Death Penalty Articles

Murder and execution - Very distinct moral differences. New Mexico

Homicide Survivors — 2013-02-20T06:44:14Z

To: New Mexico - Governor Bill Richardson , the Legislature, prosecutors and

media throughout the state

Re: House Testimony, Muina Arthur

From: Dudley Sharp, contact info below

Everyone should have justified sympathy for Muina Arthur, whose son Karl Eugene Chamberlain was executed. Chamberlain was executed because he raped and murdered 30 year old Felecia Prechtl.

However, she was in error, by saying: "I am the survivor of a murder victim,'' meaning her son's execution.

Make no mistake, Felicia Prechtl was the innocent rape/murder victim. She was murdered.

Karl Chamberlain was the guilty murderer justly executed for that crime. His just sanction was execution for that murder.

There is a huge moral difference between the murder of an innocent rape/murder victim and the just execution of the guilty rapist/murderer who committed that crime. (see

Please do not confuse the innocent and the guilty, the victim and the perpetrator, the crime and the just sanction.

Be as opposed to the death penalty as you wish, just don't equate murder and execution. It is an amoral or an immoral equation.

No one wants any parent to suffer the horror of knowing their child is a rapist/murderer.

Nor do we wish that the parents of the true murder victim, Felecia Prechtl, will have to hear that someone is trying to find some moral equivalence between the rape/murder of their daughter with the execution of her rapist/murderer. Even the hint of it should not be approved.

Please.

------------

See Killing Equals Killing, below

Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas

Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.

A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.

Killing equals Killing: The Amoral Confusion of death penalty opponents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below

There is a very common anti death penalty slogan:

"Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?"

We don't. Even with no sanction, most folks know that committing murder is wrong.

We execute guilty murderers who have murdered innocent people.

The difference between crime and punishment, guilty murderers and their innocent victims is very clear to most.

The moral confusion exists when people blindly accept the amoral or immoral position that all killing is equal.

The anti death penalty folks are just looking at an act -- "killing" -- and saying all killings are the same. Only an amoral person would equate acts, without considering the purpose behind them.

For those, like some anti death penalty folks, who believe all killing is morally equivalent, they would equate the slaughter of 6 million innocent Jews and 6-7 million additional innocents with the execution of those guilty murderers committing that slaughter. They would also equate the rape and murder of children with the execution of the rapist/murderer.

This is what the anti death penalty folks do, morally equate killing (murder) with the punishment for that murder, another killing (execution).

For such anti death penalty folks to be consistent, they must also equate holding people against their will (illegal kidnapping) with the sanction for it, the holding people against their will (legal incarceration) or the taking money away from people (illegal robbery) with a sanction for that, taking money away from people (legal restitution).

Most folks understand the moral differences.

Some anti death penalty folks are either incapable of knowing the moral differences between crime and punishment, guilty criminals and their innocent victims, or they are knowingly using a dishonest slogan by equating killing (murder) with killing (execution).

Either way, it's time to stop it. It is just too grotesque a tool.

copyright 2000-2009 Dudley Sharp: Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

Pro death penalty sites

homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

www.dpinfo.com
www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html see Death Penalty
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html

Justice Sotomayor and Murderer Advocacy

Homicide Survivors — 2012-12-21T20:20:02Z

Amercian Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/justice_sotomayor_and_murderer_advocacy.html

December 11, 2012

Justice Sotomayor and Murderer Advocacy

By Lester Jackson

When pro-murderer justices seek -- often successfully -- to focus upon criminals rather than crimes, the result is to grant certain perpetrators greater protection against punishment for their brutality than others who commit identical or less serious acts.

As detailed elsewhere, pro-murderer media suppression of the truth has played a major role in enabling a wholesale evisceration of capital punishment. Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently provided a graphic example, one that would be excruciatingly painful to survivors of murder victims if they knew about it. Many people unfamiliar with the practices and philosophy of the Supreme Court would very likely be shocked to learn just what values some justices hold.

In an unreported but highly revealing dissent from the Supreme Court denial (at least temporarily - myriad appeals are endless) of further torturous review of a claim by convicted triple-murderer Benny Lee Hodge, Sotomayor complained of his lawyer's "deficient" attention to Hodge's abused childhood:

[T]he court below concluded that Hodge would have been sentenced to death anyway because even if this evidence had been presented, it would not have "explained" his actions, and thus the jury would have arrived at the same result...This was error. Mitigation evidence need not, and rarely could, "explai[n]" a heinous crime; rather, mitigation evidence allows a jury to make a reasoned moral decision whether the individual defendant deserves to be executed, or to be shown mercy instead. [Emphasis added.]

Translating judicial double talk into plain English, what the justice is saying is that a crime so heinous as to be inexplicable can and should nevertheless be "mitigated." Tell that to the surviving loved ones. Tell them that merciless barbarians deserve mercy -- in the eyes of pro-murderer members of the United States Supreme Court.

Just as the media has suppressed reporting on the Sotomayor opinion, she, in turn, has suppressed key facts. First, she confines her discussion to the invasion and more than two million dollar robbery of Dr. Roscoe Acker's home, the attempted murder of this physician, and the multiple stabbing murder of his daughter the day before she was to go back to college. (Needless to say, Dr. Acker is not deemed worthy of mention by name.) Sotomayor devotes not a single word to the fact that Hodge was separately convicted and sentenced to death for committing two prior extensively premeditated murders -- of an elderly couple). Second, having left out the fact that Hodge faces two separate death sentences rather than just the one she now protests, Sotomayor does not bother to mention that substantial "mitigation" evidence was in fact presented in the second trial only to be rejected by the jury. Third, anyone reading Sotomayor's opinion sympathetic to this recidivist attempted murderer and triple murderer might get the impression that he has not been treated fairly or given adequate due process. Nowhere does she mention that the barbaric acts for which she wishes to minimize the punishment took place in a two-month period in 1985 -- 27 years ago! Fourth, just to be clear, although Sotomayor focuses exclusively upon one of the two death sentences received by Hodge, he was convicted by two separate juries for three murders. Hence, this is yet another case that has dragged on for nearly three decades (and is likely to continue) where there is no doubt about guilt. What has been going on for a very long time now is an attempt to minimize sentences for the worst crimes; virtually all delays have little to do with guilt or innocence.

In spurning the view that any crimes could be so heinous that they could not be mitigated, Sotomayor rejects the Kentucky Supreme Court's conclusion that severe child abuse

offered in mitigation might have explained... substance abuse, or... even a crime committed in a fit of rage.... But it offers virtually no rationale for the premeditated, cold-blooded murder and attempted murder of two innocent victims who were complete strangers to Hodge. Many, if not most, malefactors committing terribly violent and cruel murders are the subjects of terrible childhoods....

Sotomayor briefly discusses but does not appear fazed by the Kentucky Supreme Court's findings. She writes:

The murder itself was "calculated and exceedingly cold-hearted." ...Hodge stabbed the daughter "at least ten times," and he "coolly" told his codefendant that he knew the daughter "was dead because the knife had gone 'all the way through her to the floor.'" ...Hodge's conduct after the murder was shocking as well: He and the two other robbers "brazenly spent the stolen money on a lavish lifestyle and luxury goods, including a Corvette," and Hodge told a cellmate he had "sprea[d] all the money out on a bed and ha[d] sex with his girlfriend on top of it." ....Moreover, had Hodge put on evidence in mitigation, the Commonwealth may have sought to introduce evidence of Hodge's "long and increasingly violent criminal history, his numerous escapes from custody, and the obvious failure of several rehabilitative efforts." [Emphasis added.]

In her zealous condescending lecture to the Kentucky Supreme Court about its "error" in "misunderst[anding]" that cruel savagery that cannot be explained can nevertheless be mitigated, Sotomayor unwittingly reveals the extent of abuse of power by her own court's justices. "We have made clear for over 30 years," she admonished, "that mitigation does not play so limited a role.... the sentencer in a capital case must be given a full opportunity to consider, as a mitigating factor, 'any aspect of a defendant's character or record'...." Sotomayor thus implicitly concedes that, for nearly two centuries previously, the court did not make that "clear" -- for the obvious reason that there is not and never was such a requirement in the actual written Constitution. It was put there by justices who believe their power to interpret the Constitution gives them license to rewrite the Constitution to impose their own personal values on everyone else -- in the absence of any constitutional amendment whatsoever. Thus, in the cause of saving brutal murderers, justices have "gone from pillar to post... completely sacfic[ing]" Constitutional predictability, as stated by Justice Rehnquist in a case cited by Sotomayor. In sum, what she says has been "clear" for over 30 years was a completely unconstitutional concoction out of thin air that had never before even existed, let alone being clear.

