Wednesday, April 17, 2013

THE INNOCENT FRAUDS: ANTI DEATH PENALTY STRATEGY

updated 6/2023

Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
 
updated 6/2023

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Related topics, below

No Death Penalty = More Innocent Deaths and

THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES
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At least since Sacco and Vanzetti, the anti death penalty movement has been presenting guilty murderers as innocent (1).  


Though Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt was well known to a small cadre of anti death penalty folks and anarchists, they still allowed riots and other violence to take place, based upon the fraud of their innocence (1), in a well  orchestrated campaign, similar to those of today, such as the Troy Davis case (8) or the 166 "exonerated" or "innocent" frauds (2).


These frauds are easily discovered by basic fact checking yet, many in the media and academia advance these frauds, instead of exposing them.


So often, it seems, that willful ignorance is, now, the default position for absolute certainty.


False innocence claims: the many, the blatant, the legendary:


1) see Sacco and Vanzetti, within both:


An infamous, worldwide scam.

a) Guilty: Sacco and Vanzetti

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/08/guilty-sacco-and-vanzetti.html

"(Author Upton) Sinclair met with Fred Moore, (Sacco and Vanzetti's defense) attorney, in a Denver motel room. Moore "sent me into a panic," Sinclair wrote in the typed letter that Hegness found at the auction a decade ago."

"Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth," Sinclair wrote. " ... He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them."



2) Roger Keith Coleman

The classic, worldwide Cause Celebre, anti death penalty case is put together like this:

A 14 year, anti death penalty fictional odyssey.

Imagine facts that evidence won't support, but make it real, anyway. And keep it going for years and years (a).

Anti death penalty activist Jim McCloskey championed Coleman's innocence (a). He created a case of an innocent on death row/executed and knew the media would come.  And, boy, did they.

Here is McCloskey's assessment of the state's case against Coleman:

"The (state's) case was built on innuendos and lies and ludicrous, insane theory that falls flat in the face of common sense." (b)

The classic quote of anti death penalty infamy, duplicating so many other idiocies.

"In the weeks before Coleman was put to death, his picture was on the cover of Time magazine ("This Man Might Be Innocent. This Man Is Due to Die"). He was interviewed from death row on "Larry King Live," the "Today" show, "Primetime Live," "Good Morning America" and "The Phil Donahue Show." (a)

Sound familiar? No fact checking/vetting/research. Just jump on the bandwagon.

"Opponents of the death penalty also seized on the case, staging vigils outside the governor's mansion in Richmond and the Greensville Correctional Center, where the execution was due to take place. Pope John Paul II made a public plea for mercy, and Mother Teresa personally phoned the governor's chief counsel. What started out as a shocking crime in a remote corner of Virginia became an international cause celebre (a)."

Sound familiar? 

"McCloskey and (Coleman attorney) Behan  . . .  concluded that Coleman had been framed by police and prosecutors . . .  and when the (blood) test implicated Coleman as the killer, they sought to discredit their own expert. And they accused a local man of being the "real killer," a claim they stuck with even after they learned of information indicating he had the wrong blood type." (a)

No surprise. Police bad. Prosecutors bad. "innocent" murderer must be saved. 

"(DNA expert) Blake says that this was the moment when Coleman's defenders lost their ethical bearings. Fixated on Coleman's innocence, they ignored or discredited evidence that pointed to his guilt: "Somewhere along the way these people who were supposed to be in the fact-finding business abandoned their responsibility to facts and truth, and started operating on belief." (a)

Standard.

"I had serious problems with (Theresa Horn's) credibility," says Tommy Scott, the former prosecutor. "But Arnold & Porter (Behan's law firm) and Jim McCloskey and the national media bought into it hook, line and sinker." (a)

Of course. Very" normal".

Horn had come up with a story on an alternate suspect, the "real killer".

"Back in Grundy, a scrappy community of 1,500 in the heart of Appalachia, many people were appalled. They viewed Coleman's supporters as a powerful group of lawyers, activists and journalists who were blinded by their loathing of the death penalty and taken in by a clever psychopath." (a)

   . . .  and so they were.

"They were trying to build this case for Roger's innocence, and they didn't care who they threw to the dogs," says Pat Hatfield, the victim of an earlier incident, in which Coleman had exposed himself and masturbated in front of her at the public library . . .

"It didn't matter whose life was destroyed as long as they could save Roger." (a)

Standard.

Coleman's last words:

"An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight. When my innocence is proven, I hope Americans will realize the injustice of the death penalty as all other civilized countries have." (a)

Lying with his last breath. Murderers have no trouble lying. Obvious to most.

Two years after Coleman's execution, Arnold & Porter paid a substantial sum to settle a libel claim by the man it had identified as the "real killer." and stated: "We complied with our professional responsibility and stand by our representation of Roger Coleman." (a).

Yes, of course they do.

As McCloskey could have said, accurately,

"The case for Coleman's innocence was built upon innuendos and lies and a ludicrous, insane theory that falls flat in the face of common sense."

Coleman was proven guilty by DNA, as McCloskey concedes.

But, anti death penalty folks just moved forward with the same nonsense.

a) Burden of proof Jim McCloskey desperately wanted to save Roger Coleman from the electric chair. Washington Post, Glenn Frankel May 14, 2006, Washington Post archive

b) Freedom Fighter,  Trip Gabriel, New York Times, May 10, 1992,
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/10/magazine/freedom-fighter.html 

more here:

Women who survived Roger Keith Coleman often get overlooked, ALYSSA OURSLER,  BRISTOL HERALD COURIER Mar 11, 2018,
https://www.heraldcourier.com/news/women-who-survived-roger-keith-coleman-often-get-overlooked/article_aacb6f21-aed9-5b56-857e-4d641b32ad5c.html 

Va.: DNA Confirms Executed Man's Guilt

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Innocent Frauds
Does Truth Matter? Sr. Prejean, The Church & U of Notre Dame
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3)  The Blatant Fraud - The (now) 166 "exonerated" from death row

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) simply decided to redefine both "exonerated" and "innocent", in the same fashion as if they redefined "lie" as "truth" (and) and then stuffed a bunch of cases into those fraudulent definitions. It's that basic, as simple fact checking confirms.


a)  The "Innocent", the "Exonerated" and Death Row
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-innocent-exonerated-and-death-row_19.html

"An Open Fraud in the Death Penalty Debate: How Death Penalty Opponents Lie

This is a look at how well destroyed the "EXONERATED" and/or "INNOCENTS" list is and how it has been so deceptively used by the anti death penalty movement."

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

4)  Florida & Texas: The 83% error rate in "exoneration" claims. 

Florida

4 of the 24 "exonerated" may be innocent, as found in 2 studies by a Florida state agency, the Florida Commission on Capital Cases.  It is no surprise that the 24 "exonerated" claim comes from the deceptive DPIC. The Florida media just laps the 24 "exonerated" fraud up, with zero fact checking, as has become way to common.

This may represent the worst case of media deception, as the Florida media has known the real numbers since 2002 (updated 2011)  but refuses to use them, instead, pushing the well known DPIC deception of the 23/24 "exonerated". That is how bad it has gotten.

