “revenge and unholy retribution”!  (see Sister Prejean’s 12/12/96 fundraising letter on behalf of the Saga Of Shame book project for Quixote Center/Equal Justice USA)

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Does Truth Matter? Sr. Prejean, The Church & U of Notre Dame https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/09/does-truth-matter-sr-prejean-church-and.html 
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 7) Sr. Prejean claims that "75% of those on death row aren't educated above a sixth grade level" (5)

 Sharp reply: The median education on death row is 12th grade, with 87% above 8th grade, 13% below (6). I suspect she just made up her claim.

 Remember, Prejean is a death penalty expert.

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The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-death-penalty-justice-saving-more.html 
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 8) Ford or Sr. Prejean: " . . . since 1973, there have been 146 (now 166) exonerations (from death row) (5)".

 Sharp reply: This has been a well known fraud, beginning about 20 years, ago, when the number was 69.  Based upon numerous reviews, possibly, as many as 26-46 actual innocents (as of today) have been discovered and released from death row (7). Anti-death penalty folks just redefined "innocent" and "exonerated" as if they redefined lie as truth, and put a bunch of cases into those fraudulent definitions (7).

 Ford writes: "Sister Helen devastates us with the reality that the death penalty is sought more often against people of color than against whites" (5).

 Sharp reply:  White murderers are twice as likely to be executed as are black murderers and are executed at a rate 41% higher than black death row inmates (8a).

 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 (8a). As robbery/murder is the most common capital murder, the multiple may be even higher.

 "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." (8a)

 10) The sister calls the death penalty classist (5).

 Sharp reply: "99.8% of poor murderers avoid execution. It depends, strictly, upon one's definitions of "wealthy" and "poor" , as to whether or not wealthy murderers are more or less likely than 0.2% to be executed, in the context of the very small percentage and number of wealthy capital murderers (9) and the vast majority of capital murderers being poor . . .  nearly regardless of your definitions."

 11) Sr. Prejean states: "we turn our eyes away from the fact that we view violence as redemptive (5)."

 Sharp reply: Why would we turn our eyes, away? Christians, more than any group, understand the redemptive value of violence, not only with the Passion of the Christ, but the redemptive value of the death penalty, as detailed for 2000 years (10).

 As the Sister called God an ogre for crucifying His Son (10), her perspective is expected . . .

 12) “(Sister Prejean) received nothing but a stony silence, however, when she questioned the basis of the biblical crucifixion story as a “projection of our violent society.” “Is this a God?” Prejean asked about the belief that God allowed his son, Jesus, to be sacrificed for the sins of humanity. “Or is this an ogre?” “The audience — to that point in strong agreement with the author of “Dead Man Walking” — said and did nothing.” (11)

 Sharp Reply: It is understandable that the audience was stunned. Sister Prejean is condemning the bedrock of the Christian faith.

 She has done this, repeatedly.

 Appropriately, Pope Benedict XIV appears to rebuke her a few days later:  “If to save us the Son of God had to suffer and die crucified, it certainly was not because of a cruel design of the heavenly Father. The cause of it is the gravity of the sickness of which he must cure us: an evil so serious and deadly that it will require all of his blood. In fact, it is with his death and resurrection that Jesus defeated sin and death, reestablishing the lordship of God. (12)”

 None should be surprised.

 Sister Prejean states, in reference to the death penalty, that “I couldn’t worship a god who is less compassionate than I am." (Progressive, 1/96).  She has, thereby, established her standard of compassion as the basis for God’s being deserving of her devotion. 

 If God’s level of compassion does not rise to the level of her own, God couldn’t receive her worship. 

 12) Redemption and the death penalty

 The movie Dead Man Walking reveals a perfect example of how just punishment and redemption can work together.

 Had rapist/murderer Matthew Poncelet not been properly sentenced to death by the civil authority, he would not have met Sister Prejean, he would not have received spiritual instruction, he would not have taken responsibility for his crimes and he would not have reconciled with God.  Had Poncelet never been caught or had he only been given a prison sentence, his character makes it VERY clear that those elements would not have come together.

 Indeed, for the entire film and up until those last moments, prior to his execution, Poncelet was not truthful with Sister Prejean. His lying and manipulative nature was fully exposed at that crucial time.

 It was not at all surprising, then, that it was just prior to his execution that all of the spiritual elements may have come together for his salvation. It was now, or never.

 Truly, just as St. Aquinas stated, it was Poncelet’s pending execution which may have led to his repentance. For Christians, the most crucial concerns of Dead Man Walking must be and are redemption and eternal salvation.  For that reason, it may well be, for Christians, the most important pro-death penalty movie ever made.