Sotomayor's goal is the quest of all murderer advocates: to find "at least one juror" who could be hoodwinked (not her word) into saving the life of a barbarian who had a bad childhood (notwithstanding that most people who have suffered extreme child abuse do not commit multiple premeditated murders). Of course, the flip side of her stance is that barbaric murderers who had good or even privileged childhoods should be more harshly punished than those with unhappy childhoods. Is that "fair"? In the infamous Leopold-Loeb case, Clarence Darrow made just that point, arguing (n327) not only that his clients were being singled out for harsher punishment because of their privileged upbringing but that they actually suffered from the "curse" of wealth, itself a ground for mercy.

When pro-murderer justices seek -- often successfully -- to focus upon criminals rather than crimes, the result is to grant certain perpetrators greater protection against punishment for their brutality than others who commit identical or less serious acts without Supreme Court succor. The reductio ad absurdum, of course, is the Court's fiat proclaiming a Constitutional right, nowhere to be found in the real document, for the most depraved and vicious barbarians to commit murders and rapes with no punishment at all. In the Court's Alice in Wonderland world, "fairness" means that those with the worst records receive little or no punishment for the worst new crimes, while those with no criminal past can receive harsh punishment for far less serious transgressions.

Those steeped in the mire of Supreme Court death penalty subversion by pro-murderer justices might recall Justice's Scalia's complaint two decades ago that, using a "fog of confusion," the justices had

decreed -- by a sheer act of will, with no pretense of foundation in constitutional text or American tradition -- that the People (as in We, the People) cannot decree the death penalty, absolutely and categorically, for any criminal act, even (presumably) genocide.... Today ... the Court strikes a further blow against the People in its campaign against the death penalty.

Nothing can better illustrate the "fog of confusion" than Sotomayor's straight-faced claim that "especially heinous" murders cannot and need not be "explained" but can and should be "mitigated."

Although the Hodge dissent was joined by no other justice, Sotomayor is far from the only pro-murderer justice. Just last year, four justices wanted to save a barbaric murderer by brazenly applying a law they conceded was never passed and disingenuously pretended would be enacted with the support of just one legislator. Other justices, especially Kennedy, have joined this quartet.

Only in a relentless campaign to inform the public along with a highly organized opposition is there any hope of preventing more brazenly and zealously pro-murderer justices from being placed on the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor's full opinion is here; lower court opinions are here and here.

____________________________

The original is slightly modified here.

Lester Jackson, Ph.D., a former college political science teacher, views mainstream media suppression of the truth as essential to harmful judicial activism. His recent articles are collected here.

Supreme Court Warning to Conservatives: Do Not Confuse Relief with Joy

Homicide Survivors — 2012-10-28T18:42:28Z

Amercian Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/supreme_court_warning_to_conservatives_do_not_confuse_relief_with_joy.html

October 22, 2012

Supreme Court Warning to Conservatives: Do Not Confuse Relief with Joy

By Lester Jackson

The history of liberal judicial activism has largely been a history of Republican handiwork -- in case after case after case, impacting all areas of law (including public safety, crime and capital punishment).

The most important reason for conservatives to support Mitt Romney is that he is not Barack Obama, period. Never before has there been an American president ashamed of his own country. Never before has there been a president with complete contempt for the political and economic principles that made it great.

Obama's disdain for the Constitution and the freedoms it protects is well-known, at least to conservatives. Also, for all its faults, capitalism has been the driving engine that made ours the most creative, productive, and successful economy ever seen. The foundation of capitalism is business. Nevertheless, there have been no Romney commercials quoting Obama's bile-filled declaration that he felt like a "spy behind enemy lines" when working for a corporation.

Mitt Romney is not ashamed of his country, what it has achieved, and what it stands for. But the virtue of being not-Obama should not be confused with conservative virtue. While defeat of Obama should be a basis for relief, it does not follow that election of Romney should be a cause for joy.

Of course, if Romney were to actually govern as a conservative and not sell out his backers, as Republicans so often have done in the past, there will be time enough to celebrate. Conservatives should rejoice in results, not hope.

******

One area of immense wishful thinking is the recently oft-expressed notion that, if Romney is elected, the Supreme Court will magically cease its repeated lawlessness, usurpation, and abuse of judicial review.

The re-election of Obama would guarantee, for another generation, an out-of-control Court with contempt for both the law and the Constitution. That's surely reason enough to vote for Romney.

But the vote should be cast with eyes wide open. The election of Romney would assure nothing beyond the avoidance of absolutely certain judicial disaster. But avoiding a guarantee of what would happen is not a guarantee that it won't happen anyway. In all likelihood, this Establishment and possibly RINO Republican will have to be vigilantly and vigorously fought by proponents of fealty to duly-enacted law as written rather than concoctions by arrogant justices. Conservatives, if serious, must hold Romney's feet to the fire on judicial appointments.

The last six decades provide little basis for optimism and vast grounds for pessimism. Those who worry about what the Supreme Court will do in the next generation if Obama is elected should ponder the immense harm done over the last two generations by Republican appointees. Between 1953 and 1991, 15 of 19 justices were appointed by Republican presidents -- and from 1953 to the present, 17 of 25 justices were appointed by Republicans. Elected Republican officeholders cannot and should not escape responsibility for what their appointees foreseeably have done to the Constitution and to the country.

Make no mistake. The history of liberal judicial activism has largely been a history of Republican handiwork -- in case after case after case, impacting all areas of law and life: curtailment of explicit constitutional rights combined with invention of non-existing "rights," core speech, religious freedom, national security, crime and public safety, life and death, economic well-being, race and gender relations, etc., etc. Again and again, in the most critical cases, Republican appointees have been essential to mutilating the Constitution, with grave consequences for freedom, security, and the well-being of the nation. Often they even imposed liberal positions previously rejected by Democrat appointees. Consider a few choice examples:

In Roe v. Wade, which occupies a throne of dishonor in the Hades of judicial abuse, five Republican appointees and two Democrats, opposed by one Republican and one Democrat, created an abortion right out of thin air. As a result, there are now more than 50 million missing Americans, a large proportion of whom would currently be productive and paying taxes. Later, Roe would be rescued by five Republicans and not a single Democrat.

In cases too numerous to mention here, Republican appointees have made a cruel mockery of capital punishment, ruthlessly torturing victims in the process. Two largely unknown cases cry out for special mention. Long before nose-out-of-joint Establishment Republicans sneered at Todd Akin over a single verbal lapse for which he instantly apologized, five Establishment Republican justices and two Democrats unapologetically asserted that rape could be "unharmful" and proclaimed "Constitutional" immunity from any punishment whatsoever for new rapes by any barbarian already serving a life sentence for prior murder, attempted murder, rape, and robbery. Later, five Republicans and one Democrat invented "Constitutional" immunity from mandatory capital punishment for new murders by anyone already serving a life sentence for prior murders, effectively enabling punishment-free new murders by the most depraved convicted violent criminals.

The sorry history of mischievous and harmful Republican liberal judicial activism demonstrates that optimistic assurance is no substitute for real vetting -- and fighting! Credible objections to nominees must be taken very seriously by constitutionalists rather than set aside just because the president is purportedly conservative.

No Republican president can be truly relied upon. None! Not ever!

It is sobering to realize that two of President Reagan's three appointees, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, have been gross disappointments -- and that's a charitably euphemistic understatement.

In 1981, leftist judicial activists had not yet cranked up their ruthless character-assassination machine. Robert Bork, indisputably the most superior available conservative, could have been confirmed easily. However, for Reagan, brilliance, integrity, accomplishment, and restrained judicial philosophy took a backseat to a nominee's possession of politically correct reproductive organs and genitalia.

