Please forward to all business leaders within your
Business Leaders Against the Death Penalty (at bottom)
Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (at bottom)
(I suspect that you have not. I have 4/25/2023)
NOTE: Your corporate leaders anti-death penalty comments are factually in error, on every point. None of the 32 leaders mentioned the innocents, often raped and tortured, prior to their murders, a very common omission in anti-death penalty statements, but here, not even 1 of the 32 included the innocents harmed . . .not one.
bcc: All Members of Parliament, UK
Home Office & Ministry of Justice & Attorney General's Office, UK
Government of Singapore
thousands of reporters and scholars, worldwide
Leadership at
Virgin Group, Virgin Corp., Virgin Unite, Virgin Media, Virgin StartUP, Liberty Global, Big Change and others
Passion Pictures & Leadership at NBCUniversal
Subject: Full Rebuttal of Sir Richard Branson & His Death Penalty Comments
Re: Branson's "Answering your questions on the death penalty",
Virgin's website, 23 March 2023 (1)
Additional: Recent emails to Virgin/Richard Branson. Provided upon request.
3/25/2023 Branson: Dead Wrong on Death Penalty for a Decade or More
4/11/2023 Sir Branson: The Death Penalty: Research, with Fact Checking & Vetting is Required
From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
Method: The numbered questions are from you, Branson, (1) my replies are Sharp.
Preface: Why Fact Checking and Vetting are Crucial
Sir Branson, you have done less than 1% of the work necessary to become a responsible voice in the death penalty debate. That will become clear.
You have not fact checked nor vetted, nor used critical thinking, with the anti-death penalty material that you have presented, as detailed below and here (2). You have, simply, presented error after error, instead.
It appears that you have not even considered pro death penalty material, much less fact checked or vetted it (2).
How do I know? Because I believe you to be honest, which means you would not have presented what you did, unless you had failed to do 99% of the work.
You have been duped by your anti-death penalty confidants (all fn and herein). Will you continue to avoid both sides of the debate, as well as fact checking and vetting?
The innocents murdered, as their survivors (3), deserve better. Do better.
This will help you to have better knowledge and understanding of the issues . . . if you want it. I hope you do.
======
30 Examples:
How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers More Than Their Innocent Victims
1) Branson: What makes the life of a murderer more valuable than his or her victims?
Sharp: a) Factually, death penalty opponents value guilty murderers far above their innocent victims, as detailed (4a-g & everything herein).
b) You (Branson) believe that the lives of murderers and of their innocent victims have the same value which has philosophical and religious support, as well as push back.
This scholar agrees with you and supports the execution of murderers, with the same calculus:
c) "The argument that Jesus as the incarnation of divine love cancels the appropriateness of capital punishment in the New Testament era has little to commend it. Nowhere does the Bible repudiate capital punishment for premeditated murder; not only is the death penalty for deliberate killing of a fellow human being permitted, but it is approved and encouraged, and for any government that attaches at least as much value to the life of an innocent victim as to a deliberate murderer, it is ethically imperative."
Biblical scholar Dr. Carl F. H. Henry (5).
d) "A society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else's life is simply immoral." “If an offender has committed murder, he must die. In this case, no possible substitute can satisfy justice. For there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life, so that there is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.” "Even if a civil society were to be dissolved by the consent of all its members (e.g., if a people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse throughout the world), the last murderer remaining in prison would first have to be executed, so that each has done to him what his deeds deserve and blood guilt does not cling to the people for not having insisted upon this punishment; for otherwise the people can be regarded as collaborators in his public violation of justice."
Immanuel Kant
In other words, by their calculus and mine, and many others, you value the murderers more than their innocent victims.
e) Sharp: It is common for violent criminals to have incurable antisocial personality disorder (APD), being psychopathic and narcissistic (NPD), showing no empathy towards their victims (6).
f) In consideration of actual victims and their survivors (3), if you can so imagine - thankfully, you cannot - would you equate the lives of such an APD rapist/ torturer/ murderer in such crimes against your children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents and spouse?
