Death Penalty Articles

Death Penalty Cost Studies: Saving Costs over LWOP

Homicide Survivors — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:50:00 GMT

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.

2) Texas cost study - I have told the Dallas Morning News, for many years, to stop using their totally inaccurate cost review. They still use it.

They found that it costs $2.3 million per average death penalty case (for 5 cases), more than 3 times more expensive than a $750,000 life sentence. (C. Hoppe, "Executions Cost Texas Millions," The Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992, 1A)

The death penalty costs are for pre trial, trial and appeals and incarceration. Yet, the life cost is only for confinement for life. Big problem.

In addition, an academic review, by a neutral academic, found that the verifiable costs in the DMN article actually found the death penalty was cheaper.

p154-156 http://books.google.com/books?id=IQJtCjhdGeUC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&ots=Mtji7SSu0v&dq=cost+%22death+penalty%22+Dallas+morning+news%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html

3) Duke (North Carolina) Death Penalty Cost Study: Let's be honest
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/06/duke-north-carolina-death-penalty-cost.html

Almost exclusively, this study is presented, by media and anti death penalty folks, as the best example of the death penalty being much more expensive than a life sentence. Fact checking reveals just the opposite.

This study has been so distorted in the media and within anti death penalty literature that it really should be mandatory teaching in journalism schools as a fact checking disaster. I cannot find one example where the authors of the study ever corrected these distortions, thereby reflecting poorly on them, as well.

Prof. Cook, one of the authors, has a new study out, which claims an $11 million savings for NC, by ending the death penalty. I haven't read it yet. Based upon the previous study, maybe it really finds the death penalty saves money.

4) Cost Savings: The Death Penalty
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/05/07/cost-savings-the-death-penalty.aspx

A general review of some of the study problems and corrections for them.

5) Maryland cost study: A reply

See Dudley Sharp comments to article, after article at
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/03/09/death-penalty-costs-more-than-life-in-prison/

6) Colorado

Cost, Deception & the Death Penalty: The Colorado Experience
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/05/28/cost-deception--the-death-penalty-the-colorado-experience.aspx

7) New Jersey - See my reply to the official state review of costs, in the reply section, at bottom

     December 24, 2007 6:50 AM
    dudleysharp said...
    http://hallnj.blogspot.com/2007/12/case-for-repealing-death-penalty.html

8) Kansas - The study most quoted found that death penalty cases cost 70%, or about $500,000 more per median case cost than for the equivalent non death penalty murder case, but, the foundation was this: " . . .there was nothing we could look at to verify the accuracy of any of the data assembled for this report." (page 2). "Actual cost figures for death penalty and non death penalty cases in Kansas don't exist." (page 10). On pages 29 and 31 the study discussed methods of saving money. Again, please refer to "Cost Savings: The Death Penalty". ("Performance Office Report: Costs Incurred for Death penalty Cases", A K-Goal Audit of the Department of Corrections, by the Legislative Division of Post Audit - A Report to the Legislative Post Audit Committee, December 2003)

9) California - There are a few cost study numbers that are quoted, based, exclusively on analysis by anti death penalty folks. California considered a thorough, objective study by RAND, below, but rejected it. It was too expensive!

"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

Sincerely, 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.

Pro death penalty sites

essays   http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Death%20Penalty.aspx
               http://prodpinNC.blogspot.com/

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

Judge Fine gets caught with his pants down

Homicide Survivors — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:50:00 GMT

Judge Fine gets caught with his pants down
Dudley Sharp, contact info below
3/10/10

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.

To repeat, Judge Fine there is no law or opinion that finds that due process must be infallible. Since the first incarcerations and the first executions, man has always known that there was always the "possibility" of actual innocents being imprisoned and/or executed and that, in both cases, due process may not reveal that actual innocence prior to their deaths, or ever.

In other words, the judge has already made up his mind that due process must be infallible and no matter what occurs in the hearing, he has already decided to support his original ruling, not matter how fallible his understanding of the facts and the law.

That is also why Judge Fine is also in error in saying that he is not challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty, but instead that the statute is unconstitutional. No judge, what you are doing, as if you don't know it, is challenging the constitutionality of due process that is not perfect.

The April hearing will welcome in a bunch of anti death penalty legal specialists, that will try to cover his rear.

It matters not a wit what the state/prosecution side will say to contradict the anti death penalty cabal, inclusive of the judge.

Judge Fine will repeat his original finding and then he will be overturned. He just wants the show, first.

The kings new clothes.

1) a) "Judge Fine was injudicious and irresponsible", Dudley Sharp, 3/5/10 and
b) "Judge's Clarification Puts Him in More Hot Water: Texas Death Penalty Ruled Unconstitutional", Dudley Sharp, 3/7/10

Sincerely, 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.

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

Homicide Survivors — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:07:00 GMT

"Judge's Clarification Puts Him in More Hot Water: Texas Death Penalty Ruled Unconstitutional" (1)

Dudley Sharp, contact info below

3/7/10

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.

Judge Fine claims that this case is one of first impression, whereby he can find no precedent to rely upon. I agree with the judge, that judges should be gatekeepers. However, the "first impression" comment makes him the gatekeeper to Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole, wherein he is welcoming us all. Some of us will refuse.

The judge states: "We execute innocent people. This is supported by the exoneration of individuals off of America's death rows. I repeat, again, that the vast majority of those cases involve DNA evidence."

After, again, not fact checking, the judge has repeated his earlier error, by again using the wrong 200 released number from the Innocence Project, which is in reference to cases IN THE ENTIRE PRISON SYSTEM - NOT JUST DEATH ROW - whereby prisoners were released because of DNA exclusion.

The real number is 251 (2), of which 9-10 represent inmates released from death row (3) , or 4% - hardly a vast majority.

In reality, the number of actual innocents released from death row is closer to 25 (4), of which the 9-10 make up 40% of those so identified and released, also not a vast majority.

Furthermore, evidence of releasing innocents from death row is only evidence of releasing innocents from death row. It is not evidence of executing innocents, for which Judge Fine offers not one case.

Well, predictably, he offers one.

Judge Fine "cites" a case from Travis County, with Judge Charley Baird presiding, whereby " . . . the deceased was in fact innocent and, thereafter, executed by the state of Texas."

This is the case of Tim Cole, who died in prison, innocent of the rape he was found guilt of and imprisoned for. This was not a death penalty case. Besides getting all of the facts wrong, Judge Fine appears to have made the case (for himself) that we can no longer incarcerate people because it denies their due process rights, because of the probability that actual innocents die in prior to due process causing their release.

Is Judge Fine this bad? Well, yes, he is.