This is not 20/20 hindsight. There were warnings in 1981. For all his political talent, it is unlikely that Reagan would have been elected without the vigorous support of Roe v. Wade opponents. But he instantly spurned them when they complained about O'Connor's pro-abortion votes as a state senator. As painful as it may be to acknowledge, although Reagan repeatedly claimed to oppose affirmative action and abortion, one of the earliest acts of his presidency was to make the first affirmative-action Supreme Court appointment, and an abortion-supporter to boot. So it should have surprised no one when O'Connor played a pivotal role in saving Roe v. Wade, along with Republican appointees Kennedy, Souter, Blackmun, and Stevens, and later wrote the opinion saving affirmative action.

Whereas, by 1981, Bork was widely recognized as an outstanding scholar, lawyer, and solicitor general, O'Connor was a politician, an Arizona Senate majority leader, and an intermediate appellate judge. She was a politician when appointed, and she continued lawlessly acting as a politician when a justice and while deciding cases as an appellate judge after leaving the Supreme Court. Powerful evidence has been presented questioning her ethics.

By the time Reagan finally got around to nominating Bork, he insouciantly failed to fight for and defend his nominee against massive scurrilous libel and slander. That's how we ended up with the pompous and arrogant Kennedy, who has cast critical deciding votes for (and written) liberal judicial activist decisions too numerous to be listed here. Suffice it to note that the unelected Kennedy considers himself to do "more important" work than legislators and better-suited (4) to assess military necessity and national security needs than the duly elected Congress and president. He also proclaims lawyers better able than the military to protect security, freedom, and civilization.

When David Souter was appointed, conservatives comforted themselves with the delusion that, because he had little record to be attacked, they had put one over on the left. It seemed to escape their notice that, if the left could have no idea where Souter stood, neither could the right. Even Bork got into the act. In the paperback edition (363) of his book The Tempting of America, he opined that President Bush "may succeed ... with ... Souter" in "chang[ing] the Court's direction dramatically ... [ending] over half a century of liberal policy-making by the judiciary." Actually, there was little basis for hope in light of the recommendations of two Northeast RINO Republicans, Warren Rudman and John Sununu (ominously prominent in the Romney campaign). (The Souter selection was especially tragic because, at the time, an extremely qualified female and genuine conservative judge, Edith Jones, was available. That made no difference to the diversity-mongers, whose concept of diversity does not include any female or minority candidate who disagrees with their leftist views. To avoid a vicious and libelous fight, Jones was passed over, to the detriment of the nation.)

Only last June, in the historic ObamaCare case, conservatives were again dealt a body blow by a Republican nominee they had enthusiastically supported only because they closed their eyes to the reality that John Roberts is a highly skilled lawyer disposed to selling out to make a case for any position, without regard for principles and values. Conservatives were warned in 2005, but they ignored the warning. The country is now paying the price!

******

The tragic lesson of Republican liberal judicial activism is this: if Obama wins, the judicial war will be lost for a generation and possibly forever. But it does not follow that, if Romney wins, the war will be won. A Romney victory promises only the beginning of a protracted judicial struggle -- not only against goon squads recruited from among the most venomous leftist character assassins, but also against the inclinations of Republican presidents to seek "moderation" and to buy easy peace from the assassins by compromising judicial integrity and principles.

____________________________

The original is slightly modified here.

Lester Jackson, Ph.D., a former college political science teacher, views mainstream media suppression of the truth as essential to harmful judicial activism. His recent articles are collected here.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, OBAMACARE AND THE SUPREME COURT EMPERORS’ CLOTHES

Homicide Survivors — 2012-09-25T23:59:10Z

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Why does an article about the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare decision appear on a site devoted to victims of the worst crimes?

The answer is simple. No institution of government has done more to harm and torture homicide survivors than the Supreme Court. The court has victimized victims by arrogantly imposing personal values of justices and applying the law and Constitution with utter dishonesty. They have gone so far as to provide immunity from punishment for the most depraved convicted barbarians when they commit new savagery; and they have made a farce out of the legal system by forcing victim families to endure multiple decades of legal proceedings when guilt is not in doubt.

If this scandalous judicial assault on victims is ever going to be reversed, it will first be necessary to expose and understand the duplicitous and dishonorable abuse of judicial review by many justices. Few cases better illustrate this and are more easily understandable than ObamaCare.

Chief Justice Roberts, Obamacare And The Supreme Court Emperors’ Clothes

Are Justices Uniquely Honest Angels?

By Lester Jackson

The ObamaCare decision exposed the Supreme Court as an emperor without clothes. Hoping for deliverance from ObamaCare, many usual critics defended the Court. But with a new term fast approaching, a month before a critical election, Chief Justice Roberts’ handiwork should be remembered as a final wake-up call to consider, once and for all, whether the Court and judicial review merit respect, acceptance and legitimacy.

Upon Paul Ryan’s vice presidential selection, supporters noted his objection that Chief Justice Roberts had “contort[ed] logic and reason to come up with [the ObamaCare] ruling.” Such contortion is nothing unusual except for one thing. The Supreme Court, which normally operates in obscurity, could not escape a glaring spotlight this time, affording a rare opportunity to inform the public about the dark side of what many justices do. This raises questions concerning the utility of elections, what remains of our actual Constitution, the rule of law, and public acceptance of judicial review.

The Roberts opinion as well as attempts to defend it provide easily understood textbook examples of how justices have turned “interpretation” into a scam by manipulating words to mean anything in order to impose their will by authorizing what is constitutionally prohibited and prohibiting what is authorized or required.

Bluntly acknowledging, in order to challenge, the charge that Roberts is “a liar [and] coward,” devoted Roberts apologist Matthew Franck candidly clarified high stakes questions rarely presented to the public. Are all high court justices always honest? Or are many of them, often a majority, just politicians undemocratically, crassly and lawlessly imposing their personal morality based on misplaced public faith in them — blind faith similar to that once placed in witch doctors and medicine men?

If many justices are merely skilled charlatans distinguished from the latter solely by using far more sophisticated and incomprehensible mumbo jumbo, then what they do is illegitimate, their whole enterprise and institution are illegitimate, and they are not entitled to public trust and respect.

This is so critical that even justices most faithful to the law, but understandably committed to their court, avoid directly saying the judicial emperor has no clothes. For example, Justices Scalia and Thomas seem torn between institutional loyalty and reality. Recently, Scalia pronounced himself “enrage[d]” by references to his Court as “politicized”; and Thomas said his colleagues were all “good” and “principled.” Nevertheless, long ago, Scalia warned that the people would not “le[ave] us alone” if they realized that justices misused Constitutional “adjudication” as a ruse to force their own personal values upon everyone else. And Thomas lamented the Court’s “dissembling … damaging to the credibility of the Federal Judiciary.”

The ObamaCare decision vividly illustrates that, in major cases, justices shamelessly resort to blatant lawyerly sophistry to produce whatever meanings suit their predilections. Of course, when words mean anything, they mean nothing, destroying the rule of law and the very purpose of a written Constitution.

Because trying to justify court sophistry requires even greater and cleverer sophistry, rationalizing Roberts’ fast shuffles leads to ever faster shuffles.

Fast Shuffle #1: Misstating the Proper Standard for Evaluating Roberts

Franck objects to what he calls the “evidence-free” charge that Roberts did not sincerely believe what he wrote but instead acted for political reasons. Because we don’t “know” why Roberts decided as he did, Franck denies there is “any reason to rule … out” that Roberts’ opinion was “respectably principled.”

This is really a demand for a heavy burden of proof greater than required to determine criminal guilt. Even in criminal trials, juries need not declare that they “know” the defendant is guilty but only must find guilt beyond a “reasonable doubt.”

A far less rigid appearance standard applies to evaluating judicial impartiality. No one has charged Roberts with committing a crime. The charge is that he functioned as a politician rather than a judge. To doubt a judge’s impartiality requires only a reasonable basis.