2) Sir Branson: " I strongly believe that all lives have equal value and dignity, including the lives of those who have committed terrible crimes."
Sharp: a) Being a rapist/ torturer/ murderer requires the complete lack of dignity. How you (Branson) do not know that is a moral and rational mystery.
and fits the pattern.
Death Penalty Opponents Valuing APD Rapist/ Torturer/ Murderers The Highest
b) Sharp: Well known anti-death penalty scholars/leaders "(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." (7), meaning they prefer an ADDITIONAL 9 milli0n innocents murdered (1973-2023), in exchange for saving the lives of 1500 capital murderers.
Cruelty at an astounding level and it fits the pattern.
c) The anti-death penalty motto could be "We must save murderers lives, at all cost, no matter the number of innocents that will suffer."
. . . equal value and dignity?
Fits the pattern.
d) Sister Helen Prejean states: “(death row) is extreme mental and physical assault on someone who is rendered defenseless.” I don’t think there is any greater suffering, mentally, than for a human being to know that, today is my last Tuesday . . . ". (8)
Sharp: Did Prejean consider the mental suffering of a parent who lost their innocent daughter and her baby to a rape/torture/murder or the mental and physical suffering of that girl, as she was being raped, tortured and murdered, knowing that the baby in her belly, is being murdered, as well?
Of course, Prejean considered them. For her, it is the murderer who suffers more, not those innocent victims and their survivors.
Repulsive. A pattern.
e) "(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." (8)
Sharp: Of course, Sr. Prejean is talking of the peaceful execution of the guilty murderers (8, 9), not the incredible brutality of the murder of the innocent victims. (3, 4b).
The pattern.
f) In regard to Catholic anti-death penalty efforts, Catholic theologian Steven Long places the arrow:
" . . . (it) is symptomatic of a society that can garner more support to spare the guilty than to save the innocent."
"The crowd still wants Barrabas." (9a), which fits the pattern.
g) Prejean believes that criminals in prison are "defenseless" (8).
Such is a lie.
She, as all of us, is aware there are murders, rapes, riots, drug use, organized criminal activity, etc. which occur in prisons (4b), as well as escapes, (4b) with many prisoners, offensive and dangerous, which is why prisons have jail cells, cameras, locked doors, guard insertion teams, guards with guns, unannounced searches of cells, walls, razor wire, etc.
Prejean's "defenseless" murderers. A lie. Obvious. She had to say it. The pattern.
3) Sharp: The death penalty saves more innocent lives, in six ways, than does life without parole (LWOP), meaning that death penalty abolition will result in more innocents murdered and, otherwise, harmed. The pattern.
Enhanced due process, enhanced incapacitation and enhanced probability are unchallenged (4c). Enhanced deterrence is challenged, but prevails with fact checking and vetting (4c, 4d).
a) All of which, confirm that death penalty abolitionists value vile criminals more than they do their innocent victims. The pattern.
b) For example: In the US, since 1973, some
20,000 ADDITIONAL innocents have been murdered by those KNOWN murderers that we have allowed to murder, again, recidivist murderers (4c).
500,000 ADDITIONAL innocents have been murdered by those KNOWN criminals that we have allowed to harm, again - recidivist criminals (4c).
c) 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. 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." Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, 146
This shows a deference for the innocent, over the guilty, the opposite of the established pattern of death penalty opponents.
4) Sir Branson: " Showing mercy and practicing forgiveness are among the most important expressions of our common humanity."
Sharp: a) As is justice. Stopping executions is, knowingly condemning more innocents to harm, inclusive of harm from rapes/tortures/murders (4b). The pattern.
b) Forgiveness has never required "no sanctions for crimes" (10) Forgiveness is a sham if the criminal has no remorse for their crimes, for which those with ADP, and many others, qualify. Death penalty opponents, somehow, unaware? The pattern.