From page 5 (2002 study) and page 7 (2011 study):

"The guilt of only four defendants was subsequently "doubted" by the prosecuting office or the Governor and Cabinet members: Freddie Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee were pardoned by Governor Askew and the Cabinet, citing substantial doubt of their guilt, Frank Lee Smith died before the results of DNA testing excluded him as the perpetrator of the sexual assault, and the State chose not to retry James Richardson due to newly discovered evidence and the suspicion of another perpetrator." 

"doubted", not confirmed.

a)  Case Histories: A Review of 24 Individuals Released from Death Row (2002), FLORIDA COMMISSION ON CAPITAL CASES, Locke Burt, Chairman, June 20, 2002, Revised: September 10, 2002 - This file cannot be found, likely, because the (b) report, just below, is an update of this one.

b)  TRULY INNOCENT?: A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida‘s Death Row Since 1973, Commission on Capital Cases, The Florida Legislature, Roger R. Maas, Executive Director, May 13, 2011
http://www.floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us/Documents/Publications/casehistory05-13-11%20Report.pdf

Texas

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) claims 12 death row "exonerations" in Texas.

By Texas law, Texas has only identified one former death row inmate , Anthony Graves, as actually innocent  . . . 

well, actually, no  . . .

"Actual innocence" in the Graves case was decided by a "belief" standard, not an evidence standard, with this exception "no credible evidence exists that inculpates the defendant" , crossing the well known evidence line:

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

By this amendment, any guilty murderer with "absence of evidence" - POOF  -  becomes "actually innocent".

The belief "standard" had to be amended into the law, because there was no evidence to establish Grave's innocence, as the law, previously, required such evidence to prove innocence, thereby requiring the judge to find  that the Graves case did not qualify for that finding, which was the case. 

How better to declare Anthony Graves "actually innocent" than to avoid a standard of evidence establishing innocence and replace it with "belief" and absence of evidence.

Done.

Another case, that of Michael Blair, must be included as a proven innocent, but was excluded for compensation, under a provision of the law. He remains a lifer with four sexual assaults on children convictions.

I am told that Randall Dale Adams, put on death row for the murder of Dallas police officer Robert Wood, is a slam dunk innocence case, made famous by "The Thin Blue Line" film (1988). I just haven't looked at the case, yet.

So, 2 or 3 out of 12, meaning a  75-83% error rate in the Texas death row "exoneration" claims.  There are no other death penalty cases pending.

"Innocents" & Texas' Death Row: The "Exoneration" Frauds Continue
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2015/09/innocents-texas-death-row.html


5) "The innocence tactic: Unreliable studies and disinformation", reports By United States Congress, Senate, 107th Congress, 2d Session, Calender no 731, Report 107-315. The Innocence Protection Act of 2002, (iv) The innocence tactic: Unreliable studies and disinformation, p 65-69    http://alturl.com/6j7oc

"Death penalty opponents have decided that, if a large enough risk of mistaken executions does not exist, they will invent it."

And that is, exactly what they have done.

6) Jesse Tafero among others

"The Myth Of Innocence"­, Joshua Marquis, pu­blished in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminolog­y - 3/31/2005, Northweste­rn University School of Law, Chicago, Illinois

"Having largely abandoned the moral arguments against capital punishment, the modern abolition movement is now based on a trio of urban legends: (1) the death penalty is racist at its core; (2) those accused of capital murder get grossly inadequate representation; and (3) a remarkable number of people on death row are innocent."

7)  Joseph O"Dell

see section III. Death Of Truth: Sister Prejean's book "The Death Of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions":

"(Prejean's) book is moreover riddled with factual errors and misrepresentations."

" . . . despite repeated claims that (Prejean) cares about crime victims,  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."

But, "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'."

from

Sister Helen Prejean: Does Truth Matter?:
Dead Man Walking & The Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2016/01/sister-helen-prejean-does-truth-matter.html 

8) Exoneration Inflation

"Exoneration Inflation: Justice Scalia’s Concurrence in Kansas v. March", by Ward Campbell, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, California Department of Justice, p 49, The Journal of the Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice, Issue 2, Summer 2008
http://www.cjlf.org/files/CampbellExonerationInflation2008.pdf

"The more conservative approach of the court in Quinones I only recognized “actual innocence” in one‑half of one percent of the 7,084 death sentences imposed between 1973 and 2001." (NOTE: Sharp: My assessment, based upon multiple additional reviews,  is o.4% through 2016).

"By deflating the DPIC List, Justice Scalia’s concurring opinion in Kansas v. Marsh contributes to an honest and realistic assessment of that actual risk."


9) "The Innocent and the Shammed"
by Joshua Marquis, Published in New York Times, 1/26/2006,  http://coastda.blogspot.com/2006/01/innocent-and-shammed-nyt-oped.html

" . . .nothing is gained by deluding the public into believing that the police and prosecutors are trying to send innocent people to prison. Any experienced defense lawyer will concede that he would starve if he accepted only "innocent" clients. Americans should be far more worried about the wrongfully freed than the wrongfully convicted."

Sharp: Since 1973:

about 22,000 additional innocents have been murdered by those KNOWN murderers that we have allowed to murder, again -  recidivist murderers.

about 440,000 additional innocents have been murdered by those KNOWN criminals that we have allowed to harm, again - recidivist criminals.


10) "Troy Davis & The Innocent Frauds of the anti death penalty lobby",
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2011/11/troy-davis-innocent-frauds-of-anti.html

"The Troy Davis campaign, like many before it, is a simple, blatant fraud, easily uncovered by the most basic of fact checking.

The case for Davis' guilt is overwhelming, just as were his due process protections, which may have surpassed that of all but a few death row inmates."


11) 
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: 

The state of the forensics in the Cameron Todd Willingham case is this:

1) Of all of the forensics reports, that I have read, which find fault with the arson findings, none exclude arson. They conclude that the fire could be either arson or an accident.

2) Other reports continue to find for arson.

Other, non fire forensic, evidence against Todd Willingham not only continues to find for guilt but there is, now, more and stronger evidence against him.

Expert witnesses:

We have all seen where there are equally qualified experts in a trial that have opinions that are complete opposites. In some cases, there can be credible disagreement. In others, we respond with a deserved cynicism,

With the Willingham fire, no credible person has denied that the fire could be arson.

Dr. Hurst demurred. “I never had a case where I could exclude arson,” he said. “It’s not possible to do that.”(a)

Sadly, but in character (b), Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project have stated, flatly, that it wasn't arson and that Willingham was an innocent executed (c) All that Scheck and the IP are doing is injuring the credibility of forensic science. Evidently, for them, the find their agenda worth it. Former Texas Governor Mark White, now an anti death penalty activist, appears headed down this path, as well.

(a) "Family’s Effort to Clear Name Frames Debate on Executions", John Schwartz, New York Times,  October 14, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/15execution.html?_r=1

(b)  The Innocence Project Invents False Confessions
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-innocence-project-invents-false.html

(c) New Report Shows that Cameron Todd Willingham, Executed in Texas in 2004, Was Innocent, NEWS RELEASE, Innocence Project, 8/31/09
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/New_Report_Shows_that_Cameron_Todd_Willingham_Executed_in_Texas_in_2004_Was_Innocent.php


12) "Carlos DeLuna: Another False Innocence Claim?" Maybe? Probably?
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/05/carlos-deluna-another-false-innocence.html

"Paul Rivera, a Corpus Christi police investigator who transported DeLuna between city and county jails, said the study's researchers asked him years ago to reread the DeLuna case.