Significantly, for decades, when unable to dig up dirt on political opponents who have done nothing improper, double-standard leftist partisans have abusively brandished the weapon of “appearance of impropriety.” However, in the case of judges, the appearance standard is codified by statute. Roberts’ opinion, coming after vicious personal attacks by de facto parties to the case, including President Obama and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy, clearly appeared to result from intimidation. It was “fully plausible” that to appear to act “under fire” would subject the Court to “reasonable condemnation for … a surrender to political pressure.” Ironically, Franck himself cites abundant sources making that point.

Nevertheless, disregarding his own cited compelling evidence establishing an appearance of gross impropriety, Franck grants Roberts the presumption of innocence to which a criminal defendant is entitled, requiring a reason to “rule out” Roberts’ sincerity rather than rule it in.

Fast Shuffle #2: The Opinion: Declare Victory and Go Home

For Franck, the trump card is Roberts’ written opinion.

Fair enough. Let’s see if what Roberts wrote is a basis for ruling sincerity in or out and examine the sophistry required to defend it.

First, consider the Chief Justice’s “Principles” in a Nutshell:

(1) “Congress’s decision to label this exaction a ‘penalty’ rather than a ‘tax’ is significant … fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act ….”

(2) “The joint dissenters argue … [i]n effect … that … the law must be struck down because Congress used the wrong labels … labels should not control here….”

Dissenting Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito devastingly characterized these “principles” as “verbal wizardry” and “forbidden…sophist[ry]. Instead of responding to this, attorney Cameron Reddy, an apologist for apologist Franck, further illustrates lawyerly sophistry. In the words of early judicial review critic John Gibson, he “take[s] for granted the very thing to be proved,” baldly denying the contradiction is what it is.

First, Reddy changes the subject. Instead of answering the 2012 joint dissent, he turns to what Justice Story wrote — in 1833 — to justify Roberts’ assertion that those who don’t like ObamaCare should rely on elections. In essence, Reddy appeals to the authority of a long-dead justice to justify the impropriety of a very much alive chief justice.

Story, who never confronted a 2700-page monstrosity (38), wrote when just one federal law had been held unconstitutional. The Dred Scott disgrace had not yet occurred; nor had the long history of frequent judicial review abuse. He wrote long before law professor Lino Graglia famously observed: “The first and most important thing to understand about constitutional law is that it has virtually nothing to do with the Constitution.”

Fast Shuffle #3: Prescribing While Subverting an Election Remedy

Reddy also ignores that elections are meaningless if voters have no idea what dishonest candidates will to do once elected, a predicament aggravated by Roberts’ “principled” stamp of approval for lying (see below). Moreover, the Framers deliberately created impediments to change. Those who rammed ObamaCare down the throats of the American people, defying the intensely held wishes of a substantial number, knew exactly what they were doing — that once enacted, repeal would be extremely difficult.

Even if Democrats lose the presidency and entire Congress, ObamaCare repeal is far from certain. Just witness the 2010 election. Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives on a promise to do away with the law. Nevertheless, timorous leaders blocked use of their absolute power to end ObamaCare immediately by defunding it. Only because of this dereliction did John Roberts become the last forlorn misplaced hope of freedom’s proponents.

If elections are no panacea, formally amending the Constitution is even more dubious. Yet, Reddy concludes his election diversion with a flourish, disingenuously quoting Justice Story on the “salutary power of amendment, provided in the constitution itself.” Of course, this extremely difficult to exercise formal “salutary power” has been exercised a scant 17 times in over two centuries.

Because Supreme Court has abused its power, repeatedly, the Constitution can be amended easily only by five unelected justices. Now they have struck again by refusing to apply the actual Constitution to ObamaCare. What Roberts did was to purport to amend prior Court-concocted amendments that rendered the commerce power virtually unlimited, while at the same time amending the tax power to make it unlimited instead. First under the commerce clause and now under the tax clause the Court has grotesquely amended (i.e., rewritten) the Constitution. All Roberts did was to shift the source of unlimited presidential and congressional power from one clause to another, disregarding that the actual Constitution grants only limited enumerated powers to the federal government.

Fast Shuffle #4: Declaring the Same Act Unconstitutional but Constitutional

Attorney Reddy disputes that Roberts acted improperly in declaring that, while it was unconstitutional for Congress to impose the individual mandate directly, it validly employed its tax power as a bludgeon to compel indirectly acceptance of what it had no power to compel straightforwardly.

…it takes no intellectual gymnastics to understand that what Congress may not do under one power, it may do under another. Thus, no one would argue that Congress has the power to open a post office according to the power to provide and maintain a navy. Yet, clearly, Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 provides the power to open a post office, whereas it’s Clause 13 which provides the power to build and maintain a navy.

The same can be said for ObamaCare; it’s sustainable under the taxing power but not under the Commerce or Necessary & Proper clauses. We may dislike the result, but it is hardly lawless….

This statement exemplifies the very lawyerly “gymnastics” Reddy purports to shun. Opening post offices and providing a navy are powers specifically granted by the clauses cited. By contrast, the tax clause provides no specific power to impose any individual mandate. Consider this: the First Amendment (speech, press, religion, petition, assembly) and Third Amendment (quartering of soldiers) say nothing about abortion. Does it follow that the Court therefore justifiably struck down abortion laws under other amendments that also said absolutely nothing about abortion? The tax power says nothing about an individual mandate any more than the Bill of Rights says anything about abortion.

Reddy’s point boils down to this: because the Constitution contains some specific provisions, it simply must contain any specific provisions justices desire, even if nowhere mentioned in the document. This bold assertion does no more than show how, pretending to “interpret,” justices make up their own law case by case.

Fast Shuffle #5: The Non-Tax Tax

Uncritically accepting Roberts’ characterization that ObamaCare “looks like a tax in many respects” (after Roberts himself denied just that), Reddy amplifies: “if it looks like a tax, smells like a tax, walks like a tax, and is collected like a tax by the people who usually collect taxes…well, the dang thing must be a tax.” This clever wording does not answer the dissent’s questioning how “the very same textual indications that show this is not a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act show that it is a tax under the Constitution.”

Reddy asserts that two different questions require two contradictory answers but does not explain how or why. He also ignores that the dissent makes crystal clear the difference between a tax and a penalty. A “tax is an enforced contribution to provide for the support of the government; a penalty … is an exaction imposed…as punishment for an unlawful act.” A tax cannot make an act unlawful. That must be done under a granted power. Reddy cites no such power. Reddy’s cute looks-walks-smells-like-a-tax casuistry glaringly omits the most essential feature of a tax — it raises revenue. If every person upon whom the individual mandate has been imposed complies with that mandate, there will be no “taxes” collected. How can a mandate be a tax measure if it raises no revenue? Are we to believe that that looks and smells like a tax?

President Obama says he doesn’t believe it. One day after Roberts’ edict, Press Secretary Carney explained: “It’s a penalty because you have a choice. You don’t have a choice to pay your taxes, right? You have a choice to buy … health insurance.” It’s a sad day when this president is less untruthful than the chief justice.

Reddy asserts that calling the mandate a tax and not a tax is “nuanced to be sure. But such is the life of adjudicating constitutional matters.” Perhaps the dissenters lacked the intellectual skills to grasp such “nuance.” But perhaps “such is life” in “the forbidden land of the sophists.” Proponents of false labeling (see below) are unlikely to convince many people that contradictory double talk is not what it is just by relabeling it “nuance.”

In sum, Franck, Reddy and Roberts exemplify sophistry piled upon sophistry to justify sophistry (e.g., bald assertion without proof while demanding proof; applying an inapplicable standard; changing the subject to divert attention from the indefensible; irrelevant appeal to irrelevant authority, etc.). One more fast shuffle deserves special attention.

Fast Shuffle #6: Legislative History, Judicial Dishonesty & Who Called Whom a “Liar”

In rescuing the statute, Roberts distinguished between the “most straightforward … natural” and the “reasonable … fairly possible” readings of the mandate. Apologist Franck pronounced the latter acceptable as the “most favorable reading … on the basis of which [ObamaCare] can be upheld,” opining that it is “plausible” to disregard the characterization of its creators.

Roberts and Franck would have the American people believe that it is “reasonable” and “plausible” to read a statute contrary its own clear wording and to what those who intentionally and carefully chose their words said they meant.