In reality, forgiveness and sanction complement one another (10).
c) Christianity requires confession of sins and a commitment to change, in Jesus' image, for redemption and for forgiveness to be possible (10). Death penalty opponents unaware? The pattern.
Biblically, we all, still die, because of our sins.
d) On earth, only the victims can be asked for forgiveness, by their assailants. With murders, the victims are dead. Death penalty opponents, unaware? The pattern.
e) Biblical scholar Dr. Gervas A. Carey: “. . . a secondary measure of the love of God may be said to appear. For capital punishment provides the murderer with incentive to repentance which the ordinary man does not have, that is a definite date on which he is to meet his God. It is as if God thus providentially granted him a special inducement to repentance out of consideration of the enormity of his crime . . . the law grants to the condemned an opportunity which he did not grant to his victim, the opportunity to prepare to meet his God. Even divine justice here may be said to be tempered with mercy.” (10a).
f) Within Christianity the mercy and forgiveness, via expiation, with execution, is very well known (10b). Branson, unaware? The pattern.
======
Branson, Please Read
C. S. LEWIS' THE HUMANITARIAN THEORY OF PUNISHMENT
=======
5) Sir Branson: "Bryan Stevenson (Equal Justice Initiative) put it perfectly “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
Sharp: a) Branson and Stevenson seem, somehow, unaware that during pre-trial, trial, within appeals and when seeking commutation, the murderer and their defense counsel may present all of the great and wonderful things the mass murderers have done with their lives. Even with all the wonderful things Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein did, the majority population of Western Europe supported his execution. Why? Justice.
Branson and Stevenson unaware? The pattern.
b) The victim survivors look forward to Branson and Stevenson's book of the good and great deeds of John Wayne Gacy (33 young men and boys, rape/tortured/murdered) and Pedro Lopez, rapist/torturer/murderer of 350 girls, age 9-12, released from prison, after 14 years, for good behavior, there were no young girls in his prison. Whereabouts unknown since 1998 (4b).
"Mercy" as horror (4b). Branson never considered it? We hope not. But how not?
The pattern.
6) Sir: Branson: "At the end of the day, everyone deserves a second chance".
Sharp: Like those just above? Horror. The pattern.
Many vile criminals are given 10 or 20 chances prior to committing their murders. (4b). Their murder victims had no second chance. Branson? Clueless or hiding it?
You, thereby assign more value to vile criminals than to their innocent victims.
The pattern.
7) Sir Branson: "If we want to demonstrate how valuable all human lives are, we’re not setting a good example by killing people."
Sharp: You (Branson) are unaware that all sanctions are based upon taking away that which is valued: Probations with second chances, fines with money or other property, community service with time and labor, incarceration with freedom and executions with life.
A sanction cannot be a sanction unless we take away that which is valued. Basic.
"The normal moral reason for upholding capital punishment is reverence for life itself. Indeed, this is the reason why scripture and Christian tradition have upheld it, a fact which suggests that, if anything, it may be the abolition of capital punishment which threatens to cheapen life, not its retention." J. Budziszewski, Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, Jan. 25, 2002 conference, Pew Forum, titled "A Call for Reckoning: Religion and the Death Penalty".
Branson clueless? The pattern.
8) Sir Branson: "The death penalty is also deeply rooted in racism . . . ".
Sharp: In the US, 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. (11).
Branson, read the entire footnote (11). Branson, duped, again by his anti-death penalty sources?
The pattern.
9) Sir Branson: Bryan Stevenson (Equal Justice Initiative): "capital punishment treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. It’s the polar opposite of justice and equality."
Sharp: In the US, 99.8% of all "poor" murderers avoid execution. It is, solely, dependent upon one's definition of "wealthy" and "poor" as the whether the "wealthy", a vast minority of murderers are, any more or less likely to be executed, than 0.2%, as are "poor" murderers, a vast majority of murderers.