I agree with Judge Fine that innocents have been executed, It doesn't seem likely it has occurred in the modern era in the US. In fact, the death penalty offers greater protection for innocents than does its alternative, life without parole (5). Given such a reality, possibly Judge Fine's next ruling will be that all incarcerations violate due process, as well. There is, after all, always the potential that an actual innocent incarcerated will die, prior to them being discovered and released by due process.

There may even be the potential for Judge Fine to recognize the importance of both the facts and the law.

(1) Raw Video "Judge Fine's clarification on Ruling", ABCNews, Channel 13 TV, Houston,

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7314442

(2) "Innocence Project Case Profiles", The Innocence Project,

http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/

(3) "The Innocent and the Death Penalty", Innocence Project,

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/1857.php

NOTE for fact checking. It appears that there are 9-10 inmates removed from death row because of DNA exclusion. An additional 7-8 were released from prison because of DNA exclusion, in cases where those inmates were once on death row. It appears 17 is a solid number for inmates released because of DNA exclusion, cases which were, at sometime, all on death row. NOTE ALSO that there may be some challenge to actual innocence in some of these cases.

(4) The 130 (now 139) death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx

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

Some additional references

"The Innocent Executed: Deception & Death Penalty Opponents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/10/08/the-innocent-executed-deception--death-penalty-opponents--draft.aspx

"A Death Penalty Red Herring: The Inanity and Hypocrisy of Perfection", Lester Jackson Ph.D.,
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=102909A

"Cameron Todd Willingham: Another Media Meltdown", A Collection of Articles
http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Cameron%20Todd%20Willingham.aspx

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

Homicide Survivors — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:03:00 GMT

The Sinister Secret of Abolitionists

Do death penalty opponents really oppose capital punishment?

By Lester Jackson Ph.D.

TCS Daily 22, 23 Feb 2010

http://tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=021910A http://tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022310A

NOTE: Page numbers and footnotes in brackets refer to documentation in the detailed paper downloadable here; those in parentheses refer to all other linked sources. What follows refers only to activists, advocates and government policy makers (unaccountable judges; defiant elected and appointed officials).

"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.

"From the beginning of our Nation," Justice Brennan observed, "the punishment of death has stirred acute public controversy." Nevertheless, perceived death penalty opponents and proponents have agreed on one point: that there are both opponents and proponents. This is wrong. Proponents have needlessly conceded a moral high ground to the self-styled and widely-believed-to-be opponents. The central fallacy is the belief that it is even possible to oppose the death penalty. It is not. The real issue is upon whom it should be imposed - the law abiding or the duly convicted.

The sinister secret of so-called "abolitionists" is that they actually support capital punishment. The only way to deny this is to disclaim any responsibility for a premeditated government policy of extensively sacrificing the safety and lives of myriad law-abiding individuals on behalf of convicted felons, including murderers. Clearly, state policy fostering repeat crime, including murder, should be seen as capital punishment of the innocent.

THEIR OWN WORDS APTLY DESCRIBE WHAT ABOLITIONISTS SUPPORT
Punishment is a penalty for wrongdoing. How, abolitionists might object, can murders of law-abiding victims who have done nothing wrong be called capital punishment or the death penalty, and thus how can they be said to support it? The answer requires no Clintonesque parsing. Opponents' own synonyms for these terms aptly apply to them. They support "state-sponsored killing" (2); "simple murder" [21]; "foreseeable, state-sponsored murder" (31), "state-sponsored homicide"; "state killing"; "premeditated, violent homicide as an instrument of social policy"; and/or "primitive ... ritual sacrifice" [n363].

"STATE-SPONSORED" RECIDIVIST HOMICIDE
A staple of the death penalty "debate" is whether it is an effective deterrent. This has been hotly contested [n278]. While doubt has been expressed that it sets an example to deter would-be murderers, it obviously deters the murderer himself from ever again committing murder or any other crime. This is not trivial and deserves more than the second-class cliché status of what is often a frustrated last-resort afterthought. Given the certainty of more murders by saved murderers, refusing to condemn the convicted condemns law-abiding victims to execution in their stead. Avoiding this is surely sufficient; deterring those other than the murderer is an additional rather than essential benefit.

Compare executions against recidivist homicides. 723,000 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 37 years (1972-2008) resulted in 1,188 lawful executions (0.165%). Nevertheless, aghast at even one such execution [54; n297], abolitionists have used terms like "flood," "substantial" and "skyrocketing" [n283] to refer to the 1,188, even labeling fifteen a "flood" [n223]. So how would they describe the far greater number of preventable unlawful homicides caused by policy they advocate?

As a consequence of decisions of government (all branches, all levels), there is immensely more capital punishment imposed on the blameless than the predatory. That is made clear by available research.

For example, "[o]f the roughly 52,000 state prison inmates serving time for murder in 1984, an estimated 810 had previously been convicted of murder [1.56%] and had killed 821 persons following those convictions" [n272]. As of the end of 2005, 166,700 were in state prison for murder (21). The same 1.56% would suggest about 2,600 new murders by murder convicts. At the end of 2007, of 3,215 prisoners under sentence of death, 8.3% had prior homicide convictions (tables 4, 8). That's at least 267 innocent lives. Finally, myriad murders committed by previously convicted murderers have been well-documented [9-10, 41-42, 52, n272].

This data shows how misleading is the frequent abolitionist claim that, of all felons, murderers are least likely to repeat. A small percentage of a very large number can be striking, and certainly hugely greater than the most farfetched "exonerations" claims (recently 139).

State capital punishment of the innocent extends beyond saving convicted murderers. It includes repeated release of non-homicide convicts with full awareness that some would commit thousands of additional murders. 65.5% of the year 2007 condemned had prior felony convictions. It is safe to assume that a significant percentage of those convicted of homicide but not sentenced to death also had prior felony convictions. A Bureau of Justice Statistics study (1) of 272,111 prisoners (2/3 of all, about 408,166) released in 1994 revealed that 0.8% (between 2,177 and 3,265) were rearrested for homicide within three years (9). A prior study (1) of 108,580 prisoners (57% of all, about 190,500) released in 1983 found 1.6% (between 1,737 and 3,048) rearrested for homicide within three years (6). These figures omit homicides after the study periods and involve but two years' releasees. Studies for all years would show a staggering recidivist homicide total, probably between 60,000 and 110,000 in the 37-year period noted.