With one exception, all the justices have resorted to “legislative history,” which purports to glean the meaning of a statute by examining statements by those who enacted it. Although Justice Scalia strongly objects that contradictory comments by legislators can be cherry-picked to support any “interpretation,” rarely, if ever, has a statute’s legislative history been so devoid of conflicting statements and clearer than ObamaCare. The legislators and president who imposed it unanimously pronounced it a non-tax.

This was disregarded by Roberts and his accomplices. They thus ignored legislative history, all the more dishonestly because they had cited it in other cases when far less plain.

Moreover, anyone objecting to the indelicacy of branding Roberts a “liar” should consider that he himself effectively declared those responsible for ObamaCare to be “liars” — twice! First, if he is to be believed, they lied about what they were passing. Second, they deliberately mislabeled it (which would surely attract the attention of regulators if a consumer product). And of course, they continued to insist the mandate was not a tax even after Roberts said it was. So they too were calling him a liar!

Worse still, as previously elaborated, if Roberts really believed all these elected officials lied, this severely undermines the effectiveness of elections. If Roberts contends that legislators should not be held accountable for their actual words, he is not only being dishonest in calling the same wording a tax that isn’t a tax, he is also dishonest in saying that elections are a viable corrective.

Briefly, Roberts is not alone. For example, four current justices have made clear that, to save the lives of brutal rapist-murderers, they are quite prepared to lie about the law. Compelling cases have been made questioning the ethics and integrity of Justice Sotomayor and Justice O’Connor.

Is it gauche to question the honor of justices? Well, over the years, many justices themselves have not thought so. The ObamaCare dissent itself accused Roberts of sophistry. Again and again, justices have questioned other justices’ integrity and propriety (e.g., “disingenuous”; “agenda” driven; “lawmaking”; “mischaracterizing”; “misleading”; “interpretive gymnastics”; “semantic acrobatics”; “stunning slur on…integrity; etc. etc.). In reality, we have it on the authority of justices themselves that other justices are dishonest. Although about the only term they have not used is “liar,” their meaning has been unmistakable.

Conclusion: It’s Time to Realize that Our Judicial Emperor Has No Clothes

Prior to June 28, hoping for deliverance from ObamaCare, many usual critics defended the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts’ handiwork is a final wake-up call to consider, once and for all, whether the Court and judicial review merit respect, acceptance and legitimacy.

If Prof. Graglia is correct, that the justices have rendered the Constitution irrelevant to “constitutional law,” then we must painfully conclude that they have long perpetrated a fraud upon the American people. It is time to dispense with the pretense that justices are angels with halos. James Madison pointed out: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Hence, even without the substantial contrary evidence provided, it is preposterous to assume that, alone among government officials, justices are immune to the failings of mere mortals — that they all are pure as the driven snow and honest, always acting on principle. Franck would apply a presumption of honesty to the Supreme Court. This flies in the face of human nature as well as actual opinions of justices, some of them quite brazen in their dishonesty. (For example, Justices Brennan and Marshall insisted capital punishment is unconstitutional despite its being explicitly authorized by the Constitution four times.)

Some are indeed honest. The far too many who are not honest have undermined the rule of law, emasculated the Constitution they purport to apply and enforce, and done great harm. Now they have assaulted the democratic process by encouraging elected officials to lie to the voters with impunity. And if the Court uses blatant sophistry to uphold a flagrant abuse of power unconstitutionally confiscating fundamental freedom, why do we have judicial review anyway?

All this is what devout Roberts groupies strive to obscure and, hopefully, that is what this article makes clear.

__________________________

Lester Jackson, Ph.D., a former college Political Science teacher, views mainstream media truth suppression as essential to harmful judicial activism. His recent articles are collected here.

The Racial Myth of the Death Penalty

Homicide Survivors — 2012-09-25T23:55:19Z

by Alexander Adams

I. Introduction

This is the strongest argument against the death penalty, or one of them, as if it is correct they can convince an unelected supreme court to subdue the death penalty. Anti-Death penalty groups such as the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) try to capitalize on these arguments all the time. I think this is the vilest strategy of the abolitionist crowd. However, their claims are all false, and as usual the abolitionist crowd is good at ignoring facts.

II. Facts

Here are some background facts that are not trying to make a point. 38-45% of those executed are black (depending on the data set), 56% are white. Blacks are executed under the rate they should be about 20% (in other words, 38% should be higher). Blacks are half of the murders, 50%, and are only 12% of the population. Further, the southern states should be those most racist, correct? Sorry, in the northeast 59% of those on death row where black and the number is only 41% in southern states [1].

III. So, what do the facts say?

A look at this data refutes the notion of death penalty racism. The logic behind the DP being racist is all based on history. They argue southern states use the DP as a tool to promote their old hatred for blacks. However, if the south is using it for racist purposes, then why is their death row population predominately white when in the northeast 59% of those on death row are black? For a theory to be valid, it must predict phenomena. Lets give an example. Say legalizing books should lower crime in the lower age groups because instead of fighting they are reading. If crime first drops with the older population, this disproves the theory, as its very logic is inaccurate. It applies to the racism claims too.

Now, historically I have to admit the death penalty was racist (however, this was before Furman). For the death penalty to be racist, studies would have to demonstrate first that the juries acknowledge the defendant is black and then use that as a reason (or one of them). However, studies after Furman (the only sampling you can use because that is the mark of the “modern era” of the death penalty”) have rarely come to that conclusion, and when they do they receive a lot of academic criticism. Studies then tried to change methodology. Studies later, and the newer ones argue, 40% of those death penalty cases involve blacks, and they are only 12% of the population, this is evidence of discrimination. Here is my question: is it? Not really. Separate analyses show these basic comparisons are weak and cannot be relied upon to make a case for racial discrimination. The problem with studies that argue its racially biased is simple: they fail to control for many of the legal factors. Jon Sorensen and Rocky Pilgrim decided to control for these factors. When they did, the racial effect disappeared [2].

Other studies by Baldus have argued the death penalty is very racist, however court cases (after listening to experts) usually conclude with the dissent. They argue the data was sparse, biased, questionable, and not statistically significant [1].

Interestingly enough, Sorensen’s study shows the DP is slightly generous to the African Americans. It shows they are half as likely to receive a death penalty, he also finds Hispanics get sentenced to death at lesser rates then whites. Sorensen finds other studies agree with his case. When studies look at the fact blacks commit 50% of the murders, they all note no bias exists. In other words, execution of blacks can reach 50% (in a national average, its currently 40%) for it to be unfair. So unless they prove blacks are on average over 50% of those committing homicide, they have no case.

Note: Blacks are predisposed to crime, but this does not mean we should discriminate them or give them flak. And I hope my point above does not sound racist, my best friend is black.

As Sorensen notes:

“Studies that use the proportion of blacks involved in murder as the baseline *note this is the only accurate way you can do it* often conclude that there is no discrimination against black defendants … [E]vidence of racial disparity has all but disappeared.”[2]

IV. Maryland study and the RAND study

This is the study I often see cited in debates. Studies by RAND agreed with only half of the abolitionist claim. They argued the DP was more common if the victim was white and the defendant as black. However in follow-up studies when the controlled for the heinous factor (how bad the crime was and how the jury reacted) the results of these biases disappeared. The study concluded race was NOT a deciding factor in the death penalty case, however the characteristics of the crime do. They had many different methodologies tried to see what the results would be: all argued no racial discrimination [3].

