Media Disaster: Lethal Injection - How Bad Can The Media Be?
NOTE: As I have detailed, for many years, intentionally not fact checking, for the media, has become the expected norm, with the death penalty topic and, likely, many others.
Every once in a while, the media gets, truly, spectacular, in a bad way.
11/21/2021
To: Op/Ed Submission
Bcc: All CNHI newspapers, media throughout the world and to journalism schools and many others
Re: Rebuttal, All Points: "Lethal injections have become ghastly experiments in death", (Jeff Gerritt/Editorial Board?), The Sharon Herald, 11/18/2021
Subject: No fact checking, nor vetting: Sharon Herald: "Lethal injections have become ghastly experiments in death"
From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
I am guessing Editor Jeff Gerritt wrote this. Why? No fact checking nor vetting, as detailed, point by point.
It appears that Gerritt and CNHI care much about not fact checking, not vetting and no research.
Why journalists refuse to fact check
My 25 years of experience, with media, finds that not fact checking is intentional and, sadly, has become a major contributor to journalism and, likely, always has been. In the US, most of us learn to fact check, vet and research in junior high school, with our first history or social studies term papers.
This is a solid example of intentional no fact checking, no vetting.
1) Grant's execution
Gerrit/board: " (Oklahoma murderer) Grant jerked, or convulsed, nearly two dozens times over several minutes, as vomit spurted from his mouth and spilled down his neck. With a straight face, Oklahoma prison officials said the execution went off without a hitch."
Sharp: Journalism 101: What are the known side effects of normal doses of midazolam?
Nausea, vomiting, involuntary movements, verbalization, uncontrolled crying, aggressive behavior, hiccoughs, coughs (1), with dry heavs, prior to vomiting, as well as hiccoughs and coughs create involuntary movements (1), aka convulsions
Guess who knows that? The attorneys for death row inmates, The Oklahoma Dept of Corrections, as all others using midazolam, all doctors, pharmacists and drug companies knowledgeable about midazolam, the prosecutors and the judges, who will be making the decisions on these facts and anyone who fact checks/vets/researches the topic, but . . . not Gerritt/board?
. . . and, who knew that spasms, convulsions, nausea, other uncontrolled movements, vomiting, noises, and death are common occurrences with drug overdoses? Answer: Anyone aware of drug overdose deaths, that being, nearly anyone over the age of 13, for the past 60 years.
Alert: lethal injection executions are drug overdose deaths.
Then we have these:
Acting: No one doubts that murderers may fake symptoms, while on the gurney. One inmate claims that his lawyer asked him to do just that (1). No surprise. Were Gerritt/board not aware?
Extreme anxiety - pending execution - can cause vomiting. FYI, Grant ate a lot of food, prior to his execution.
2) Lethal Injection
Gerritt/board: "Author Austin Sarat of Amherst College has argued lethal injections have recorded the highest rate of botched executions — roughly 7 percent. The Death Penalty Information Center has reported 19 of them since 2000."
Sharp: Journalism 101: The lethal injection execution "botched" rate is 1% (2), a 600% error rate by Sarat/DPIC.
======
additional
Media Disaster: Editor Jeff Gerritt Continues His Run of No Fact Checking
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2021/12/media-disaster-editor-jeff-gerritt.html======
3) Execution drugs obscured (article subtitle)
a) Gerritt/board: "Citing moral objections, drug manufacturers have, for more than a decade, refused to supply corrections departments with drugs used in executions."
Sharp, Journalism 101: The "for more than a decade" should have raised alarms. But, no?
For over 40 years, drug manufacturers were aware of drug use within lethal injections. Where were the "moral objections" in the late 70's, when drug manufacturers knew the drugs would be used and in 1982, when they were first used? (3) There was no moral objections, for over 30 years. The more drugs bought, the better. A surprise? Only in 2009, when anti death penalty folks started publicly confronting drug manufacturers, did they complain (3). Such strong morals. Laughable.
b) Gerritt/board: "The nationwide shortage of drugs used in lethal injections has forced states, in a haphazard scramble, to use inadequately tested drugs or multi-drug cocktails, or buy drugs from so-called specialty, or compounding, pharmacies operating with little federal oversight." "They need the drug to treat illnesses, including COVID-19, and save lives. Ironically, the shortage of the sedation drug midazolam used in lethal injections also affects hospitals."
Sharp, Journalism 101: 1) No haphazard manner. States are using the best drugs available to them, which have worked well, 99% of the time.
2) All of the drugs are, extremely, well tested, as (most) everyone knows. Both the normal dose effects, as well as all overdose effects, of all the drugs used, are very well known and easy to find, for those who fact check/vet.
3) There has been no problems using compounding pharmacies as sources for lethal injections drugs, as is well known.
4) Any midazolam shortages are not due to its miniscule use in lethal injections executions, which amounts to about 0.000001% (guesstimate), of total usage. Manufacturer delays are a huge problem (4).
In both cases, executions and normal medical use, it is, solely, the fault of the manufacturers that there are any shortages, as it is their fault that executions cannot use other drugs and all shortages are caused by the manufacturers, not the end uses.
c) Gerritt/board: ". . . executioners with inadequate medical training work without national standards".