2005 is now being studied. Since the 1990s, the prison population has grown and crime has decreased. It does not follow that the policy of releasing violent convicts has stopped or that recidivist crime has ended. The Nov. 2009 murders, discussed below, of four police officers by a Huckabee-freed violent felon illustrate the point; as do the upcoming Connecticut trials of two violent parolees for a triple rape/arson-murder. Less horror is still horror, not ecstasy. Recent data show 1,382,012 violent crimes in 2008 vs. 1,932,274 in 1992, including 16,272 murders vs. 23,760. Also, there were 144,500 state prisoners sentenced for murder at year-end 2006 (37) vs. 166,700 at year-end 2005 (21), a decline of 22,200. Just 53 executions in 2006 contributed to that decrease.

Judge Kozinski (8044-47) compiled a "long, dreary list" of "tragedies [that] could have been averted," eloquently and graphically highlighting the painful cost, in life and suffering, of failing to incapacitate repeat violent felons. Clearly, state policy fostering repeat crime, including murder, should be seen as capital punishment of the innocent.

(On January 19, five justices cited one murderer's recidivism in seeking to rescue another convicted murderer, guilt uncontested [3]. They oxymoronically complained that a juror's "sister had been murdered by a man after he completed serving a life sentence (n1)." They did not explain how, short of dying, one could "complete serving" a true life sentence [9-10].)

STATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR PUBLIC SAFETY: DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO?
The screeching protest can be heard. Second chance rehabilitation is a noble goal. When convicted felons who have been or are in government custody commit new violence, including murder, it is not government's fault but simply an unintended, unavoidable and thus acceptable tragedy.

Let's see what the state itself says and does about that.

The Supreme Court has held no affirmative Constitutional duty exists to protect the law-abiding public (although, given modern judicial values, convicted criminals must be protected from their professional colleagues - even cigarette smoke assault). However, the Preamble states that one purpose of the Constitution is to "insure domestic Tranquility." Moreover, government's responsibility for public safety has been repeatedly recognized. Gov. Schwarzenegger declared: 'The first duty and highest obligation of government ... is to protect public safety." Examples are endless.

Furthermore, government has been sued for failure to provide protection. In 1999, Buford Furrow, while on parole, shot five children and murdered a postal worker. In 2008, Washington State agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle a $15 million lawsuit for negligent supervision of the violent parolee. In 1984, career recidivist George Agosto, with one homicide already under his belt, shot three New York City police officers, murdering Thomas Ruotolo. Agosto himself was puzzled by his parole: "the law's mistake. It's crazy, I don't know. Why take the chance on me?" The two surviving officers and Ruotolo's widow sued State for wrongfully allowing Agosto to remain on parole. Two case dismissals were followed by two statute amendments to allow the suit. Finally yielding, the state's highest court noted that the legislature had found and demonstrated "an adequate moral obligation."

Despite the widespread view that public safety is a critical government function, for decades, responsibility has been shifted to private individuals and businesses. Property owners and business establishments have always been liable for physical hazards causing accidents (e.g., defective sidewalks, failure to clear ice, slippery floors, etc.) (226). However, in 1974, singing star Connie Francis was raped in a motel, which she sued for failure to provide a secure lock. After a jury awarded her $2.5 million, she settled for $1.5 million (2). The rapist was never caught and hence went unpunished. Landlords and restaurateurs (227) similarly have been required to provide security to protect tenants and patrons in "high-crime" areas (which they might not be but for freed recidivists). And bar owners are responsible for deaths and injuries caused by inebriated recidivist (15) patrons (n5). (At the same time, the Supreme Court considers repeat drunk drivers to be non-violent. That should comfort victims.)

The ultimate example of expecting private in place of public security is the government forcing private businesses to pay damages for hiring unleashed recidivists in reliance on the government. In 1980, Maria Salinas was robbed and raped in front of her children by cab driver Robert Jenkins, a multiple recidivist under indictment for attempted murder. When she sued the Fort Worth Cab & Baggage Company for hiring him, the Texas Supreme Court held the company should have independently investigated Jenkins' background instead of relying on a police-granted taxi driver permit.

"The common thread (227) in all these cases is foreseeability." The person or business sued is presumed to be able to foresee a likelihood of crime and take steps to prevent it. In 1970, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, in assigning liability to landlords, explained (22) foreseeability: "It would be folly to impose liability for mere possibilities. But we must reach the question of liability for attacks which are foreseeable in the sense that they are probable and predictable."

That seems to make sense and this piece is assuredly not an argument against private security. But shouldn't the state at least be held to what it demands of those outside government? Since recidivism is clearly foreseeable, even guaranteed, isn't the state responsible for avoidable crime resulting from laxity in preventing recidivism?

One type of second degree murder involves "a depraved indifference to human life" manifested by "a grave risk of death to another person," causing that person's death. According to the law's authors: "depraved indifference murder is 'extremely dangerous and fatal conduct performed without specific homicidal intent but with a depraved kind of wantonness: for example, shooting into a crowd, placing a time bomb in a public place, or opening the door of the lions' cage in the zoo'"

Isn't that a perfect description of what the state does when it frees recidivists?

(Is there something wrong with this picture? The state holds private individuals and businesses liable for recidivist crime inflicted on the public by the state itself, expecting them to foresee and prevent what it can foresee and prevent but does not. The state repeatedly releases a criminal, issues a permit indicating that he is qualified for a job, and then orders a private employer to pay damages for hiring him; employers granting freed convicts the second chance sought by rehabilitation theorists are condemned. When the state is sued, as in the Furrow case, taxpayers pay damages awarded for crime caused by state policies and decisions (advocated by activists who have no direct personal liability). In other words, the state unleashes preventable crime on taxpayers paying to be protected, who must then pay for government failure to provide what they paid for.)

THE COLD CRUELTY OF COMPASSION
The landlord court asserted (27) that "every segment of society has obligations to aid in law enforcement and to minimize the opportunities for crime." Obviously, executing murderers and keeping violent convicts permanently incarcerated would "minimize the opportunities for crime." That is indisputably very harsh - and likely unthinkable for today's dominant judicial and media elites. "Compassion" is their zeitgeist.

What, then, do they think is thinkable? Keep murderers alive; free the violent. That is compassion for the thoughtful. But do they ever think about the cruelty inflicted by their compassion? Condemning to rape, torture, maiming and murder those who have never harmed anyone? That is the tragic result of what they think is thinkable - except, of course, the elites would rather not think of victims at all [1, 5-7]. Indeed, there are U.S. Supreme Court Justices who have all but explicitly stated that they value the lives of murderers far more highly than those of innocent victims [43, 47ff.; n282], even to the point of seeking to deny victim status to many who suffer the most [n305].

How can a state policy of imposing suffering, including murder, upon new victims be viewed as anything but capital punishment of the innocent? Is this any different from "shooting into a crowd, placing a time bomb in a public place, or opening the door of the lions' cage"? How can advocates of such policy credibly deny they support capital punishment of the law-abiding?