Now, in Maryland Governor Glendening passed a moratorium on the death penalty as a death penalty study, still often cited, argued the DP was racist. However, newer studies discredit these claims. The results of that study where found not accurate, and did not hold up to scrutiny. The new analysis concluded, “For both capital charges and death sentences, race either played no role or a small role that is very difficult to specify. In short, it is very difficult to find convincing evidence for racial effects in the Maryland data and if there are any, they may not be additive.”[4] He even further noted, “cases with a black defendant and white victim or 'other' racial combination are less likely to have a death sentence”[4]

V. Conclusion

There is little or no role in death penalty sentencing, which involves race. The racist claim is a myth and the existing evidence is flawed one factor in the data showing blacks commit 50% of the murders. The RAND study easily debunks the notion of the death penalty being racist. It is the attributes of the crime, not the race, which controls sentencing. Abolitionists have no data on their side except a correlation, and the correlation, as said, is debunked when you factor in the blacks murder more effect. And remember, correlation does not equal causation. And I have cleanly shown there is no correlation nor causation effect. To conclude I will bring this quote again:

“For both capital charges and death sentences, race either played no role or a small role that is very difficult to specify. In short, it is very difficult to find convincing evidence for racial effects in the Maryland data and if there are any, they may not be additive.”[4]

[1] Sharp, Dudley. “Death Penalty and Sentencing information”, Justice for All, (October 1997) http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/dp.html#C.Race

[2] Jonathan R. Sorensen, and Rocky LeAnn Pilgrim. “Lethal Injection: Capital Punishment in Texas during the Modern Era.” Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2006. Print.

[3] Stephen P. Klein, Richard A. Berk, Laura J. Hickman, eds. “Race and the Decision to Seek the Death Penalty in Federal Cases” Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, (June 2006).

[4] Richard Berk, Azusa Li, and Laura J. Hickman, “Statistical Difficulties in Determining the Role of Race in Capital Cases: A Re-analysis of Data from the State of Maryland,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 21, No. 4 (December, 2005), 365-390.

Death Penalty Costs: Maryland

Homicide Survivors — 2012-09-07T17:04:04Z

Maryland Cost Study Problems: Urban Institute: "Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland"

Dudley Sharp, 2/2009

To: Maryland Legislature, Prosecutors and media throughout the region

From: Dudley Sharp, contact info below

SUMMARY: The cost errors, within the Majority Report, are so substantial that their cannot be considered reliable. Is it possible that a properly managed death penalty system could be less expensive than a true life sentence? Read on.

Some observations on the Urban Institute (UI) Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland (1) as well as on the Majority Report.

The UI conclusion was that the lifetime case cost for the 56 death penalty cases will cost Maryland taxpayers $186 million, or $106 million more than if death wasn't pursued in those cases or about $47,000 per year per inmate, more.

The study found that the average cost of a case where a death notice was not sought was $1.1 million/case, that being $250,000 for adjudication and $860,000 for confinement/prison costs.

Unfortunately, many more cases were used than just those which make up life without parole (LWOP). This, wrongly and totally, skewed the results.

That was inappropriate from a public policy standpoint and the majority should have known it.

The only public policy cost discussion regarding the death penalty, nationwide, is the cost differential between LWOP cases and death penalty cases. This is very well known, If anyone doesn't know it, it would take 10 minutes online to figure it out.

It begs the question, why did the UI muddy the waters with a bunch of cases that didn't get LWOP?

Regardless of UI's reasons, the answer is, they shouldn't have.

Here's why.

1) The public policy debate is concentrated on LWOP as a considered replacement for the death penalty. Sentences less than LWOP are not under consideration in this current debate.

2) By including cases of less than LWOP, within the non death category, UI and the majority has lowered the costs of that category, perhaps substantially, and has misled or confused the public as to the real cost disparities, if any, which may exist between the death penalty and LWOP in Maryland.

3) Had UI only included LWOP cases in that category, the cost disparity would be reduced, perhaps substantially.

Using current data, scenarios exist that could result in a finding that the death penalty may actually be less expensive than LWOP. See below.

What wasn't calculated

4) a) Each case, whereby a plea bargain to a sanction less than death was rendered, the state saves about $250, 000/case for legal expenses, based upon UI estimates.

b) The number is, likely, far above that $250,000/case evaluation, because 1) UI wrongly included non LWOP cases and 2) wrongly credited the cost reduction of those pleas, within the LWOP category, when, instead, 3) a credit of $250,000/case, but likely much larger, should have been placed in the death case data calculations, resulting in an additional increase per case cost within the true LWOP category and a greater reduction in the death case category.

Properly, this credit can happen only when LWOP plea cases are isolated. This is public policy 101. The majority wrongly discounted plea bargains to a life sentence. The cost savings are substantial.

5) For example:

a) Presume the average LWOP case, resulting in LWOP, has adjudication costs of $500, 000, from pre trial to conviction and throughout appeals. If a LWOP sentence was given as part of a plea bargain, prior to a death notice being filed, UI shows that cost as $0 for adjudication, thus lowering the average cost of all cases where death wasn't pursued in potentially capital cases.

That would be improper, from any standpoint.

b) A LWOP plea bargain can only occur because the state has the death penalty. So, instead of lowering the average cost of all LWOP cases, all LWOP plea cases would be removed from the LWOP database and a cost credit of $500,000 would be applied as a cost benefit within death penalty category, because it was solely the presence of the death penalty which allows for a plea bargain to LWOP. Thus, death penalty costs and overall costs to the state, would drop substantially and the average costs of LWOP would rise.

c) That results in two changes:

1) The average cost of LWOP cases will rise, possibly substantially, because a $0 adjudication cost entry will be removed from the LWOP cases; and

2) The average cost of death penalty cases may lower, possibly substantially, because a $500, 000 cost reduction will be made to the death penalty cost basis, for each such LWOP plea.

To state the obvious, UI made an error in reversing the credit in pleas.

6) For an accurate public policy review of death penalty costs vs LWOP costs, Maryland Legislators should:

a) Compare the costs of only the death penalty cases which were pursued and a death penalty resulted and only LWOP cases that were pursued, resulting in a LWOP sentence; and

b) include the proper calculations for credit of LWOP pleas bargains, which are solely the result of the presence of the death penalty.

c) Why exclude the death penalty cases which were pursued, resulting in sentences less than the death penalty? For the same reason we exclude LWOP cases which result in sentences of less than LWOP.

You should be looking , only, at true death cases costs vs true LWOP costs. If UI wants to add a bunch of other cost categories, fine, but these are the two that must be done.

They weren't.

COST SAVINGS - Death Row incarceration

1) The extra $350,000 per case for additional cost for death row incarceration is an unnecessary waste of taxpayer money. Missouri doesn't even have a death row for their death sentenced prisoners.

2) There is no reason that death penalty appeals should take longer than 7-10 years.

a) Both appellate paths, direct appeal and writ, should travel through the appellate process, at the same time.

b) The legislature, trial and appellate courts should work together to establish reasonable time frames for appeals and responses to them.

GERIATRIC CARE - Prisoner geriatric care has recently been found to be about $70,000/inmate/year, on average. Has that been calculated in Maryland?

REQUIREMENT

Maryland must redo their calculations to compare costs of true LWOP cases to death penalty cases, for two reasons.

First, it is the only public policy cost issue which exists, with regard to the death penalty in Maryland

Secondly, what you have, now, cannot be relied upon.

UI: Additional Errors in Judgement

UI's reliance on Donahue and Wolfers (2006), who have been highly critical of some of the recent studies finding for deterrence, was unwarranted and inappropriate.

UI's authors failed to note that Donahue and Wolfers criticisms have been dissected and trashed by those authors whose studies found for deterrence.

I believe all of those replies, heavily critical of Donahue and Wolfers, were published prior to the UI report.

Furthermore, UI failed to mention that Donahue and Wolfers' work was not peer reviewed, but many and most of the studies finding for deterrence were. Had Donahue and Wolfers work been peer reviewed, it is a question if it ever would have been published in a peer reviewed publication.

Both of these points are important and inexcusable omissions by UI.

Instead of mentioning the rebuttals, UI, instead, deferred to Donahue and Wolfers, as a way of neutralizing the importance of the studies finding for deterrence, and then mentioned a study which found against deterrence.

UI wrongly states that studies go either way so we shouldn't bother with them.

Total nonsense. 16 (now 28, as of 2012) recent studies, including strong rebuttals to criticism, find for death penalty deterrence.

In one reply to Donahue and Wolfers, after their data had been re-run, based upon Donahue and Wolfers criticism:

"I oppose the death penalty. " " But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?" "Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it." "The results are robust, they don't really go away" "The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.".