Robbery/murder is the most common death penalty crime, almost non-existent for "wealthy" murderers. Although the "wealthy" would have an advantage, my calculus shows no advantage in avoiding executions (12).
Again, Branson duped, again or does he want to be duped?
The pattern.
10) Branson: "Why do you say the death penalty doesn’t deliver justice?"
Sir Branson: "innocent people are frequently executed. In fact, for every eight people executed, one person on death row has been exonerated. This is a truly unacceptable margin of error."
Sharp: As it is nonsense.
a) After 50 years (1973-2024) of the most intense investigations, we have found one proven innocent for every 256 guilty findings (13), for death row, or a 99.6% accuracy rate in guilty findings, with the 0.4% proven innocent released (13), very likely the most accurate of all sanctions, as expected with the only sanction that has super s due process (14).
1 in 256, not 1 in 8. Branson, duped? Is he, easily, duped? The pattern.
None were executed.
b) For those who fact check and vet, this has been well known since 1998 (13).
Those who make claims, without fact checking and vetting, or by lying, do not care about the victim survivors. Do they?
The pattern.
c) Branson, tell us of the innocents, frequently executed, after you have researched, fact checked and vetted.
since March 2023 . . . nothing from Branson. The pattern.
d) The lies of the "innocent"/"exonerated", from death row are very painful, for the victim survivors, in these fraudulent, horrendous efforts. The pattern.
e) Again, the anti-death penalty motto could be "We harm the victim survivors so much that you should end the death penalty". The pattern.
11) Branson: Why should we pay to keep serious criminals alive in prison?
Sir Branson: "It is a myth that the death penalty is cheaper than a prison sentence."
Sharp: a) My guess, you (Branson) forgot to fact check and vet the studies. I did fact check them.
The pattern.
Branson, read California, Nebraska, Nevada, Maryland and Texas, in that order, and then move on to others (15). You have been duped, again. Boy, you get duped, a lot.
Do you care? The pattern?
12) Branson: There is absolutely no evidence that the death penalty works as a deterrent of crime.
Sharp: Complete nonsense.
a) The deterrent effects of all severe sanctions and all severe negative incentives have, never, been negated, as they cannot be (4c&d). Again, you did not do the work or the thinking. The pattern.
Do you care? It appears you do care, very much, not to know. The pattern? Yes? No?
b) Since 1996, there have been 24 US based studies finding for death penalty/execution deterrence (4c&d), with their critics never negating deterrence, only criticizing methodology, which is, routinely, lauded with other subjects (4c&d).
Do you care?
c) 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)
Branson?
12) Sir Branson: "statistics show that states with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those without. In US states where the death penalty is abolished, data shows no spike in murder rates."
Sharp: a) Some states with the death penalty have lower murder rates than those without, as is well known (4c&d), showing that you have no idea how deterrence is measured (4c&d), another example of you being misled?!
Do you care? Are you misled so easily? The patter?
b) The deterrence studies show that from 1-28 lives are spared, per execution/year, because of deterrence (4c&d). Even with the 28, that is about 900 spared per year, or about 5%/yr, which is a number that would normally disappears in each years, ups and downs in murder rates, so of course, no spike would be expected, but those 900 lives would still have been spared (4c&d).
Anti-death penalty folks risk sacrificing more innocents, while pro-death penalty folks "risk" saving more innocent lives (4a-g, 13, 14)
The pattern.
13) Sir Branson: "If governments are serious about reducing violent crime, they should invest in improved education, social care, mental health services, drug treatment and economic opportunities."
Sharp: Many do. Laws, law enforcement and sanction are society's self-defense. After the US, dramatically, increased incarcerations rates, our violent crime rates went to 40-60 year lows, in 2014, depending upon crime category.
The pattern.
14) Sir Branson: "Why should business leaders get involved in abolishing the death penalty?"