If the "abolitionists" actually oppose "foreseeable, state-sponsored murder," shouldn't they oppose policy that guarantees recidivism?

Let a defiant Mike Huckabee label "disgusting" his being blamed for freeing, over a prosecutor's vehement protest, Maurice Clemmons from a 99-year prison sentence. The fact is that, in exercising his official state authority as governor and to see himself as compassionate, he condemned to death four police officers and inflicted lifelong suffering on the parents, spouses, children, siblings and friends of Officers Tina Griswold, 40, Ronald Owens, 37, Greg Richards, 42, and Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39. This was not Huckabee's first official imposition of a death sentence upon unknown future innocent victims; previously, Carol Sue Shields, 39, and Sara Andrasek, 23 [n49] suffered the consequences of Huckabee's compassion. When Norman Mailer and his fellow literati succeeded in freeing Jack Abbott [nn.50, 324], they condemned to death newly married Richard Adan, a 22-year-old with his whole life ahead of him. When, in 1972, after 175 years, in a bare 5-4 epiphany, Justices Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, White and Marshall suddenly found the death penalty was unconstitutional and saved the lives of numerous convicted murderers, including Kenneth McDuff, they simultaneously condemned to death countless new victims (e.g., young pregnant mother Melissa Ann Northrup, 22, and popular accountant Colleen Reed, 28).

The litany never ends [9-10]. Suffice it to say, when government officials and activists pursue policy guaranteed to cause the death of innocent people, they effectively have sentenced those people to death.

The policy succeeds partly because the victims have no faces and no names when sentenced. Although victims receive scant attention, a feeble effort was made here to name a tiny few because the theft of personhood is cruelty's ally. It is less easy to be "compassionate" if one must confront the agony of compassion's victims- once vital, upstanding, loving human-beings, brutally and prematurely robbed of life in the interest of granting mercy to the merciless [e.g.: 2-3, 54; n315]. In an ideal world, the "abolitionists" would have to think about all of them. They don't. Lip service, absolutely; but not more.

Concern by the likes of Mike Huckabee, Sister Prejean [2, 38] and Bryan Stevenson [41, 54] is for the most brutal. To them, victims are "chopped liver." Justice Ginsburg has shed tears and felt stress for executed murderers; a search for any sign of similar concern by her for their victims would likely yield the same results as Diogenes' quest for an honest man.

If hoteliers, landlords, employers, bar owners, etc., are responsible for the safety of strangers victimized by the crimes and negligence of other strangers, why aren't Huckabee, Mailer, the ACLU, the DPIC and, above all, judges and justices responsible for the multiple repeat crimes they cause?

To use a cliché, there is no free lunch. There can be no generosity to criminals without creating new victims, destroying their well-being and very lives. Compassion for the cruel is itself cruelty - cruelty to the good and decent.

This all answers the mystery of what kind of people fanatically protest 1,188 executions of convicted murderers for 723,000 homicides but not the incalculably greater number of executions of the law-abiding resulting from endless state recidivist leniency. Why, of course, they are the compassionate - the cold, cruel compassionate.

"DEATH ELIGIBLITY" FOR "SERIOUS" ADVOCATES
The ACLU avers: "no one seriously advocates" a policy of executing all convicted murderers in order to prevent "occasional[]" recidivist homicides by some of them. "Occasional" recidivist murders are thus implicitly acceptable. (Imagine the reaction if a car maker said we must accept "occasional" highway fatalities in lieu of making safer automobiles.) In plain English, for the "serious advocate," the proper policy, which we now have, is: for the greater good of convicted murderers, others must be condemned to death. Just who are they?

In eviscerating capital punishment [1, 29-30, 43] for convicted murderers, the Supreme Court concocted and repeatedly "narrowed" the notion of "death eligibility" [38]. Justices boast [n250] of rendering entire categories of murderers death penalty "ineligible." For example: the allegedly mentally retarded who capably plot rape and then murder to avoid victim testimony [11-13]; 17½-year-olds who commit premeditated torture murder (they have a "right" to "attain a mature understanding of [their] own humanity") [7-8]; those who commit insufficiently depraved murder (e.g., one using a rifle to kill his wife and slowly reload to first terrorize and then literally blow his mother-in-law's head off and brain out) [n288]; rapists who have already committed murder and attempted murder (thus avoiding any punishment at all for the new rape) [n265]; murderers serving life who commit new murders [42], etc., etc.

By judicial fiat, nearly all convicted murderers are not "eligible" for the death penalty. But eligibility has not been narrowed for those upon whom abolitionist style capital punishment is imposed. They are law-abiding, preferably far away in space and time, chosen at random [44] and anonymous - most especially, anonymous. They must not be visible to the people, especially judges, who protect murderers, so that the protectors do not have to think about the consequences or acknowledge their complicity in causing unimaginable and unspeakable avoidable suffering [42]. Accordingly, these death-eligible are sentenced and condemned in absentia, and denied any right to a lawyer, any trial (let alone multiple trials) and endless appeals lasting decades.

In sum, death penalty eligibility is severely restricted for duly convicted murderers but unlimited for everyone else. The first is a penalty for the guilty; the second is reserved for the innocent.

Accepting highly dubious and dishonest "exoneration" claims, Carl M. Cannon declared that "the right question" is whether government should execute murder convicts "knowing to a certainty that some of them are innocent." That has been answered. The truly "right question" is whether government should pursue policy it "know[s] to a certainty" will cause the execution of law-abiding people who have never been convicted of anything - and in astronomically greater numbers than the bogus alleged "exonerations" and lawful executions.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Like Gov. Huckabee, the Pontius Pilates of abolitionism will seek to wash their hands of responsibility for the inevitable results of their zealotry. Denial is their right. But the rest of us must understand what they really stand for.

A policy of unleashing the brutal to attack the tame, clearly recognizing that this will result in new vicious crimes, including numerous murders, is government imposition of the death penalty. In abolitionist argot, it is "premeditated, violent homicide as an instrument of social policy."

If the values of the elites in charge of our society dictate that the law-abiding should suffer death to advance the interests of convicted criminals, so be it. But there should be no pretense that there is a "debate" in which one side favors "state killing" and the other opposes it.

Self-styled death penalty opponents are fully aware of the consequences of the policy they promote. The government adopts and pursues it, also with full realization. Can we then accept that advocates and government bear no responsibility and this is not a knowing state sentence of death upon countless innocent people?

At the end of the day, the horrific reality is clear. Abolitionists oppose the death penalty for those who have been convicted of murder. But they support "state-sponsored murder" of the law-abiding - a calculated policy "ritual" of "human sacrifice" on the altar of pretenders to sainthood whose compulsion to compassion extends only to the barbaric and the murderous - and not at all to tortured innocent victims.