Prof. Naci Mocan, Economics Chairman, University of Colorado at Denver, "Studies say death penalty deters crime", ROBERT TANNER, Associated Press, June 10, 2007, 2:01 PM ET

Furthermore, one of the deterrence studies found a $70 million cost benefit, per execution, because of the number of lives saved per execution.

Obviously, that would render the death penalty a huge cost benefit in Maryland.

Many other important conclusions of the deterrence studies were omitted from the UI report. If UI didn't wish to give a proper, accurate review of deterrence, stay away from it. Why wrongly muddy the waters?

Public policy makers take note.

UI's Misleading Conclusion

The UI authors stated that:

"Prior research on the costs of capital punishment in other states unambiguously finds that capital cases are more expensive to prosecute than non-capital cases. "

To "prosecute", generally yes, but not always.

And when did the studies ONLY look at prosecution?

In one of UI's included studies, Cook, North Carolina Cost Study (1993), the UI authors seemed to have missed a very important and obvious point.

The study finds that, for two different calculations, that the death penalty costs $163, 000 and $213,000/case more than a life sentence.

But, the calculation for a life sentence is only to 20 years.

For a true life sentence, you would be adding $300, 000 or more to each life case, meaning that a life sentence costs more than the death penalty.

Furthermore, the authors conceded not including geriatric care, recently found to be $69, 000/inmate/yr. meaning lifers cost a lot more than death sentenced prisoners, possibly adding an additional $300,000/case, or more, for a true LWOP sentence.

That could render life cases $600,ooo or more, more expensive than death sentences in North Carolina.

Furthermore, the calculations didn't include the benefit of plea bargains to life, possible only because of the death penalty.

Unambiguous, UI? Not close.

Based upon the UI authors not seeing these very obvious and important facts, or deciding not to share them within their report, one may conclude that UI authors may have made similar errors or omissions in their review of the other included studies.

Reviewers should keep that in mind.

CONCLUSION

UI, a public policy institution, avoided the only public policy issue which exists in the death penalty cost debate:

"What is the difference in cost between the death penalty and a true LWOP?"

Depending upon the number of plea bargains to LWOP, there may be very little cost difference between the death penalty and LWOP.

Furthermore, if both the presence of the death penalty, as well as executions, saves many innocent lives, as 16 of the recent deterrence studies(1) suggest, then the benefit of the death penalty far surpasses any alleged cost deficit, if any, or is a huge added benefit to any cost benefit of the death penalty, if there is one.

(1) http://www.urban.org/publications/411625.html

Death Penalty Costs: California

Homicide Survivors — 2012-09-07T17:01:43Z

A Rebuttal to "Cut This: The Death Penalty"(1)
Death Penalty vs Life Costs in California
By Dudley Sharp

NOTE: Clark is a Calif. ACLU activist and The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice's (CCFAJ) is a Calif. government commission.

Clark's/CCFAJ's cost review is wildly inaccurate and misleading. 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/CCFAJ 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."

For 700 inmates, that is:

death penalty costs: $137 million per year or $196,000//inmate/yr.

life imprisonment costs: $11 million/year or $15,700/inmate/yr.

It is complete, utter nonsense.

Some reality:

The last full California audit (Sept 2009) found the average costs, 2007-2008, per adult inmate was $49,000/inmate/yr. (2) In 1997, it was $25,000/inmate/yr. (3).

This $49,000/inmate/yr is the average for all inmates, not the level IV security of death row inmate like criminals that will cost more, if not much more.

Clark/CCFAJ is stating that these enhanced security prisoners will cost $34,000/inmate/yr LESS than the average cost for all Ca inmates. Clark's'SSFAJ's lack of credibility is of an astounding level. Clark's analysis is laughable.

But, Clark/CCFAJ get even worse.

Without the death penalty, Clark/CCFAJ's select group of former death row murderers would likely be in level IV security and, as lifers, would die as geriatric prisoners or from earlier illness, likely costing on average $80,000-$100,000/inmate/yr., or more, with a rare few costing a $1 million or more per year with illness and/or geriatric stages.

Geriatric problems often begins at age 50 for inmates.

NOTE: The California Medical Facility for corrections averages $83,000/inmate/yr. (4). There, likely, would be additonal costs when dealing with Level IV security prisoners.

But, for Clark/CCFAJ, former death row inmates, now lifers, cost $15,700/inmate/yr.

But, it gets even worse for Clark/CCFAJ.

Clark/CCFAJ will admit, if prodded (5) that "the figure of $137 million estimates the entire cost of the death penalty system, not simply housing, but also inclusive of all post-conviction costs, including legal appeals."

In other words, Clark/CCFAJ is admitting escalating the death penalty costs over the alleged cost comparisons of incarceration between lifers and death row. Not at all surprising Clark/CCFAJ excludes such from the lifer costs.

The Clark/CCFAJ's cost comparisons/evaluations are a very bad joke. Instead of making an honest apples to apples cost comparison, Clark/CCFAJ brings us an apples to Rolls Royce cost comparison, as if it is apples to apples.

Because so many of these cost comparisons are so pathetically unreliable, California considered that an objective assessment by RAND should be considered (6). The basis for a proper evaluation was presented, but Ca rejected doing the study, because . . . it was too expensive!

CONCLUSION - Save even more money?

There is no need for California to have a death row. Current death row prisoners can be placed in Level IV security cells, or lower levels depending upon evaluations, just as Missouri and Kansas do.

California can make their death sentenced inmates cheaper than their lifers, if they properly manage their citizens money, as Virginia does. California must only have the will to be responsible stewards of their citizens resources - something that seems to elude California lawmakers, just as basic, accurate evaluations evade Clark/CCFAJ.

(Later update: Virginia executes, on average, within 7.1 years and has executed 75% of those so sentenced, a protocol that would, on average, be less expensive than comparable LWOP cases).

Today, there is no reason for Ca death row to cost more than level IV security and a proper evaluation would likely show death row cheaper or no more expensive than Level IV.

There would be no cost savings in getting rid of death row, with the exception that, if Calif had a responsible death penalty protocol, there would be many more executed murderers, thus reducing incarceration costs on death row, saving money on incarcerations costs over other level IV prisoners.

(1) An article by James Clark, field organizer, ACLU of Southern California.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clark/cut-this-the-death-penalt_b_627759.html

(2) pg 77, fiscal year 2007-2008, http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2009-107.1.pdf

(3) http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/97125.pdf

(4) page 80, fiscal year 2007-2008, http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2009-107.1.pdf

(5) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clark/cut-this-the-death-penalt_b_627759.html

(6) "Investigating the Costs of the Death Penalty in California: Insights for Future Data Collection in California, RAND Corp., 2/2008
http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/2008/RAND_CT300.pdf

Wait, does the Death Penalty really cost too much? An analysis

Homicide Survivors — 2012-09-05T02:12:01Z

Alexander Adams

I. Introduction

The claim the death penalty (may be referred to, as the title already does, “DP”) costs to much is one of the most common claims about the death penalty. The history of it really began in 1970 when abolitionists began to back down from morality claims as they had little ground to stand on. So they decided to take a whack at the administrative “problems” of the DP, such as race, innocents, and costs. We will only look into costs in this article to make it simpler.

I would say the death penalty information center (DPIC) has the most data on the subject. Their most famous article, “Millions Misspent: What Politicians Dont Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty” argues the death penalty is far more expensive then the DP. I would first like to note even if they where right they still have no substance—that’s an argument for reform not abolition—as we can easily make a limit to the appeals process and cut costs. Virginia does this and their death penalty is considerably cheaper. And what is ironic is even though many reforms post-Furman have been implemented; the DP is STILL CHEAPER then life without parole.

The ACLU continues with these false claims. They argue life without parole is seventy percent cheaper then equivalent death penalty cases. As I will now explain, these claims are false, it is a deception (which is what you usually get from the abolitionist crowd).

II. The studies flaws

The heart of this argument is simple: studies say X and therefore X is true. These studies are wrought with error and weak conclusions.