Rivera said he took his time combing through the investigation reports and transcripts. In the end, he drew the same conclusion."

"I know exactly what happened," he said. "DeLuna stabbed Wanda Lopez when she was on the phone and she was screaming for help."

"Rivera, who investigated more than 200 murders in Corpus Christi, said at least nine of those people were on death row and no one questioned his investigations or methods before DeLuna's case."

"The Columbia researchers are adamant about trying to abolish the death penalty, he said. "I don't know why these people are so vicious," he said."

b)  "Report questioning execution doesn't sway lawyers"  MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press, CNS NEWS, May 16, 2012 - 9:15 PM, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/report-questioning-execution-doesnt-sway-lawyers#sthash.Xqa96lzy.dpuf

"DeLuna claimed the killer was a man named Carlos Hernandez whom he'd met in the Nueces County jail. The county's former prosecutor who tried DeLuna, Steve Schiwetz, said records showed DeLuna had never been in the jail at the same time as a Carlos Hernandez. He also said investigators gave defense attorneys photos of every Carlos Hernandez who had been jailed in Nueces County and showed them to DeLuna, who refused to identify any of the photos as the killer." 

"It still bothers me to this day he wouldn't," (DeLuna's defense counsel) Lawrence said.

"The conclusion I come to is he's making it up, giving a phony name, hence the phantom Carlos Hernandez," Schiwetz said. "What am I supposed to do?" Schiwetz . . . believes Hernandez either didn't exist or had no connection to the case. Nothing so far, he said, has "changed my mind as to who did it."


c)  Carlos DeLuna: "At the Death House Door" Can Rev. Carroll Pickett be trusted?
http://homicidesurvivors.candothathosting.com/2009/01/30/at-the-death-house-door-can-rev-carroll-pickett-be-trusted/

Pickett:  (In 1989) "I was  so 100% certain that he couldn't have committed this crime. (Carlos) was a super person to minister to.  I knew Carlos was not guilty. " "I knew (executed inmate) Carlos (De Luna) didn't do it."

REPLY:  There is this major problem. It appears that Rev. Pickett is, now, either lying about his own 1989 opinions or he is very confused.

In 1999, 4 years after Rev. Pickett had left his death row ministry, and he had become an anti death penalty activist, and 10 years after De Luna's execution, the reverend was asked, in a PBS Frontline interview,


"Do you think there have been some you have watched die who were strictly innocent?"


Pickett's  reply: "I never felt that."



13) Gary Graham: Hollywood, Murder and Texas: 

A CASE STUDY OF LIES, HALF-TRUTHS AND  INTIMIDATION
https://prodeathpenalty.com/graham

"C. (1) Gary Graham's defense claims have been reviewed and rejected 9 times by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the highest criminal court in Texas), 2 times by the Texas Supreme Court, 4 times by the U.S. Supreme Court and in a total of thirty-three (33) judicial or executive proceedings. (Houston Post, July 29, 1993 and subsequent events, as of 9/8/96.)


(2) a. Federal District Court Judge David Hittner ruled that all of Graham's new evidence is not sufficient to entitle him to a federal hearing and refused Graham a hearing or a stay of execution. He also stated that several of Graham's new witnesses were not credible. (Houston Post, August 16, 1993 and Houston Chronicle, August 14, 1993.)

b. After a thorough review of all the "new evidence", by himself and his staff, Texas Attorney General Dan Morales stated, "...that none of that new information is credible. There is no new evidence. Graham is stalling for time." The "new evidence" and "revised" witness statements are ""stoned-cold manufactured evidence." (Houston Chronicle, August 15, 1993, Houston Sun August 16, 1993 and The Texas Observer, August 20, 1993.)


14) Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 


For decades and internationally, one of the biggest "innocent" executed cases.

Rosenberg Lies Never Cease:
Sons seeking to exonerate their long-dead parents for their spying for Stalin are resorting to dishonest evasions, By John R. Schindler, Observer, 10/17/16
http://observer.com/2016/10/rosenberg-lies-never-cease/

"Code-phrases such as being “devoted” and “well-developed politically” reveal that Ethel was a committed Stalinist in whom the Soviet secret police placed trust." "Ethel was a such a willing and witting member of the Soviet espionage apparat in mid-1940s America that she was setting up her own sister-in-law as a candidate for recruitment by the KGB." 

"What totally undermines the Meeropols’ case, however, is that Feklisov at one point refers to Ethel as a “probationer” (cтажёр in Russian). This word appears regularly in VENONA messages and was old school KGB-speak for agents, that is foreigners who worked wittingly for Soviet intelligence. That closes any debate about how Feklisov viewed Ethel Rosenberg."

"The awful truth is that Ethel Rosenberg, a committed Communist, loved Stalin more than her own children." "Nobody who understands Soviet intelligence and has read the relevant VENONA messages with open eyes has any doubt that Ethel Rosenberg was an agent of the KGB. She was witting regarding a large degree of her husband’s enormous treason, perhaps all of it. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were fanatical Communists in a manner we now associate with jihadists. The cause was their life; it mattered more than anything, even family."

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"Grasping at Straws to Try to Exonerate Ethel Rosenberg", OPINION  COMMENTARY, By RONALD RADOSH, Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2015

"It never occurs to these reporters that at the early stage of his arrest David Greenglass was desperately trying to protect his sister and to convince the government to leave her out of the indictment. We also know that when he first went for legal advice, he even left Julius out of his confession."

"Even in other parts of the same transcript, largely ignored in the press reports, Greenglass has his sister Ethel present and knowledgeable, as when he says she was present at a meeting with Julius and a courier for his group, Ann Sidorovich."

"Hard evidence for Ethel’s guilt can be found in the Venona decrypts of KGB messages to its operatives in the U.S., and in the notebooks of KGB files meticulously copied in the 1990s by Alexander Vassiliev,who fled Russia in 1996 and had them smuggled into London."

"A Nov. 21, 1944, Venona decrypt has Julius telling the KGB that he and his wife both recommend the recruitment of Ruth Greenglass, David’s wife. On Nov. 27, KGB agent Leonid Kvasnikov cabled that they considered Ethel 'sufficiently well developed politically. Knows about her husband’s work” as well as that of other agents. He characterizes her “positively and as a devoted person.' "

"In Vassiliev’s notebooks, an entry from the KGB says about Julius that 'His wife knows about her husband’s work and personally knows ‘Twain’ and ‘Callistratus.’ [code names of Soviet agents.] She could be used independently, but she should not be overworked. Poor health."

"Another entry, about a meeting held on May 12, 1944 with Ruth, Ethel and Julius, reports that when told by Julius that they had to keep silent, 'Ethel here interposed to stress the need for utmost care and caution in informing David of the work in which Julius was engaged and that for his own safety all other political discussion and activity on his part should be subdued.' "

" . . . there is substantial evidence that Ethel Rosenberg was guilty as charged. Journalists could have found that evidence if they had taken the time to look." Mr. Radosh, an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute, is the author, with Joyce Milton, of “The Rosenberg File” (Yale University, 1997 revised edition).

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". . . as John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev have revealed in Spies . . . 