New law - Life sentence and out of prison

Homicide Survivors — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:49:00 GMT

The Innocent Executed: Deception & Death Penalty Opponents - Update - EARLY DRAFT

Homicide Survivors — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:46:00 GMT

UPDATE

DRAFT - This is an early draft. You are free to distribute. But, please, include these statements. Dudley Sharp

The Innocent Executed: Deception & Death Penalty Opponents - DRAFT
Dudley Sharp, contact info below

These cases are a sample of cases that some anti death penalty folks present as innocents executed. Generally speaking, anti death penalty folks only show the defense side of the case or they present material, so ridiculous, not even the defense would offer it.

These reviews are offered as a balance to those anti death penalty presentations.

There are, at least, two sides to every debate. Avail yourself of reviewing, at least two contrasting positions, so you can make a, somewhat, informed decision.

It is arguable, if not definitive, that had the media been thorough, in the beginning, none of the cases would have become a cause celebre, sometimes lasting for decades.

1) Roger Keith Coleman

The classic Cause Celebre, anti death penalty case is put together like this: Imagine facts that evidence won't support, but make it appear real, anyway. Keep it going for years and years. (1)

Jim McCloskey spent 14 years championing Coleman's innocence. Create a case of an innocent executed and the media will come. And, boy, did they.

Here is McCloskey's assessment of the state's case against Coleman: "The (state's) case was built on innuendos and lies and ludicrous, insane theory that falls flat in the face of common sense." (2)

This is a classic quote of anti death penalty infamy: Mr. McCloskey, look in the mirror. Coleman's guilt was confirmed by DNA.

For some time, Coleman's defense team concentrated on the "real murderer", with whom they, later, had to make an out of court settlement

2) Ruben Cantu

In the Matter of Juan Moreno: Investigation Relating to The State of Texas v. Ruben Cantu, Cause No. 85-CR-1303, 6/26/2007
http://www.bexar.org/da2/body_pages/morenocantuinvestigation.pdf

3) Roger O'Dell - another worldwide cause celebre (AWCC)

Paragraph III, Subparagraphs a-d, Death Of Truth: Sister Prejean's book The Death Of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.
from "Sister Helen Prejean & the death penalty: A Critical Review", 1995
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/05/04/sister-helen-prejean--the-death-penalty-a-critical-review.aspx

4) Gary Graham - AWCC

"HOLLYWOOD, MURDER AND TEXAS: DEATH ROW INMATE GARY GRAHAM AND THE ANTI-DEATH PENALTY MOVEMENT:
A CASE STUDY OF LIES, HALF-TRUTHS AND INTIMIDATION", 1994
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/graham.htm

5) Larry Griffin

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

See Summary, page 11-13, "Report of the Circuit Attorney: On the Murder of Qinton Moss and Conviction of Larry Griffin", 7/12/07

http://stlcin.missouri.org/circuitattorney/ca-reports.cfmiffin

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

SOME OLDER CASES

6) Sacco and Vanzetti - AWCC

Even though their guilt was known, anti death penalty folks allowed riots and other violence to take place, based upon the fraud of their innocence.

"Sacco and Vanzetti: Guilty After All?"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5245754
Of all of those proclaiming the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, by far, the most famous was author and activist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair met with Sacco and Venzetti's defense counsel, who told Sinclair that they were both guilty and that he had concocted all the alibis. The letter indicates why Sinclair didn't expose that conversation.

“My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book,” Sinclair wrote Robert Minor, a confidant at the Socialist Daily Worker in New York, in 1927.

"He also worried that revealing what he had been told would cost him readers. “It is much better copy as a naive defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public,” he wrote to Minor." Even knowing this, Sinclair, published "Boston", a novel which was a novelized version of the Sacco and Vanzetti case and which proclaimed them innocents murdered by the capitalist system - the mantra of leftists supporting S&V.

There was much violence, worldwide, based upon the presumption that both Sacco and Vanzetti were innocents railroaded by the US. Sinclair, as others, throughout, withheld this knowledge. Despicable.

"Sinclair Letter Turns Out to Be Another Expose", Jean O. Pasco, LA Times, December 24, 2005
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/24/local/me-sinclair24
Ideale Gambera, whose father was a Boston anarchist in the 1920s, said there was a strict code of silence to protect the group (anarchists) and hide the nature of their activities. He said his father, Giovanni Gambera, a member of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, told him before he died in 1982 that Sacco was one of the killers."They all lied," said Gambera, a retired English professor living in San Rafael. "They did it for the cause."

7) Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - AWCC

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

The Venona Intercepts, 1995
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/intercepts.html
The US Government has direct evidence of Julius Rosenberg, and others', involvement with the Soviet's, as spies for atomic secrets, with intercepted communications between the Soviet's and some of their US spies, from 1944. These intercepts were released in 1995. Ethel is not mentioned. However, there was more than enough evidence that she, at least, knew of his spying and chose not to report it, enough for a conspiracy. However, they both had ample time to come forward and proclaim her innocence and, to, at least, save one parent for their children. They chose not to, a strong indicator of their guilt and devotion to the cause.

Anti death penalty "innocence" deceptions are part of a pattern.

This one, below, is ongoing. Media fact checking could end this scam, today.

The 130 (now 135) death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx
----------------------

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.

Lethal Injection: Controversies Resolved

Homicide Survivors — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:59:00 GMT

Several issues are raised with regard to lethal injection.

Generally, they are:
1) The murderer experiencing pain during execution;
2) The ethics of medical professionals participating in executions; and
3) Proper training of execution personnel.

1) PAIN AND LETHAL INJECTION

The evidence, including the immediate autopsy of executed serial murderer/rapist Michael Ross, supports that there is no pain within the lethal injection process.

There is a concern that some inmates may be conscious, but paralyzed, during execution, because one of the three drugs used may have worn off, prior to death.

First, there is rare evidence this may have occurred. There is a lot of speculation.

Secondly, if properly administered, it cannot occur with the properties and amounts of the chemicals used and within the time frame of an execution.

Thirdly, no one has explained how the first drug could have worn off, within the time frame of execution. Or, how is it that the first drug was, somehow, improperly administered, but the second and third were not, when using the same lines and procedures?

An Associated Press reporter correctly stated that "there is little to support those claims except a few anecdotes of inmates gasping and convulsing and an article in the British medical journal Lancet." (AP, "Death penalty foes attack lethal-injection drug", 7/5/05)

The British Medical Journal, The Lancet, published an article critical of lethal injection (Volume 365, 4/16/05). A follow up article, by essential the same group of researchers, published a similar report in PLoS Medicine on 4/24/07.

The articles did not/could not identify one case where evidence existed than an inmate was conscious during execution.