Sharp, Journalism 101: Some perspective. With national standards and depending upon study, 40,000-400,000 innocent patient deaths, per year, lost to "medical misadventure", in the US (1), and such excludes. permanent injuries.
About 500-1,000 innocent patients, die, per year, in the US., due to anesthesia "misadventures", with national standards. (1).
Compare that to lethal injection executions of guilty murderers. Please.
d) Gerritt/board: "Lethal injections, properly performed, require the skills to access veins, monitor drugs, calculate proper doses, and make on-the-spot corrections. That takes medical training and supervision. States, however, typically forgo such safeguards."
Sharp, Journalism 101: Ludicrous. The states, with executions, do not "typically forgo such safeguards", the opposite of known reality, as detailed, above. Easy to fact check. Really.
4) Gerritt/board: " . . . participating in executions violates medical ethics."
Sharp, Journalism 101: The Hippocratic Oath bans medical personnel from both assisted suicide and participating in abortions, but not the death penalty . . . as is well known, yet avoided by huge numbers of physicians, medical associations and "journalists", who find it inconvenient (3) and, therefore, have reversed historically honored medical ethics (3).
5) Gerrit/board: "On Thursday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt rightly granted clemency to Julius Jones, several hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection for a 1999 murder he says he did not commit."
Sharp, Journalism 101: It is hard to say why Stitt granted clemency. Stitt, fully, believes in Jones' guilt, which is why Jones was not pardoned. Death row clemency and commutations are, most often, given for murderers who have a solid record of rehabilitation and/or issues, outside of the law, for which the governor finds leniency to be appropriate. Those do not exist in this case, that we have seen.
Allegedly, the Oklahoma constitution provides the executive branch an iron clad method of not allowing any later Governors from providing additional commutation/clemency or pardon for Jones, which is what Stitt, allegedly, did.
Very unusual and have not yet fully fact checked/vetted Article 6, Section 10, Ok Constitution or consulted with an Ok constitutional scholar. Pending.
6) Gerritt/board: "With three executions since 1976, Pennsylvania has spent $1 billion on securing and defending death-penalty convictions, former Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale reported last year."
Sharp, Journalism 101: I, already, covered this with Gerritt/board/CNHI, previously (10/2/2021), 6 weeks prior to this op/ed, within my email op/ed submission, below:
Of course, this was, intentionally, left out:
"Editor Jeff Gerritt: Dead Wrong, On Everything - DEATH ROW"
10/2/2021 4:24:17 PM Central Standard Time
within that 10/2/2021 op/ed reply is this:
"(Sharp) Reply: Your $1 billion is an average of $46,000/death row inmate/yr, (added later - inclusive of pre trial, trial and appeals). In 2012, the average annual cost/inmate in Pa was $42,339 - 9 years ago, and, likely, at least $46,000, now, excluding pre trial, trial, appeals - But, if LWOP for a capital murder we will be talking about maximum security, which, I believe, is about $75,000/inmate/yr., in Pa, also, excluding pre trial, trial, appeals, all of which you included in your $1 billion, which, I bet, you did not fact check. Correct? Please fact check the "about $75,000/inmate/yr". It was from memory."
My expectation is that they did not.
7) Gerritt/board: "If capital punishment . . . provided tangible and widely shared benefits, maybe the gains would justify the enormous legal costs and needless suffering exacted by the atrocity of state-sponsored killings."
Sharp, Not One Mention: This is a pretty standard and grotesque anti-death penalty article, as it concentrates, only, on the murderer, as victim, often with false claims of suffering, and, completely, leaves out those who truly suffer, meaning the innocent murder victims, often tortured, and their loved ones. It is a huge, extremely common moral absence in such articles. Those innocent victims are not worth one mention is the message.
8) Gerritt/board: "No credible evidence shows, or even suggests, the practice deters murder or violent crime."
Sharp, Journalism 101: Gerritt/board, completely, clueless . . . on purpose. Since 1996, there have been, at least, 24 US based studies finding for death penalty/execution deterrence (5), with many more, prior to that (5).
Nobel Prize Laureate (Economics) Gary Becker:
“the evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.” (NY Times, 11/18/07)
"(Becker) is the most important social scientist in the past 50 years (NY Times, 5/5/14)
In addition, the death penalty spares more innocent lives, in three ways, than does life without parole (5,6).
Justice
Not once did Gerritt/board mention that justice is the foundation for using the death penalty, as justice is, for all sanctions.
There is 5000 years of philosophical, legal and moral discussion as, likely, they are unaware.
Summary
Some Gerritt/board comments are so false and irresponsible, it is difficult to distinguish between possible lies and obvious evasion of fact checking, with CNHI's non supervision/oversight in question.
1) Easy to fact check/vet, on your own. Do it.
Sharp: I will provide all sources for other media and journalism schools
2) Rebuttal: Botched Executions
3) The Death Penalty & Medical Ethics Revisited
and
Physicians & The State Execution of Murderers: No Medical Ethics Dilemma
4) See Reasons for Shortages
5) Deterrence, Death Penalties & Executions
6) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
======
Partial CV, Dudley Sharp