Ethel Rosenberg was not only aware of the network her husband had put in place, she herself suggested that her brother David Greenglass be recruited by the KGB since he was stationed at Los Alamos. "

"Second, and most importantly, Julius Rosenberg was not only aware of the Manhattan Project, he recruited a second atom spy, Russell McNutt, precisely because he thought that McNutt would be able to gather atomic bomb information from the plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee."  from  Son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Admits One Parent's Guilt, BY RON RADOSH, PJ Media,  APRIL 8, 2011, https://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2011/4/8/the-confused-admission-of-his-parents-guilt-by-the-rosenbergs-youngest-son-robert-what-does-it-mean/2/

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The Venona Intercepts, 1995


The US Government has direct evidence of Julius Rosenberg, and others', involvement with the Soviet's, as spies for atomic secrets, with intercepted communications between the Soviet's and some of their US spies, from 1944. These Venona  intercepts were released in 1995.  There was more than enough evidence that Ethel, at least, knew of his spying and chose not to report it, enough for a conspiracy, which was the charge and why they were executed.


The above evidence is clear that Ethel was actively involved.

Folks look past the obvious.


Both Ethel and Julius had ample time to come forward and proclaim Ethel innocence and, to, at least, save one parent for their children. They chose not to. instead, they both chose that Ethel should die, leaving their children to be orphaned, a decisive indicator of  guilt for them both, as well as their devotion to the cause, which was stronger than their love for their children, which, rationally,  could not be more obvious.

Direct evidence of Ethel's guilt came later, as did more evidence of the damage that the Rosenberg spy ring caused, as reviewed above.

Rosenbergs Redux, BY RONALD RADOSH AND STEVEN USDIN, DECEMBER 6, 2010
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/79648/rosenbergs-redux-julius-ethel-communist-spies

From which:

"As for Ethel Rosenberg’s role, the evidence is unequivocal. She recruited her brother as an atomic spy and provided logistical support to Julius's espionage activities. She knew at least two Soviet intelligence officers, and they considered her a loyal and trustworthy compatriot."

NOTE: This, below,  is a "rebuttal" to Radosh and Usdin's article above, by Michael Meeropol, one of the Rosenberg's sons. The rebuttal is so weak, that it should be viewed as a complete concession, with the exception of the date Julius became a spy.


In Response to Ronald Radosh and Steven Usdin, Michael Meeropol, Letter to New Republic, published 2/1/2001
http://ncrrc.org/in-response-to-ronald-radosh-and-steven-usdin/

Also read:
Defining Espionage Down Review of 'Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy' by Anne Sebba
by Ronald Radosh, Commentary, JULY/AUGUST 202


15)   The Innocence Project Invents False Confessions

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-innocence-project-invents-false.html

"Dr. Welner demonstrated how poor scientific methodology and an anti-police agenda among declared scholars in this novel area of scientific interest result in inflated perceptions of the prevalence of false confessions.


These include false representations by The Innocence Project that the proportion of false confessions in wrongful conviction cases is 25 percent when that percentage is in actuality close to 10 percent."



16)  The Death Penalty: Do Innocents Matter?

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-death-penalty-do-innocents-matter.html

"Well known anti death penalty scholars "(Charles) Black and (Hugo Adam ) Bedau said they would favor abolishing the death penalty even if they knew that doing so would increase the homicide rate by 1,000 percent." 


They would chose sparing the lives of 1300 guilty murderers (executed from 1973-2013) over saving an additional 6.3 million innocent lives, taken by murder.

Anti death penalty. academic leaders make that argument.  Astounding. "

17)   Larry Griffin 

The case of guilt against Larry Griffin grew stronger with this newest investigation:

See Summary, page 11-13, “Report of the Circuit Attorney: On the Murder of Qinton Moss and Conviction of Larry Griffin”, 7/12/07,
http://stlcin.missouri.org/circuitattorney/ca-reports.cfmiffin

Report defends 1995 Missouri execution, USA Today, 7/12/07
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-12-3637505577_x.htm


18) Ruben Cantu

In the Matter of Juan Moreno Investigation Relating to The State of Texas v. Ruben Cantu, Cause No. 85-CR-1303
https://files.deathpenaltyinfo.org/legacy/files/pdf/ReedCantuRpt.pdf   

and this

Garza is a member of the Mexican Mafia. Garza's "conscience" took 20 years to affect him.
 
Garza states: "Me and (Cantu) would just do everything together. We were like bread and butter."
 
sharp:  Exactly, like the robbery/murder of Pedro Gomez and robbery/attempted murder of Juan Moreno.
 
Both Moreno and Garza had 8 years to come forward, after Cantu's death sentence and prior to Cantu's execution. They didn't.
 
Does anyone need to wonder about someone's conscience, which allows them to let eight years go by, after Cantu is sentenced to death, then watch an allegedly innocent person be executed, but  then they wait 20 years to come forward, 12 years after the execution, because their conscience is, only, now, somehow, important?
 
One wonders why they both concluded, independently, that Cantu's life wasn't worth saving.
 
What honorable, truthful person, knowingly, allows an innocent person to be killed, when they could have stopped it, with no down side to themselves?
 
There isn't one. 

read, here
 
Guilt leads inmate to try clearing executed friend:
CANTU CASE: DEATH AND DOUBT, Lise Olsen, Houston Chronicle, 11/21/05

======

Related Topic      No Death Penalty = More Innocent Deaths



 New death penalty statutes were enacted in 1973, after Furman v Georgia (1972) overturned all death statutes. The US Supreme Court approved some new statutes in 1976 within Gregg v Georgia.

Since 1973:

1) no credible claim of an innocent executed in the modern era, post 1972 ("The Innocents Fraud", above);

2) the death penalty protects innocents, in three ways, better than does life without parole (LWOP): enhanced due process, enhanced incapacitation and enhanced deterrence ("The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents", below);

3) 5000 die/yr in US criminal custody.  33/yr, on average, are executed. (Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty, below );


Since 1973:

4) from 14,000 - 28,000 additional innocents were murdered by those murderers that we allowed to murder, again - recidivist murderers. since 1973. See "The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives", below ; and


5) some 500,000 innocents have been murdered by those known criminals we have allowed to harm again - recidivist criminals. See "The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives", below.

A true concern for innocents would result in many more death sentences and many fewer criminals released.


THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES
Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/innocents-more-at-risk-without-death.html

Catechisn & State Protection
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2014/10/catechism-state-protection.html

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



LIFE: MUCH PREFERRED OVER EXECUTION

99.7% of murderers tell us "Give me life, not execution"
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/11/life-much-preferred-over-execution.html

Murder Victims' Families for Death Penalty Repeal: More Hurt For Victims:

95% of murder victim's families support death penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/04/victims-families-for-death-penalty.html

"Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands", Dennis Prager, 11/29/05,
http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2005/11/29/opponents_in_capital_punishment_have_blood_on_their_hands

"A Death Penalty Red Herring: The Inanity and Hypocrisy of Perfection", Lester Jackson Ph.D.

http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/11/03/a-death-penalty-red-herring-the-inanity-and-hypocrisy-of-perfection.aspx

======
600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
======
 
 
Additional research,w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required of everyone in a public policy debate 
 
1) The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
======
 
Partial CV

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Tookie Williams' Redemption? No, his Contempt!

Tookie Williams' Redemption? No, his Contempt!
Dudley Sharp

As has become standard, in many of theses campaigns to save all murderers, it is filled with lies, hatred and contempt of the innocent murder victims, the antithesis of any recognizable redemption.