The Lancet article identified 21 cases of execution where the level of "post mortem" (after death) sodium thiopental was below that used in surgery and, therefore, may suggest consciousness was possible.

A more accurate description would be all but impossible.

A "long after execution" post mortem measurement of sodium thiopental is very different from a moment of death measurement.

Dr. Lydia Conlay, chair of the department of anesthesiology, Baylor College of Medicine (Texas Medical Center, Houston) said the extrapolation of postmortem sodium thiopental levels in the blood to those at the time of execution is by no means a proven method. "I just don't think we can draw any conclusions from (the Lancet study) , one way or the other."

Actually, we can. The science is well known. Sodium thiopental is absorbed rapidly into the body. Long after execution blood testing of those levels means absolutely nothing with regard to the levels at the time of execution. Nothing.

The Lancet article did not dispute the obvious -- for executions, the sodium thiopental is administered in dosages roughly 10-20 times the amount necessary for sedation unconsciousness during surgical procedures.

Unconsciousness occurs within the first 30 seconds of the injection/execution process. The injection of the three drugs takes from 4-5 minutes. Death usually occurs within 6-7 minutes and is pronounced within 8-10 minutes.

The researchers also failed to note the much lower probability (impossibility?) that the murderer could be conscious, while all three drugs are coursing through the veins, concurrently.

Despite the Lancet article's presumptions and omissions, there is no scientific evidence that consciousness with pain has occurred with the amounts and methods of injecting those three chemicals within the execution period.

The AP article also stated that "They (death penalty opponents) also attack lethal injection by saying that the steps to complete it haven't been reviewed by medical professionals."

That is both deceptive and irrelevant.

The unchallenged reality is that medical professionals have both reviewed and implemented injection procedures for decades. The same procedures are used in executions. Criminal justice professionals have been trained in this application.

Does anyone not know this?

The chemicals used in lethal injection, as well as their individual and collective results, at the dosages used, are also well known by medical and pharmacology professionals. And this?

Dr. A. Jay Chapman, the former Oklahoma Medical Examiner, who created the protocol, consulted a toxicologist and two anesthesiologists. He states the obvious " ' . . .it didn't actually require much research because the three chemicals - a painkiller, a muscle-paralyzing agent and a heart-stopper - are well-known to physicians.' 'It is anesthetizing someone for a surgical procedure, but simply carried to an extreme.' 'If it is competently administered, there will be no question about this business of pain and suffering.' "("Lethal Injection Father Defends Creation", Paul Ellias, Associated Press, 5/10/07)

Further, lethal injection is not a medical procedure, but the culmination of a judicial sentence carried out by criminal justice professionals, the result of which is intended as death, the outcome of every case.

The follow up research/article is "Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical Asphyxiation?"(Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine, 4/24/07). Dr. Koniaris was an author in both this and the Lancet article.

The question mark from the title says it all.

From the Conclusion:

" . . . our findings suggest that current lethal injection protocols "MAY" not reliably effect death through the mechanisms intended, indicating a failure of design and implementation. "IF" thiopental and potassium chloride fail to cause anesthesia and cardiac arrest, potentially aware inmates "COULD" die through pancuronium-induced asphyxiation." (Underline, quote , caps and color change are mine, for emphasis)

In other words, the authors tell us they cannot prove this has ever happened. They are speculating.

Skip the speculation: Some Reality

From Hartford Courant, "Ross Autopsy Stirs Execution Debate----Results Cited To Counter Talk Of Pre-Death Pain", August 11, 2005

The below is a paraphrase of parts of that article, including some exact quotes.

Results of the autopsy done on serial killer Michael Ross are being cited by several prominent doctors to refute a highly publicized article that appeared in The Lancet, the British medical journal, in April, 2005.

Critics of the Lancet article say it does not account for postmortem redistribution of the anesthetic - thiopental. The redistribution, the critics say, accounts for the lower levels of thiopental on which Dr. Koniaris based his Lancet article conclusions that the levels of anesthetic were inadequate. The Ross autopsy results document this redistribution, bolstering the critics' assertions.

Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, Connecticut's chief medical examiner, was aware of the controversial Lancet article before performing the Ross autopsy. As a result, he took the additional step of drawing a sample of Ross's blood 20 minutes after he was pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m. May 13. Carver took a subsequent sample during the autopsy, which began about 7 hours later, at 9:40 a.m.

The 1st sample showed a concentration of 29.6 milligrams per liter of thiopental; the second sample showed a concentration of 9.4 milligrams per liter. The 1st sample was drawn from Ross' right femoral artery, and the second from his heart, which can account for some of the discrepancy. But Dr. Mark Heath, a New York anesthesiologist and one of the numerous doctors who have signed letters to The Lancet challenging the Koniaris article, said it clearly substantiates the postmortem redistribution of the thiopental.

Dr. Jonathan Groner, a pediatric surgeon from Ohio said he interviewed a number of forensic toxicologists before adopting the view that thiopental in a corpse leaves the blood and is absorbed by the fat, causing blood samples taken hours after death to be an unreliable marker of the levels of thiopental in the body at the time of death.

Groner described the Ross autopsy results as "a powerful refutation" of the Lancet-Koniaris study.

Dr. Ashraf Mozayani, a forensic toxicologist with the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office in Texas, said the level of thiopental "drops quite a bit" after death. Even in the living, Mozayani said, thiopental levels decline rapidly after administration of the drug. She cited one study in which a patient was administered 400 milligrams of thiopental intravenously. After two minutes the concentration in the blood was measured at 28 milligrams, but dropped to 3 milligrams concentration 19 minutes after the anesthetic was injected.

Mozayani said the declining concentration of thiopental cited in the Ross autopsy report "make sense."

On The Lancet article, she said, "I don't think they have the whole story - the postmortem redistribution and all the other things they have to consider for postmortem testing."

NOTE: I think they had and knew the whole story. They just didn't include it in their report(s).

The Veterinary sidetrack

Opponents of the death penalty, as well as other uninformed or deceptive sources, have been stating that even vets do not use the paralytic agent in the euthanasia of animals. This is a perversion of the veterinary position, which actually provides support, however unintended, for the human execution process.
Some fact checking is in order -- www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf

NOTE: That said, it would be much easier to have only a one drug - anesthesia - execution and I am not sure why it isn't being done, with the possible exceptions that I have read that may result in 1) much longer execution time; 2) a deep coma, not death, but without the obvious follow up that more anesthesia could be administered to induce death and 3) much more movement, twitching and jerking, by the inmate.

Somebody followed my suggestion.

