The One-Sided Media Coverage of Justice Stevens.

Last April’s retirement announcement by Justice John Paul Stevens occasioned an outpouring of adulation: Champion of the Powerless. The Greatest Justice, etc. His absence from the new Supreme Court term renewed the love fest, evoking honor and award for his “open mind.” Liberal judicial activists depict him as an authoritative hero and saint (most recently: 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley and The New York Times’ Adam Liptak).

The Petit murders: we must hate evil

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. William Petit who, in his extreme hour of grief, taught us a valuable lesson about the nature of evil, forgiveness, and the problem of suffering.
No, not what you would expect.
In speaking of the man convicted of killing his wife and two daughters, Petit did not deliver an amoral, slobbering speech about forgiving his wife and daughters’ murderer and how all suffering teaches us some valuable lesson, enriching us in the process.

Rick Halperin & SMU: Dead Wrong on the death penalty

RE: Reply to Rick Halperin’s “Why don’t people in Texas talk about the death penalty?” (1)
Prof. Halperin is director of Southern Methodist U. Embrey Human Rights Program and is a well know anti death penalty activist
From: Dudley Sharp, a pro death penalty guy
There is a difference between open discussion and fair debate and what Rick Halperin presents, which is one sided and false propaganda and indoctrination.

The California Death Penalty Cost Fraud: A Rebuttal to “Cut This: The Death Penalty

Clark/CCFAJ’s cost review is wildly inaccurate and I doubt that there is any more veracity to the death row costs than with their lifer cost evaluations. None of Clark/CCFAJ’s numbers can be relied upon.
Clark says: “In total, California’s death penalty system costs taxpayers $137 million per year. Contrast that with just $11 million per year if we replace the death penalty with permanent imprisonment.”

Mercy, Redemption & the Death Penalty

1) Saint Augustine confirms that ” . . . inflicting capital punishment . . . protects those who are undergoing capital punishment from the harm they may suffer . . . through increased sinning which might continue if their life went on.” (On the Lord’s Sermon, 1.20.63-64.)
2) Saint Thomas Aquinas finds that ” . . . the death inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, if he be converted, unto the expiation of his crime; and, if he be not converted, it profits so as to put an end to the sin, because the sinner is thus deprived of the power to sin anymore.” (Summa Theologica, II-II, 25, 6 ad 2.)
3) Quaker, 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.” (1) (p. 116).

MORE ON GARLAND’S DEATH PENALTY “MYTHS”

Make no mistake. If the death penalty is “impossible in some jurisdictions,” it is almost impossible everywhere, including “bloodthirsty” Texas. Homicide does not entail anywhere near the same risk for murderers as for victims. This shocking fact is largely unknown: Between 1972 and 2008, there were 723,000 murders [1], more than the combined total of battle deaths in all our wars. [2-p43] As of the end of 2009, this resulted in 1,188 lawful executions (0.165%) [1]. Texas had 446 executions for 66,337 murders (0.67%) [3].
This is not simply a matter of different state court judges.

The 5 Myths of Prof. David Garland – death penalty

It is difficult to say if Prof . Garland is just sloppy or if, like many in academia, he is happy to peddle bias in service of a goal, here, an end to execution.
(“Five myths about the death penalty”, By David Garland, July 18, 2010, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/16/AR2010071602717.html)
Lets’ look at Garland’s myths:
1) Garland fails to mention that it is the judges that make the imposition of the death penalty all but impossible in some jurisdictions. Dictatorial judges in New Jersey never allowed an execution. There, the death penalty was repealed. Pennsylvania judges never allow executions other than those whereby the inmates waive appeals. If you appeal a death sentence in Pa, you have a life sentence, even if your death sentence is not overturned. Similar abusive judicial behavior is legendary in California.

The “Moderate Republican” Death Penalty Values of Justice Stevens

THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF A JUSTICE’S VALUES
Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens has long been the object of adulation. In 2005, President Ford said he was prepared for his presidency to be judged “exclusively” upon Stevens’ 30-year record. In the dominant media narrative, Stevens is just an old-fashioned and modest conventional Midwestern Republican, as was Ford. If he moved left at all, he is still “in the mainstream.” Jeffrey Toobin reverentially suggests he is “the last” moderate Republican on the Court and in the tradition of Harding and Coolidge.

DEAD WRONG: NJ Death Penalty Study Commission

The New Jersey Death Penalty Commission made significant errors within their findings. The evidence, contrary to the Commissions findings, was so easy to obtain that it appears either willful ignorance or deception guided their report.
A brief review.
FORMAT: Below, are the 7 points made within the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission Report, January, 2007. The RUBUTTAL presents the obvious points avoided by the Commission and discussed by this author, a death penalty expert.
I was invited to be a presenter, before the NJDPSC, but my time didn’t fit their schedule.

Death Penalty Cost Studies: Saving Costs over LWOP

As a general rule, the death penalty cost studies are worthless. Those that purport to compare life without parole costs to death penalty costs are, in most cases, comparing apples to kangaroos not apples to apples.
There is no reason that the death penalty, in general, should be more expensive than LWOP and, in many, if not most cases, the death penalty should be less expensive.
1) Virginia: How the death penalty will save money over life without parole (LWOP).
Virginia executes in 5-7 years. 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed. Only 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned. (Source Virginia AG)
With the high costs of long term imprisonment, such a system, as Virginia’s, a true life sentence will be more expensive than such a death penalty protocol. All states could duplicate this protocol, with the major exception that you can’t transfer Virginia jurisdiction judges to other states.

Judge Fine gets caught with his pants down

Judge Fine is not truly backing off or rescinding his finding that the Texas death penalty statute is unconstitutional. It is a tactical withdrawal to cover his ass.
I suspect it won’t matter what happens in the April 27th hearing. Judge Fine will repeat his original finding.
Judge Fine realized that he looked like a fool and/or an idiot because he was wrong on the facts and the law in his first two episodes. (1)
The judge, now, says “. . . he still wants more information on whether the state’s death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it allows for the possible execution of an innocent person.” Thus, the hearing.

Judge’s Clarification Puts Him in More Hot Water: Texas Death Penalty Ruled Unconstitutional

The judge clarifies that his decision is ” . . . limited only to the due process claim that 37071 has resulted in the execution of innocent people and/or has the potential to result in the execution of innocent persons”. (1)
As such potential has existed since the beginning of executions, it is curious that the judge has made this ruling when (1) the probability of such an event occurring is now lower than at any other time in history, (2) the judge cannot point to a case whereby an innocent has been executed in the modern US death penalty era, post Gregg v Georgia, and (3) the judge can cite no precedent wherein perfection is required in the implementation of due process.

The Sinister Secret of Abolitionists – Do death penalty opponents really oppose capital punishment?

“Recidivism among murderers does occasionally happen … the only way to prevent all … recidivism is to execute every convicted murderer – a policy no one seriously advocates … Governments that respect … justice and … human dignity… do not use premeditated, violent homicide as an instrument of social policy”
— American Civil Liberties Union
“Governor Huckabee “seemed genuinely surprised that he was held responsible for the criminal acts committed by those whose sentences he had commuted …. The notion … seemed as foreign to him as the idea that he should refuse all leniency.”
— former Huckabee campaign official
AN ERSATZ ISSUE
Serious implications for the capital punishment struggle arise from the hypocrisy of those who demand absolute perfection for convicted murderers but expect, excuse and shrug off imperfections resulting in preventable brutalization of the law-abiding.