"LIES SO pervade the campaign waged to "save" convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams that Williams and company don't even bother to cover their tracks when they say things they know aren't true." (1)

"So much attention to the murderer, almost none for those he killed. So let's remember them here: Albert Owens, a veteran and father of two young girls, shot at a 7-11, and three member of an Asian-American family who ran the Brookhaven Motel-Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Yang and Yee-Chen Lin." (2)

"In a rare bit of commentary, William John Hagan of Canada Free Press wrote:

'The mainstream media has ignored the realities of the Williams case in order to promote an anti-death-penalty agenda. To present this mass murderer as a martyr is an insult to victims everywhere.'  " (2)

Williams prison activities include "two instances of throwing chemicals in the eyes of guards." (2)

"Williams had never apologized for the murders, or even admitted committing them. A farewell message from Williams contained the lyrics of “Strange Fruit,” an anti-lynching song. So the unapologetic killer apparently had no clue about how he reached death row." (2)

Wayne Owen said:  "(Tookie)  has never apologized. I don't believe there is redemption without acceptance of responsibility. It rings hollow."  (3) Wayne is murder victim Albert Owens' brother.

" 'He's a cold-blooded murderer and they want to sweep it under the rug,' said Owens, the stepmom of U.S. Army veteran Albert Owens, one of four people Williams mowed down with a shotgun in 1979 in two separate robberies that netted about 200 bucks." (3)

"Wayne Owens' fired-up stepmom said she promised her husband, who died in 1995, she would never rest until "justice" is done. "On his death bed, Chuck begged me, 'You won't forget Albert, will you? You'll stay on top of things, won't you?' There's been no closure for 26 years. It was bad and it remains bad.' " (3)

"What man orders another human being to lie face down on the floor and then proceeds to shoot him two times in the back at close range with a shotgun? What man later laughs when he tells his friends how the victim gurgled as he lay dying? Stanley Williams, the admitted cofounder of one of the most violent gangs in existence, is that man. What man, days after shotgunning Albert Owens to death, forces his way into a motel and executes three members of a single family? Stanley Williams is that man." (4)

"What must not be forgotten is that Williams’ escape plan also called for using dynamite to blow up the sheriff’s transportation bus after he escaped from custody. Williams’ motive to murder all of his fellow inmates on the bus was to prolong his time to escape. In other words, he hoped to prevent the authorities from quickly discovering who, if anyone, had escaped from custody. In an act so demonstrative of Williams’ willingness to kill, he was going to commit mass murder by dynamite, simply to allow himself more time to escape. These are not the actions of a man of peace. Instead, these are the actions of a cold-blooded predator who puts no value on life, unless it is his own." (4)

"Williams might regret his past, there is no act that will make up for the damage Williams has done and the devastation he has caused. Why not find a better role model for our children?" (5) 

"Not only did (Williams) brag to his brother about the dying anguish of Owens, but after slaughtering the Yang family, he boasted to fellow gang members he had killed "some buddhaheads." (6)

"(Williams) broke down the door at the Brookhaven Motel. . . shot Yen-I Yang and his wife, Tsai-Shai Yang, the hotel owners, and her daughter Yee-Chen Lin, who was visiting from Taiwan." (7)

"Yen-I Yang and Tsai-Shai Yang left six children and 10 grandchildren. Yee-Chen Lin left behind three children in Taiwan."  (7)

"(Williams) shot each of (the 4 murder vicitms) at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun, shattering their bodies so that they died in agony. Their suffering amused him." (8)

''You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him"; Williams said. (8)

"Williams then made gurgling or growling noises and laughed hysterically about Owens's death.' " (8)

"Lynching was arguably the most heinous crime perpetrated by our racial majority, so despicable that the term 'lynch mob' has faded from our vernacular. These acts of hatred were mourned and memorialized by Billie Holiday in her unsettling rendition of 'Strange Fruit.'  " (9)

"For a student organization to marginalize the significance of this term by drawing a parallel to the sentencing of (Williams) is deplorable. Aren't there any elderly black or white individuals who themselves witnessed that 'strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees', who are offended by this? Is CALL really equating 'Tookie' Williams' fate to the killing of Emmett Till?" (9)

"From 1983-1990, Williams was kept in solitary confinement at San Quentin for fighting,  assaulting guards and ordering gang murders from prison."  "He bragged about the number of police officers he had killed, personally." (10)

"The, in 1993, Williams had a spiritual awakening." " . . . if good deeds can trump death sentences, anyone on death row - whether genuine or pretending -  should, henceforth be given the option to revoke his (own) execution." (10)
"So (Williams) still clings to the gang-banger's code of not snitching. That doesn't sound like "redemption" to me. That sounds like Williams has been conning a lot of people for a lot of years."  (11)

" 'If people want to have the death penalty, then I think sufficient resources should be provided to carry out the process in a timely way,' Chief Justice Ronald George told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday." "California should execute or reprieve death row prisoners within about five years instead of the present 20 and do more to speed up the process . . ." (12)

"I don't mean an overly rushed way, but I think it's a poor reflection on the administration of justice if it gets to be something like out of Charles Dickens 'Bleak House' when these cases go on for decade after decade." (12)





1. "Tookie's Tales", Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 12/1/05
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/01/EDG5TG04SF1.DTL

2. Martyrdom?, Townhall, John Leo, 12/19/05
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnleo/2005/12/19/martyrdom

3. KILLER MUST DIE, SAYS FURIOUS KIN: Celeb push to save 'Tookie' riles stepmom
BY MICHELLE CARUSO DAILY NEWS WEST COAST BUREAU CHIEF, NY Daily News, Sunday, November 27, 2005
http://www.nydailynews.com/search-results/search-results-7.113?q=KILLER+MUST+DIE%2C+SAYS+FURIOUS+KIN%3A+Celeb+push+to+save+%27Tookie%27+riles+stepmom&selecturl=site

4. "Response to Stanley Williams' Petition for Executive Clemency ", Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, 11/16/05
http://murderpedia.org/male.W/images/w/williams_stanley/swilliams.pdf

5. Who is Stanley "Tookie" Williams?, Know Gangs
http://www.knowgangs.com/blog/tookie.htm  - link gone

6. "He's a murderer. He should die.", Joshua Marquis, Los Angeles Times, 12/4/05 http://www.latimes.com/news/la-op-tookieexecute4dec04,0,6681281.story

7. "Crime and punishment", David Reinhard, The Oregonian, 12/1/05
http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005106705&var_Year=2005&var_Month=12&var_Day=07
couldn't locate updated link at Oregomian

8. "Misplaced Sympathy for Killers", Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 12/7/05
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/07/misplaced_sympathy_for_killers/

9. CALLing out "Tookie" Williams, Dan Tierney, The Daily Cardinal (U of Wisxonsin-Madison), 11/17/05
http://host.madison.com/daily-cardinal/news/calling-out-tookie-williams/article_43246277-b461-553f-a739-a3f1a1704db2.html
10. "If death penalty is law, this execution must stand", By Rubel Shelly, The Tennessean, 12/11/05
No link works. I have the original op/ed.

11. "DEATH-ROW CELEBRITY HAS DIRECT LINK TO THIS CITY'S ILLS", Gregory Kane, BALTIMORE SUN, 12/10/05, can no longer link

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS

THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS SANCTION
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest of protections
Dudley Sharp

All crimes and their sanctions vary, often a great deal. Rapes, murders and other crimes can have sanctions from probation to life and everything in between.