NOTE: In an attempt to stop challenges based upon the unfounded pain allegations, Ohio has selected a new protocol, whereby "executioners would use a single large dose of thiopental sodium."(1), thus avoiding the paralytic drug which, death penalty opponents say, without evidence, masks the suffering of inmates, allegedly caused by the third drug.

2. THE MEDICAL/ETHICAL DILEMMA

Medical groups cite that there is an ethical conflict for participation in the lethal injection process, because medical professionals have a requirement to "do no harm".

Those ethical codes pertain to the medical profession, only, and to patients, only. Judicial execution is not part of the medical profession and death row inmates are not patients.

Doctors and nurses can be police and soldiers and can kill, when deemed appropriate, within those lines of duty and without violating the ethical codes of their medical profession. Similarly, medical professionals do not violate their codes of ethics, when acting as technical experts, for executions, in a criminal justice procedure.

Physicians are often part of double or triple blind studies where there is hope that the tested drugs may, someday, prove beneficial. The physicians and other researchers know that many patients, taking placebos or less effective drugs, will suffer more additional harm or death because they are not taking the subject drug or that the subject drug will actually harm or kill more patients than the placebo of other drugs used in the study.

Physicians knowingly harm individual patients, in direct contradiction to their "do no harm" oath.

For the greater good, those physicians sacrifice innocent, willing and brave patients. Of course, there have been medical experiments without consent and, even, today, they continue ("Critical Care Without Consent", Washington Post, May 27, 2007; Page A01).

The greater good is irrelevant, from an ethical standpoint, if "Do no harm" means "do no harm". Physicians knowingly make exceptions to their "do no harm" requirement, every day, within their profession, where that code actually does apply. And, they should. There are obvious moral and ethical nuances and we should consider and pay attention to them, as is done within the medical profession.

The "do no harm" has no ethical effect in a non medical context, because this ethical requirement is for medical treatments, only, and for patients, only.

For those who distort the Hippocratic oath, I would suggest they read the original, classic versions, which only prohibits abortion and euthanasia., two practices commonly accepted by many physicians.

The acknowledged anti death penalty editors of The Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine agree. They write:

"Execution by lethal injection, even if it uses tools of intensive care such as intravenous tubing and beeping heart monitors, has the same relationship to medicine that an executioner's axe has to surgery." ("Lethal Injection Is Not Humane", PLoS, 4/24/07)

The PLoS Medicine editors have made the same point many of us have been making - similar acts and similar equipment do not establish any equivalence or connection.

There is no ethical connection between medicine and lethal injection. Therefore, there is no ethical prohibition for medical professionals to participate in executions.

To put it clearly: The execution of death row inmates is not equivalent or connected to the treatment of patients.

Is this a mystery?

Obviously, execution is not a medical treatment, but a criminal justice sanction. The basis for medical treatment is to improve the plight of the patient, for which the medical profession provides obvious and daily exceptions. The basis for execution is to carry out a criminal justice sentence where death is the sanction.

Justice, deterrence, retribution, just punishments, upholding the social contract, saving innocent life, etc., are all recognized as aspects of the death penalty, all dealing with the greater good.

Are murderers on death row willing participants? Of course. They willingly committed the crime and, therefore, willingly exposed themselves to the social contract of that jurisdiction.

Lethal injection is not a medical procedure. It is a criminal justice sanction authorized by law. Therefore, there is no ethical conflict with medical codes of conduct and medical personal participating in executions.

Any participation in executions by medical professionals should be a matter for their own personal conscience. In fact, 20-40% of doctors surveyed would participate in the execution process.

A side note:

40,000 to 100,000 innocents die, every year, in the US because of medical misadventure or improper medical treatment. (2)

Do no harm? The doctor doth protest too much, methinks.

There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US since 1900.

3. PROPER TRAINING

In every state, there are hundreds or thousands of people trained for IV application of drugs or the taking of blood. Even many hard core drug addicts are proficient in IV application.

There are very few errors in lethal injections which can be attributed to personnel error. The simple fact is that, if necessary, non medical personnel can be properly trained to mix and administer the chemicals used in lethal injection. But, it isn't necessary.

It appears that some 500-1000 innocent patients die, every year, in the US, due to some type of medical misadventure, with anesthesia. (2)

I am unaware of evidence that shows criminal justice professionals are more likely to commit critical errors in the lethal injection process than are medical professionals in IV application.

Furthermore, even with errors in lethal injection, those cases resulted in the death of the inmate - the intended outcome for the guilty murderer.

In the errors of medical professionals, we are speaking of a large number of deaths and injuries to innocent patients - the opposite of the intended outcome.

1) "Lethal Injection Creator Fine With 1 Drug in Ohio", THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, New York Times, November 22, 2009 Filed at 4:25 p.m. ET

2) see   "Deaths from Medical Misadventure"at
                   www.wrongdiagnosis.com/m/medical_misadventure/deaths.htm
                   and
                  "Health Grades Quality Study: Patient Safety in American Hospitals, July 2004"
                  www.healthgrades.com/media/english/pdf/HG_Patient_Safety_Study_Final.pdf

originally written May, 2005. Updated as merited.

copyright 2005-2009

Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
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.

essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Death%20Penalty.aspx
http://prodpinNC.blogspot.com/

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

A Death Penalty Red Herring The Inanity and Hypocrisy of Perfection

Homicide Survivors — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:48:00 GMT

A Death Penalty Red Herring

The Inanity and Hypocrisy of Perfection

By Lester Jackson Ph.D.

TCS Daily 30, 31 Oct 2009

Part One

Part Two

NOTE: Page numbers and footnotes in brackets refer to documentation in the detailed paper downloadable here; those in parentheses refer to all other linked sources.

Dishonest death penalty opponents have made many false and inflated "exoneration" claims. But their Holy Grail [21] is to prove actual execution of an innocent person. Toward this end, The New Yorker recently trumpeted the 2004 Texas Todd Willingham execution. His alleged innocence has been vigorously disputed. Not only have there been so many false "exoneration" claims that finding just one authentic modern instance of an executed innocent person has taken on the aura of a crusade - the very premise is inane and hypocritical.

The premise is that irrefutably proving just one wrongful execution would justify, indeed require, abolition of capital punishment. For example, in finally deciding it was always unconstitutional, Justice Blackmun believed (n8) that courts "are unable to prevent human error from condemning the innocent." The New Mexico and New Jersey Governors signed death penalty repeals partly on the stated ground that it is not "100-percent ... perfect...never [] wrong ... foolproof."

This is a red herring to confuse public opinion, which thus far has not been easily swayed [34]. The goal is not to protect the innocent, but guilty murderers found by juries to deserve execution. Those who demand perfection for murder convicts make no similar demand to protect the law-abiding public.