Sharp: They shouldn't if they care about harming more innocents and if they don't fact check, nor vet nor use critical thinking, as appears to describe you.
The pattern?
If supporting or opposing the death penalty, people should educate themselves first, prior to being in the debate (all fn).
You did not. Do you care? The pattern?
======
1) Answering your questions on the death penalty, Richard Branson, 23 March 2023,
NOTE: Branson has had since April 20, 2023 to correct all of those things that are false, misleading and/or incomplete, as detailed herein, from his "Answering your questions on the death penalty" (1). He has not done so, the anti-death penalty pattern.
2) 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
(7 pro-death penalty experts are included)
3) 600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
and
Victims' Voices
b) See Footnote 4 within
Catechism & State Protection
c) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
f) RENNY CUSHING DEAD WRONG: THE DEATH PENALTY
within
The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
6) What’s the Difference Between a Psychopath and a Sociopath? And How Do Both Differ from Narcissists?, Brian Duignan, Brittanica,
8) Prejean: Death penalty is torture, TimesLeader.com online, October 1, 2012,
9a) Four Catholic Journals Indulge in (ant- death penalty) Doctrinal Solipsism, Steven Long, THOMISTICA, March 5, 2015,
10) FORGIVENESS and MURDER
10a) “A Bible Study”, from Essays on the Death Penalty, T. Robert Ingram, ed., St. Thomas Press, Houston, 1963, 1992. Dr. Carey was a Professor of Bible and past President of George Fox College.
10b) The Death Penalty: Mercy, Expiation, Redemption & Salvation
if interested, more on religion, here:
Religion & The Death Penalty
11) RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS
and
12) Is There Class Disparity with Executions?
13) The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds
71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims,
Well Known Since 2000
14) Texas Death Penalty Procedures
and
more here:
The Catholic Church & The Death Penalty
12 (14) Factual Errors: 2018 CCC 2267 amendment
Sister Helen Prejean: Her Lies, Deceptions . . . and/or
Astounding Willful Ignorance? - A Compilation
======
Partial CV
======
Your corporate leaders anti-death penalty comments are factually in error, on every point. None of the 32 leaders mentioned the innocents, often raped and tortured, prior to their murders, a very common omission in anti-death penalty statements, but here, not even 1 of the 32 included the innocents harmed . . .not one.
https://www.businessagainstdeathpenalty.org/
Werner Baumann (Bayer), Sheryl Sandgerg (Leanin.org), Paul Polman (IMAGINE), Arianna Huffington (Thrive Global), Merck Mercuriadis (Hipgnosis Song Fund), Andrew N. Liveris (Liveris Academy For Leadership and Innovation), Hubert Joly (Lecturer Harvard Business School), Tony Fernandes (Chairman Tune Group), Alan Jope (Unilever), Sandro Salsano (Salsono Group), David W. Crane (Climate Real Impact Solution, Director of the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations), John Replolge (One Better Ventures), Nicolas Debray (The Body Shop), Pedro Parente (EB Capital), Helene Gayle (Chicago Community Trust), Jared Smith (Qualtrics), Mo Ibrahim (The Mo Ibrahim Foundation), Martha Lane Fox ( Open University & Antigone), Mike Novogratz (Galaxy Digital & Beat the Streets), Alessandro Bogliolo (Audemars Piguet), Guilherme Leal (Natura), Strive Masywia (Econet Group, Carbon War Room, B-TEAM), Bert Jacobs (Life Is Good), Robert Smith (Vista Equity Partners), Jason Flom (Lava Media), Scott Budnick (1Community, The Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), Nick McKeown (Professor at Stanford), Miles Dally (Panache Group Investments), Paul Graham (Y Combinator), Alex Love Consulting, Agnes Levine (Levine-Oliver Publisher), Andrew Douglass (Innovision), Anders Holch Povlsen (Bestseller), Benoit Reynders (BMT Aerospace), many more