The Death Penalty: Clearly the Least Arbitrary & Capricious Sanction


There is no sanction which has fewer crimes that qualify for it, than does the death penalty; nor is there any sanction with greater limitations on its application; nor one that has greater consideration in pre trial and at trial; 
nor one with greater care in jury selection; nor one that has two separate trials - one for the verdict, the other for punishment; nor any sanction with more thorough and extensive appeals and more consideration within the executive branch, for commutation, clemency or pardons.

None of this is in dispute.

All of which establishes that the death penalty as the least arbitrary and capricious sanction, well known by any observer of death penalty jurisprudence and its impact.

How Due Process So Protects the Innocent (and the Guilty)

None of this is in question.

1) Pre trial has unmatched requirements and protections, from police investigation of the crime through to trial;

2) Voire dire. No other sanction has this extensive a jury selection process;

3) Trial

The defendant is presumed innocent;

A look at the legal provisions for Texas, the most active death penalty state:

In Texas, the jury has to find against a defendant/murderer with 100% of the votes (48 votes or 12 jurors times 4 separate issue votes) in order to give a death sentence, but only 1 vote (2%) for the defendant/murderer (or rare innocent) to be spared the death penalty (1) - this through two separate sections or trials, one for verdict the other for punishment.

By Texas statute (1), any juror can use anything they want, personally and subjectively, to spare the murderer a death sentence.

By voting opportunity, alone, the defendant/murderer has a 50 times greater chance of avoiding the death penalty than does the prosecution in getting it, based upon those trial opportunities.

Nationally, 2/3 of death penalty eligible trials end in sentences less than death (2 ). No surprise when things are so stacked in favor of the murderer or the rare actually innocent defendants (about 0.4% of the cases) (3).

Many, if not all, states or jurisdictions require two prosecutors and two defense counsels for capital trials, rarely required in other cases.

Is there any other trial, whereby mandatory sentences are not used, where the result, so often, is the maximum sentence, as with the death penalty?

Is there any trial, whereby mandatory sentences are not used, that only two possible sentences are available, either death or life without parole, in this case?

In fact, the death penalty trials have more restrictions than do mandatory minimum cases.

3) Appeals

Nationally, within appeals, death row inmates are twice as likely (42%, 3481 cases) to be removed from death row by means other than execution or other death (21%, 1737) (4).

======


NOTE  In Virginia, inmates are 4.1 times more likely (76%, 115) to be removed from death row by execution or other death than to be removed by other means (18%, 28) (4).

Why such a disparity? The judges (5).

======


No other sanctions has such relief for guilty criminals or those rare actual innocents (0.4% of those so sentenced) (3).

Nationally, there is an 11 year average between sentencing and execution,  for the 15% of those murderers sentenced to death (4).

In 2020, it is, now, 20 years. The average, from 1980-1985, was 6.6 years.

Texas appeals take, on average, 11 years (Now, 2020 - 18 years) prior to execution, and can go through 4 courts: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (a state supreme court that only looks at criminal cases), the Federal District Court, the (federal) Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court, for reviews of both direct appeals and appeals based upon the writ.

What do those courts think of Texas?

a) Texas death  penalty cases are overturned 17% of the time. Nationally, absent Texas, 40% of death penalty cases are overturned within appeals (4).

Texas's due process shows a 58% improvement over the national average.

b)  Texas has executed 45% of those sentenced to death.Nationally, absent Texas, that figure is 11% (4).

Texas' appellate record is 310% better than the national average.

Nationally, 37% of death penalty cases are overturned on appeal (4), not because of actual innocents convicted (0.4% of the cases) (3), but because of the extraordinary protections given for both the actual guilty and the actual innocent sent to death row and because anti death penalty judges do all they can to dismantle the death penalty (5).

NOTE: Virginia has executed 72% (109) of those so sentenced and has an overturning rate of only 11% (4)   and executes within 7.1 years, on average (6).

Could all states come close to Texas and Virginia results? Yes, if liberal judges and legislators would get out of the way, allowing for more responsible protocols.

4) Clemency/Commutation/Pardon   -   No sanction has greater consideration within the executive branch, than does the death penalty.

Reality

The facts tell us that the death penalty is the least arbitrary and capricious sanction in the US.

Protections for the guilty murderer and the actual innocent accused are unmatched by any other sanction protocol.

Nothing else comes close. Period.

1) Texas Death Penalty Procedures


2) Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty, Mark Costanzo, 1997, Worth Publishers


3) 
The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

4) Capital Punishment, 2011, Bureau of Justice Statistics, July 2013,  Table 17, Number sentenced to death and number of removals, by jurisdiction and reason for removal, 1973–2011, page 20

5)   Judges Responsible for Grossly Uneven Executions

http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/11/judges-responsible-for-grossly-uneven.html'

6) Path to execution swifter, more certain in Va. , FRANK GREEN, Richmond Post-Dispatch, December 4, 2011 Page: A1 Section: News Edition: Final 


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Victim's Voices - These are the murder victims
http://www.murdervictims.com/Voices/voices.html

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The "Innocent", the "Exonerated" & Death Row

An Open Fraud in the Death Penalty Debate: How Death Penalty Opponents Lie

The "Exonerated", the "Innocent" and the "Wrongfully Convicted",
as defined by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC)
Dudley Sharp

Richard Dieter, head of the DPIC, participates in a lengthly discussion of the "exonerated innocents" removed from death row on the Dallas Morning News Death Penalty Blog.

From original link: 
 http://deathpenaltyblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/04/why-exonerated-needs-to-be-use.html   The link vanished when the DMN switched over to Facebook (1).

This is a look at how well destroyed the "EXONERATED" and/or "INNOCENTS" list is and how it has been so deceptively used by the anti death penalty movement.

This is distributed throughout the world's media, with the hope that some journalists will actually fact check the anti death penalty exonerated claims and accurately report the reality to the public. as to the actual innocents confirmed as sentenced to death row within the US.

Comments

Posted by Kent Scheidegger @ 12:02 PM Fri, Apr 09, 2010

In Senate Hearing 107-907, June 12, 2002, Senator Russell Feingold said, citing this (Exoneration) list, "They are real people, innocent men who suffered for years under the very real possibility of being put to death for crimes that they did not commit."

No hedging, no qualification. He stated flat out, as a fact, that the people on the list did not commit the crimes.

No, I am not overstating the use by the opponents. I have debated the death penalty dozens of times, and almost every time someone cites this list as a list of people who really did not commit the crimes.

Perhaps this newspaper has been careful, as you say, but most opponents have not.

The notorious "innocence" list includes guilty murderers who have gotten away with it. Now we finally have that as an adjudicated fact, proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The first thing opponents should do is simply stop calling it the innocence list. It is nothing of the sort.

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Posted by Aaron @ 2:19 PM Fri, Apr 09, 2010

snip I have read over and over and over again leaders of the dozens of anti-capital punishment groups, anti-death penalty lawyers, state and federal judges, state governors, state and federal legislators and various liberal activists cite the given numbers of the DPIC's Innocence List. That's been the DPIC's goal all along. If you repeat lies often enough and long enough they become "truths." snip The DPIC has a right to be opposed to the death penalty, but they have no right to deceive members of the public, media and government.

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Posted by Kent Scheidegger @ 7:55 AM Sat, Apr 10, 2010

The list was previously designated the innocence list on the DPIC website, although it appears they have now scrubbed that term. That is progress, however small, I suppose.