First, lets start with studies that date to the eighties. Although not as common as the studies in the 1990s, the studies in the 80s are still cited by abolitionists today. GAO reports in 1989 offer solid criticism to these studies and, therefore, refute the bastion of abolitionist policies. The GAO notes:

“In recent years, studies, articles, and reports have been published on the costs associated with the death penalty at state level. They have generally concluded that, contrary to what many people believe, death sentence cases cost more than non-death sentence cases. However, we found these conclusions were not adequately supported. Most of the studies did not actually compare death sentence cases with non-death sentence cases, and some of the studies did not contain actual cost data. Further, even cases where cost data were cited, these data where incomplete” [1].

Even though the data proving the DP was sparse, weak, and questionable at best, the DPIC 1994 article (cited in the introduction) cited these studies like they where flawless and concluded the death penalty costs more. Richard Dieter, the DPIC president and anti-capital punishment advocate still cites these studies when testifying before our government or in the media, yet he ignores the 1989 GAO report which refutes the numbers he continues to cite. He is also (as well as the ACLU and other groups) citing newer studies. These studies, sadly, still suffer from the same drawbacks.

First, many of these studies have inadequate sample size. They will not test many cases, and may cite only those cases where the evidence is questionable enough to justify appeal for the DP case (however usually it is beyond reasonable doubt, so the sample size is unrepresentative of the whole picture and not random, leading to cherry-picking). Second, many of the studies fail to document the DP’s cost and/or life without parole (LWOP) cost leaving incomplete data. Third, they may also not even use DP data! They may use data for all capital cases, which may not even include death. It’s merely a potential DP case that may or may not chose the rout of a death sentence and may choose LWOP. In other words, this adds many cases, which are irrelevant to death penalty cost and inflate the costs of the DP to fulfill their political and not scientific goals. Lastly, many of the studies cite figures but have no source. You would suspect they use some data from the department of justice. However they have no source for their data. They are simply asserted by the author without any explanation why these figures where used or where they where derived from. I without showing the data, we cannot judge if it is made up, leaving reasonable doubt the study is hiding something [2].

Another flaw is most studies, which claim DP to cost more, ignore healthcare costs. Generally, health costs are higher when you are of older ages. Interestingly enough, prison is stressful and leads to other habits that cause you to age faster (well, your body wears down faster). Because of the lifestyle, many young prisoners actually can rack up many high healthcare costs while death row eventually ends your life preventing many healthcare costs. No study accounts for plea-bargaining either, which saves millions. Although only a small percentage use this plea bargaining option, it avoids the cost of trials and appeals altogether [3]. The only study that looks at the extent of this is a CJLF study that will be discussed later.

III. What other analysis’s say

A reader might point out that I have shown no evidence has been given, meaning there is no conclusion. With no counter data, how can we claim it costs less (or the same)? When looking at comprehensive studies, they either conclude no cost difference or the DP is slightly cheaper.

Jon Sorensen and Rocky Pilgrim cite many studies in their book as well as offer their own analysis. One of the studies they cited came from Duke University. The study us often falsely cited by the DPIC. Their first estimate is that each DP costs 2.6 million dollars. Obviously, the DPIC would prefer that estimate. However, the authors noted this estimate is too extreme and is likely not very accurate. Their second analysis shows the DP costing 780,000 dollars. Even though this study is one of the best on the books—it was, however conducted before 1993—leading to disqualification already. You might be wondering how the date matters. It matters because of the definition of “life”. When this problem is accounted for, LWOP costs 593,000 dollars per case. When Sorensen and Pilgrim accounted for plea-bargains, 264,000 dollars is saved (by the way, all of this data is for North Carolina). Further, the amount of death sentences actually resulting in execution has been rising since Furman. Given the lack of parole eligibility, with a 50% execution success rate (50% of people on death row actually get the injection) the costs of the DP and LWOP is about the same. A second study conducted in Indiana has results closer to my conclusion already. After skipping some of the data, we see a 117,000 dollar difference (DP costing more). However these estimates where conservative (in the way of success rate, meaning the number is closer). He also ignores plea-bargains, meaning the DP might cost less. Regardless, the two most comprehensive studies show the DP and LWOP are in the same ballpark range in cost [2].

Sorensen then gives a reply to the Dallas Morning News, which claims the DP has very large costs. Sorensen has found many flaws and, when the data is properly analyzed, the DP actually costs LESS in Texas. But he notes the costs are “similar” to other cases. In his conclusion, however, he suggests the DP “at least as cost efficient as life imprisonment, perhaps even more so” [2].

And, if you are interested about the fiscal problem, more execution is needed. As previously stated, a 50% execution success rate leads to equal costs (using flawed DPIC data, anyway, using good data we see less then that is needed). If we increase it to 60%, we would get savings. So abolishing it wouldn’t really help as based on current evidence it is about the same already, so more execution would save much more money.

Now, an analysis done by Dudley Sharp in 1997 (he posts on this website often) finds large cost savings from the death penalty. He notes:

“Many opponents present, as fact, that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive (at least $2 million per case?), that we must choose life without parole ("LWOP") at a cost of $1 million for 50 years. Predictably, these pronouncements may be entirely false. JFA estimates that LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million - $3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases.”[4]

In other words, LWOP costs one million through three and one half million more then death penalty cases. This evidence lends evidence to my argument of the DP costing less.

IV. Plea Bargains

The reason the DP costs more, using the logic of an abolitionist, is trial costs. Now, we can estimate the effect of a plea bargain, and the outcome of that estimate either supports or refutes that hypothesis. For example, lets say the trial of the DP all added together was 100 dollars (obviously not real, just simplifying it). The cost of LWOP is 50 dollars. Not counting the money saved from the DP (such as food, clothing, healthcare etc.) the DP still may cost less based on a plea bargain! Lets say the plea bargaining saves 100 dollars, then the DP cases cost 50 dollars LESS then LWOP cases. Make sense?

Now, the only study I know that exists on the impact of plea bargains is the CJLF study. They conclude the assumption that a repeal of the DP would decrease overall trial costs is not justified based on current data (meaning trial costs when this is factored is about equal). They also note when the DP is repealed, more sentences will be fought in court rather then resulting in a plea. Based on this, overall a DP trial cost is about equal to LWOP costs (refuting the DPIC and ACLU theory) [5].

Now, lets make this prove the DP costs less shall we? All trials cost about the same now (when you add up all trial costs). This means we need to see what LWOP saves money on: nothing. The DP saves money on: Food (less food, at least), healthcare (less healthcare overall), housing space, etc. Meaning after you factor plea bargains AND the things the DP already saves on, we see the DP costs less.

V. Conclusion

After amassing the data, we see the death penalty is as cost efficient, though likely more cost efficient, then equivalent LWOP cases. We see the data that is the bastion for the DPIC older articles is questionable at best, and complete lies at words, and we also see the newer studies which they rely upon in their newer articles are also highly flawed and have the same problems as their older counterparts. We also see no study really factors plea bargains, and when this is done their conclusions effectively disappear. JFA also offers a good case proving the DP is likely 1-3 million dollars cheaper then a LWOP case. So what to I conclude? The death penalty is cheaper, and I hope soon this truth shall prevail.

[1] US General Accounting Office, “Limited Fata Available on Costs of Death Sentences”, Report to the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, (September 1989).

[2] Sorensen, Jonathan R., and Rocky LeAnn Pilgrim. “Lethal Injection: Capital Punishment in Texas during the Modern Era.” Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2006. Print.

[3] Sharp, Dudley. “Cost Savings: The Death Penalty”, can be accessed here: http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/05/07/cost-savings-the-death-penalty.aspx

[4] Sharp, Dudley. “Death Penalty Sentencing Information”, Justice for All, (October 1997). See: http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/dp.html

[5] Scheidegger, Kent S. “The Death Penalty and Plea Bargaining to Life Sentences.” Cjlf.org. Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Feb. 2009. Web. http://www.cjlf.org/publications/papers/wpaper09-01.pdf

About the Author:

Alexander Adams is a high school student who enjoys researching death penalty related issues. A former agnostic on the issue, he later found many abolitionist arguments where illogical, false, or that pro-death penalty arguments are stronger. He is writing for homicidesurvivors.com in attempt to enter the national debate and to show the truth about a social issue which literally is an issue of life and death. You may contact him directly at kealad1@aol.com