 In the book, murderer Patrick Sonnier stated: “I don’t want to leave this world with any hatred in my heart. I want to ask your forgiveness for what me and Eddie done, but Eddie done it”.

 Prejean says: “(Patrick Sonnier) seems to accept that he is responsible for what had happened, even though he claims not to have killed the teenagers. … I suspend judgment. With the electric chair waiting, with death close like this, who the triggerman was seems not the point.” 

The most important point of any Christian ministry is salvation. If  the most important part of any Christian ministry is saving souls, and Sonnier is lying, and redemption is undermined, that seems a very important point.  What could be a more important point for a death row ministry?

 Ending the death penalty?

In the movie, murderer Matthew Poncelet repeats the final words of one of the real murderers, Robert Willie: “I would just like to say … that I hope you get some relief from my death. Killing people is wrong. That’s why you’ve put me to death. It makes no difference whether it’s citizens, countries, or governments. Killing is wrong.” 

 Here, tragically, hauntingly, it seems that Sister Prejean has taught Willie to be an anti-death penalty activist. The crucial elements of atonement, expiation, responsibility and forgiveness are replaced by the classic anti-death penalty saying that all “Killing is wrong”, the amoral position of equating murder and execution, violent crime and just sanction, the guilty murderer with the innocent victim – the worst set of messages for the murderer’s redemption . . . just as Detective Vernado observed. 

 In his final statement, Kenneth Gentry, executed April 16, 1997, for the premeditated murder of his friend Jimmy Don Ham, stated: “I’d like to thank the Lord for the past 14 years (on death row) to grow as a man and mature enough to accept what’s happening here tonight. To my family, I’m happy. I’m going home to Jesus.” As the lethal drugs began to flow, Gentry cried out, “Sweet Jesus, here I come. Take me home. I’m going that way to see the Lord.” (Michael Gracyk, Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, 4/17/97).   

 We cannot know if Gentry or the two real murderers from the DMW book really did repent and receive salvation.  But, we do know that St. Aquinas advises us that murderers should not be given the benefit of the doubt. We should err on the side of caution and not give murderers the opportunity to harm again.

  “The fact that the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit the fact that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement. They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgement that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers.” St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, 146.
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 1) Sister Helen Prejean: A Critical Review
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/04/sister-helen-prejean-critical-review.html

and

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


2)  Sister Helen Prejean & the death penalty: A Critical Review
 http://homicidesurvivors.candothathosting.com/2009/05/04/sister-helen-prejean-the-death-penalty-a-critical-review/


3) www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=1205-mckenna


4)  Sr. Helen Prejean: "Botched" Nun
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/09/sr-helen-prejean-rebutted-again.html


5)  RE: REBUTTAL To: "God Allows Us to Wake Up”: Sister Helen Prejean Comes to BC,  By: Craig A. Ford, Jr., Graduate Students of Color Blog, 10/11/14,
http://bcgsca.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/god-allows-us-to-wake-up-sister-helen-prejean-comes-to-bc/


6) Table 5, Capital Punishment 2012, Bureau Of Justice Statistics, May 2014, NCJ 245789
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cp12st.pdf


7)  Deception: The DPIC "Exonerated"/"Innocence" List
(see fact checking/vetting model)
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2019/09/deception-dpic-exoneratedinnocence-list.html 

Death Row, "Exonerations", Media  & Intentional Fraud  
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2019/06/death-row-exonerations-intentional-fraud.html 

The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Deception
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

The 4.1% "Innocent" on Death Row: More Nonsense
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-41-innocent-on-death-row.html

Protecting Innocents

The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html 

Deterrence, Death Penalties & Executions
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2019/04/deterrence-death-penalties-executions.html


8)  a) RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/07/rebuttal-death-penalty-racism-claims.html


b) Table 12, Executions and other dispositions of inmates sentenced to death, by race and Hispanic origin, 1977–2012, Capital Punishment 2012, Bureau of Justice Statistics, last edited 11/3/14


9) See  
Is There Class Disparity with Executions?
within   The Death Penalty: Fair & Just
              http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/12/is-death-peanalty-fairjust.html

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


b) New Testament Death Penalty Support Overwhelming
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-testament-death-penalty-support.html


11) “God, ogre comparison doesn’t fly with interfaith crowd”, Paul A. Anthony, Rocky Mountain News, 03:35 p.m., August 24, 2008.


12) “It Is Not ‘Optional’ for Christians to Take Up the Cross”, 8/31/2008) 
https://zenit.org/articles/cross-not-optional-says-benedict-xvi/

See also
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-death-penalty-justice-saving-more.html 

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600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
http://prodpquotes.info/ 
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Additional research,w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required of everyone.  
 
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
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