As noted in the press release and my original comment, the list is regularly and wrongly cited by others as a list of people who actually were innocent, and that is the point.

======
Posted by Dudley Sharp @ 9:31 AM Sat, Apr 10, 2010


All of the releasees, acording to DPIC "have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence."

They also describe them throughout their site as exonerated, which means "proven to be innocent".

It is all a matter of intended deception

Anyone who remotely defends DPIC on this issue has not concern for the truth or clarity.

======
Posted by Dudley Sharp @ 11:27 PM Sun, Apr 11, 2010

Petra:

The "innocence" discussion in the death penalty debate is about the probability of executing an actually innocent person, not a legally innocent person.

It is impossible to execute a legally innocent person.

The 138-139 "innocence" deception by DPIC is particularly despicable.

For the past 11-12 years, all the media had to do was fact check the DPIC claims to show how false they were. With very rare exception, the media refused to do so and, often, still does refuse.

It would have been timely for the DMN to have warned us about the exoneration claims in 1999-2000.

I discovered this deception in 1998 or 1999 and published an op/ed about it in 2000 in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

All it takes for anti death penalty deceptions to be effective and important, is for the media to pass the anti death penalty deceptions along to their audience, without change.

In reality, about 25 actual innocents have been discovered and removed from death row since 1973.

The evidence appears solid that innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.

"The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http(COLON)//homicidesurvivors(DOT)com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx

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Posted by Richard Dieter @ 3:34 PM Mon, Apr 12, 2010

With respect to DPIC's list of exonerated individuals, we use very strict and objective criteria for inclusion of cases on this list. Basically, the list is determined by the decisions of courts and prosecutor offices, not by our subjective judgment. As we state in a number of places on our Web site and in our reports, the criteria for inclusion on the list is:

Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either- a) their conviction was overturned AND
i) they were acquitted at re-trial or
ii) all charges were dropped
b) or they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.

The list includes cases where the release occurred in 1973 or later, which was the time that states resumed sentencing people to death after the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down the death penalty.

The list originated from a request from Congress asking us to identify the risks that innocent people might be executed. The original list that we prepared was published as a Staff Report of the House

Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. The list has been favorably referred to by Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts, as well as by many public officials around the country.

We believe the term "exonerated" is entirely appropriate to refer to the individuals on this list, which now numbers 138 individuals. Exonerate means to clear, as of an accusation, and seems to come from the Latin "ex" and "onus" meaning to unburden. That is precisely what has occurred in these cases. The defendants were convicted, given a burden of guilt, and then that burden was lifted when they were acquitted at a re-trial or the prosecution dropped all charges after the conviction was reversed. These are not individuals who received a lesser sentence or who remained guilty of a lesser charge related to the same set of circumstances. All guilt was lifted by the same system that had imposed it in the first place.

Our justice system is the only objective source for making such a determination.

This notion of innocence, that an individual is innocent unless proven guilty, is a bedrock principle of our constitution and our societal protection against abusive state power. One does not lose the status of innocence merely because a prosecutor or other individuals retain a suspicion of guilt. Of course, it is true that this list makes no god-like determination of knowing exactly what happened in the original crime.

Such perfect knowledge of past events is impossible, either to absolutely prove that a person did or did not do an act. We do not try to make a subjective judgment of what we think happened in the crime.

We are merely reporting that in a great many cases the justice system convicted an individual and sentenced them to death, but when the process that arrived at that conclusion was reviewed, the conviction and sentence were completely thrown out. Surely, that should be a cause of concern in applying the death penalty.

If, as happened in the Hennis case, this same justice system later convicts a person again, that person's status changes to guilty. DPIC's list is a straight-forward and objective collection of these judicial exonerations.

======
Posted by Kent Scheidegger @ 7:20 PM Mon, Apr 12, 2010

"This notion of innocence, that an individual is innocent unless proven guilty, is a bedrock principle of our constitution and our societal protection against abusive state power."

Not only is that not "bedrock," it is not correct.

For the purpose of instructing juries how to approach their decision, we say that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But the presumption is limited to that purpose. Being presumed innocent is not the same as being innocent. A person who commits a crime is guilty from the moment he commits it, regardless of what happens in the legal proceedings thereafter.

The presumption of innocence, the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the double jeopardy limitation are all limits on the power of the state to punish people. But they are most definitely not criteria for whether a person is actually innocent or actually guilty.

For purposes other than punishment by the state, a person who got away with murder via an acquittal can still be treated as guilty. The best known example is O.J. Simpson. His acquittal did not preclude a civil suit for damages, and the civil jury found by clear and convincing evidence that he really did it.

For the purpose of public policy discussion, the relevant question is whether a person is actually innocent or actually guilty, not the separate question of whether the government can legally punish him.

Given the criteria for DPIC's list, it has little relevance to the discussion. It is dangerous because it is so often misunderstood or misrepresented as something it is not: a list of people who really did not commit the crimes of which they were convicted.

"Exonerated" is an improvement over "innocent," I suppose, but the potential to mislead is still there.

Perhaps the list should have a "black box" warning, similar to what the FDA requires on the drugs with the worst side effects. Something like this:

"WARNING: THIS LIST INCLUDES PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY DID COMMIT MURDER AND GOT AWAY WITH IT. CITING IT AS A LIST OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY INNOCENT MAY CAUSE YOU TO LOOK LIKE A FOOL IN PUBLIC."

======
Posted by Dudley Sharp @ 9:43 PM Mon, Apr 12, 2010

Richard:

What total nonsense, as usual.

"Innocent until proven guilty" has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR LIST and you know it.

"Innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard which only applies to the fact finders in a criminal case, be that the judge of jury.

It has no relevance to your DPIC exonerated or innocence list, which has been a source of intended deception for a decade.

Richard, how about being straight forward?

1) How many anti death penalty sites and how many media articles do you have documented evidence that you had them correct the perception that the DPIC "Innocence List" was dealing with actual innocents?

Zero, I suspect. If I am wrong, prove it.

2) How many of the cases "thrown out" had evidence thrown out which proved the defendant guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, in the prior trial?

4) Instead of your perverse definition of exonerated, have you noticed the real definition? It is
1 : to relieve of a responsibility
2 : to clear from accusation or blame

How many of the 138-139 were relieved of responsibility, accusation or blame, as opposed to a legal standard?

Richard?

5) Try the same thing with your "Innocence List". Again, how many had zero connection to the murder, as opposed to your own definition of "innocence"?

Richard?
======
Posted by Bill Otis @ 9:48 PM Mon, Apr 12, 2010

The moral engine of the innocence-based argument for abolishing the death penalty is that we risk executing a person who DIDN'T DO IT. The question our citizens are interested in is factual guilt, not legalism: Do we have the right guy or not?

The notion that one needs to be God to know whether we have the right guy is preposterous. One need not be God, for example, to know that McVeigh did it. One need only pay minimal attention to the evidence. Mr. Dieter certainly knows this.

Of course there is a chance that we COULD execute an innocent person, since we are human beings.
There is also a chance that someone we could legally have executed but didn't will take another innocent life, or several of them. Indeed, that latter prospect in not merely a possibility; it has happened.

The two best known examples are Kenneth McDuff and Clarence Ray Allen. At least a half dozen innocent people died because McDuff and Allen remained alive. Did those people not also have rights?

Let's cut through the fancy dance. To say that a person has been "exonerated" of mureder will be taken, and is intended to be taken (whatever the fine print disclaimer may be), as a statement that the person didn't do it. As Mr. Dieter meanderingly acknowledges through the fog of carefully chosen words, no such thing is true.

It has been 34 years and more than 1100 executions since the Supreme Court restored the death penalty, and NOT ONE SINGLE TIME has anyone proved in court, or come close to proving, that an innocent person has been executed. That being the case, it is a confession of weakness rather than a declaration of strength to continue to make these de facto claims of innocence.

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Posted by Ward @ 2:32 AM Tue, Apr 13, 2010


Other comments have already shown how the DPIC’s so-called “strict and objective” criteria do not produce helpful or relevant results in terms of assessing the capital punishment system. To the extent that the public is concerned whether the prosecution has charged the actual perpetrator, the List is overly inclusive. A person is not “exonerated” or “innocent” because a jury has found that the prosecution did not prove the perpetrator was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This is why the jury’s verdict is “not guilty” rather than “innocent “ or “exonerated”. The terms “exoneration” and “innocence” are never applied to such cases. However, the DPIC’s most recent comprehensive report states the following: “The failure to acknowledge the innocence of those who have been exonerated retards the search for the real perpetrator.” Thus, DPIC has promoted a misapprehension about the true meaning of these concepts and distorted the results of many of the cases on its List. For instance, the List continues to include “Jay C. Smith” who was freed after his triple murder conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct even though the courts have continued to express confidence in his guilt.

Also, the DPIC List and its methodology have been a subject of judicial controversy. Chief Justice Rehnquist cited the criticisms of the list in Herrera v. Collins. Justice Scalia expanded on that criticism in his recent concurring opinion in Kansas v. Marsh. Even a federal district court that was generously inclined toward the DPIC’s List found that many of the so-called exonerees were not “actually innocent.”

Mr. Dieter states: “We are merely reporting that in a great many cases the justice system convicted an individual and sentenced them to death, but when the process that arrived at that conclusion was reviewed, the conviction and sentence were completely thrown out. Surely, that should be a cause of concern in applying the death penalty.” Of course, it is a great concern when an innocent person is convicted and sentenced. No honest prosecutor would ever represent that this has not happened.


However, it is not a “cause of concern” that the legal process has done its work of reviewing judgments and reversing them for legal error. In those cases, the system has worked as it has intended. It is hardly a revelation that trials and juries are fallible. However, the public has supported capital punishment with full knowledge of that inherent risk.

Also, it is an exaggeration to state that “in great many cases” the conviction and sentence were “completely thrown out.” To begin with, the List includes cases in which the defendant was convicted and sentenced under old, defunct statutes that are not pertinent to examining our system today. However, there have been approximately 8,380 death judgments since 1973. A questionable list of 138 names during that 37 time span hardly represents a “great many cases.”

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Posted by Dudley Sharp @ 10:16 AM Tue, Apr 13, 2010


Michael Landauer:

You write: "Why 'exonerated' needs to be used sparingly".

No, Michael. There is no need to use it sparingly.

There is a need to use it clearly and precisely, as opposed to being intentionally deceptive and nebulous.

For those of us, who have been active in the death penalty debate for a long time, it cannot be overstated how often and to what effect the DPIC "Innocence List" has been used by the media, government officials and anti death penalty folks and how this blatant deception has effected this debate.

Had the media done its job, this deception would have been stopped a decade ago, but it was impossible to get the media to do its job. They refused, with very rare exception.

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Posted by Dudley Sharp @ 1:19 PM Tue, Apr 13, 2010


There is no question what Dieter, the DPIC and virtually all anti death penalty folks/groups wanted the media and the public to accept and believe. It's been a successful deception for, at least 17 years.

Time to end it.

(LATER NOTE - Words in Capitalization are for my emphasis, dudley)

Innocence and the Death Penalty, 1993, DPIC

"V. CONCLUSION It is an inescapable fact of our criminal justice system that INNOCENT PEOPLE are too often convicted of crimes. Sometimes only many years later, in the course of a defendant's appeals, or as a result of extra-legal developments, new evidence will emerge which clearly demonstrates that the WRONG PERSON was prosecuted and convicted of a crime.

Americans are justifiably concerned ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY THAT AN INNOCENT PERSON MAY BE EXECUTED. Capital punishment in the United States today provides no reliable safeguards against this danger. Errors can and have been made repeatedly in the trial of death penalty cases because of poor representation, racial prejudice, prosecutorial misconduct, or simply the presentation of erroneous evidence. Once convicted, a death row inmate faces serious obstacles in convincing any tribunal that he is innocent."

"The cases discussed in this report are the ones in which INNOCENCE was uncovered before execution. "
www(DOT)deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty-assessing-danger-mistaken-executions#sxn5rpl
NOTE FROM SHARP - there is no question but that DPIC is discussing actually innocent people, here, because it is impossible to execute a legally innocent person. WRONG PERSON is no legal standard. WRONG PERSON is equivalent to actually innocent person.
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1997, DPIC, Part I: The Danger of Mistaken Executions: Pace of Innocent Cases Increases

"In the twenty-one-year span of the first report, there was an average of 2.5 releases of innocent defendants per year from 1973 to 1993. The 17 releases over the past three and a half years represents a pace of 4.8 releases per year, almost twice the pace of the previous report."

"For the original 48 cases, it took an average of approximately six and a half years between conviction and eventual release. With the 21 additional cases included in this report, the average time spent on death row before release is now about seven years. This length of time is important because both state and federal legislation in recent years will shorten the length of time death row inmates have before their execution. Currently, the average time between sentencing and execution is eight years5."

"If that time is cut in half, then THE TYPICAL INNOCENT DEFENDANT ON DEATH ROW WILL BE EXECUTED BEFORE IT IS DISCOVERED THAT A FATAL MISTAKE HAS BEEN MADE."
www(DOT)deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/523#

NOTE FROM SHARP - there is no question but that DPIC is discussing actually innocent people, here, because it is impossible to execute a legally innocent person.
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INNOCENCE AND THE CRISIS IN THE AMERICAN DEATH PENALTY by Richard Dieter, 9/2004
Executive Summary

"Ultimately, the issue of innocence, grounded in reports such as this, represents a crisis for the death penalty in America. The public’s tolerance for SACRIFICING INNOCENT LIVES for the sake of maintaining a demonstrably unfair government program with questionable benefit to society is noticeably ebbing. New voices are emerging to challenge the death penalty: judges, law enforcement officials, conservative commentators, and some legislators are discarding the former polarization of the issue as one between criminals and victims. Instead, people are noting that the injustices are often perpetrated by those mantled with the public trust, and that the victims are sometimes those condemned to death."

www(DOT)deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-crisis-american-death-penalty

NOTE FROM SHARP - SACRIFICING INNOCENT LIVES can only mean executing the actually innocent, because it is impossible to execute a legally innocent person.
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1) I copied this because it was so important. The comments went away when the Dallas Morning News went to a Facebook only comments. I re- added them, as they, now, appear, just as they appeared, originally, with non relevant posts, removed. I separated some of the comments by paragraph breaks, for clarity and separated the comments by a double hash line ======.

RELATED INFORMATION

The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
and
THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html

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