Inanity
To quote Justice Scalia (18): "Like other human institutions, courts and juries are not perfect. One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly. That is a truism, not a revelation."

The utter inanity of the perfection premise becomes clear with just a brief focus on the obvious. Because there is no perfect human activity, life as we know it would come to a halt under such a requirement. Even walking on a sidewalk or shopping, or eating in a restaurant can result in death. Those who insist upon death penalty perfection do not call for closing roads and hospitals, or stopping all transportation because these enterprises result in vast numbers of deaths. Nor, in their purported quest to prevent all risk, do they seek an end to human reproduction. Inevitably, some normal babies will suffer serious or fatal injuries and diseases. Especially relevant here is that some will be raped and/or murdered by previously convicted rapists and murderers saved by death penalty opponents. Since having children entails risk, do abolitionists propose to sterilize everyone to prevent producing more people who will endure tragedy?

The commonsense objective in life, not perfection but the best that can be done, has been more than achieved to avoid executing the innocent. Not so for protecting the public from repeat violent offenders.

Dishonesty and Hypocrisy
Given its inanity, those demanding perfection exclusively for the death penalty are again dishonest because this is really a thinly disguised attempt to require its abolition for all convicted murderers, no matter how heinous or numerous their crimes and how overwhelming the proof of guilt. The protection of such murderers is the true objective. With candor rare for abolitionists, Bedau and Radelet, leaders in alleging executions of the innocent [n11], openly proclaimed: "We ... oppose executions of the guilty .... [R]ejection of capital punishment, on moral grounds and on grounds of social policy, does not turn on ... risk of executing the innocent...." [n297]

Perfection is purportedly sought because life is at stake. However, demanding perfection in order to have capital punishment utterly ignores the excruciation caused by the imperfection in not having it.

A Critical Distinction: The Whole and the Parts. Some convicted murderers, if kept alive, will kill again; even the most extravagant "exonerations" claims do not come close to the number of well-documented murders committed by previously convicted murderers [9-10, 41-42, 52, n272]. The particular convicted murderers who will kill again cannot be precisely identified, but it is absolutely certain that some of them will. For each individual convict, it can be said there is a risk. But for the group as a whole, it is not a risk but a perfect 100 percent certainty.

Abolitionists do not fret about not just risking but assuring sacrifice of lives of innocent, law-abiding people for the sake of keeping convicted murderers alive. In truth, advocates for violent convicts justify this guaranteed loss of innocent lives on the very ground that Holy Grail seekers reject in arguing for abolition.

To take but a handful of myriad examples:

On March 14, 1996, elite unit Police Officer Kevin Gillespie was murdered by young parolees with a long history of violence. Fifteen days later, the ACLU National Prison Project's Jenni Gainsborough told Dateline: "It's not a perfect situation. We cannot be right 100 percent of the time, but you have to take some risk. That's a part of human life. There is no way of avoiding risk."
Innocent mothers Ewa Berwid and Lisa Bianco repeatedly pleaded for protection, expressing terror that their husbands would murder them if released (as Adam Berwid expressly promised in open court). Both husbands were nevertheless freed by all-knowing risk-taking "experts" and both promptly slaughtered their wives in front of their children. In response to the Bianco butchery, the ACLU Prison Project's Ed Koren did not demand an end to such releases until perfection was guaranteed: ''Nobody can predict what somebody is going to do in the future. We have to rely on people's judgment. It's unfortunate that people get hurt in the process. But if you tighten these programs, prisoners will lose the opportunity to lead possibly productive lives.'' No concern about the loss of innocent lives here.
N.Y. State Division for Youth Director Peter Edelman thought he knew better than the judge who urged that a violent offender not be prematurely released: "I looked into it very carefully and found ... he had made excellent progress." The release resulted in an attempted knifepoint robbery of a woman five days later. Edelman rationalized new violence, including murders and attempted murders, by offenders released by his agency, saying it was "not always possible to predict correctly that a release will work out satisfactorily - you cannot be 100 percent right...."
In 1978, Lawrence Singleton raped, tortured, cut off her forearms and left 15-year-old Mary Vincent to die by the side of a road. No thanks to him, she survived. On parole, Singleton committed murder in 1997. Naturally, there was extenuation. Sex-crime "experts" labeled him an "anomaly" and added "only a small minority go on to commit murder." This "only" attitude was neatly captured by Georgia Polston: "We didn't like the idea that something had happened. But you can't make a big thing about it if you want to give people a chance.''

"Giving people a chance," without concern for the guaranteed new but avoidable catastrophe this will cause for other people, is exactly what is being sought now.

"Second" Chance Imperfections
On November 9, the Supreme Court will be asked to declare unconstitutional Life Without Parole (LWOP) for juveniles convicted of violent non-homicide crimes, no matter how numerous or vicious. The justices will be implored to hold that juveniles must always be given a "second" chance. If the justices do, it is likely (n5) they will be asked to extend their ruling to juvenile murderers. Will they consider that Singleton was given a chance -- to murder successfully; and Mary Vincent also had another chance -- a chance to live in terror for 23 years until his death from natural causes and to live without forearms for the rest of her life? Will they consider that the Berwid and Bianco children never again had a chance to experience their mothers' love or to forget the nightmarish savagery committed before their very eyes by their extra chance fathers?

One brief (6) "provides examples of the important contributions that can be made by youth when they are given a second chance." This is misleading. First, the cases before the Supreme Court do not involve "second" chances but multiple chances after multiple violent crimes. Second, with all due respect to former Wyoming Senator Simpson (11-13), he shot mailboxes, set fire to abandoned federal property, was involved in a bar fight he did not start and resisted arrest. This does not remotely justify repeated chances for rapists, sadists, violent robbers and attempted murderers. It is simply fatuous to analogize (15, 19) reckless, unthinking teenage behavior with malicious and murderous sadism. Did Simpson ever even think about rape, assault, armed robbery or attempted murder? If not, his self-description as a "monster" drains the word of meaning and it is unpersuasive that he lent his good name to the likes of Terrance Graham (multiple armed robberies) (2ff) and Joe Sullivan (multiple violent crimes, including the double rape, beating, and robbery of an elderly woman) (3ff). A brief purporting to be "in Support of Neither Party" all but explicitly seeks a ruling for Graham and Sullivan on the ground that young brains are "structurally immature" and not yet fully developed (3-4). Why, then, aren't most juveniles vicious criminals?

Those who seek an end to LWOP do not claim (23, 26-27), because they cannot, that there is no risk in releasing felons who have committed multiple acts of violence. In arguing that "the vast majority of adolescents who engage in criminal ... behavior desist from crime as they mature," the Brief for Graham (45) implicitly concedes there are those who will not desist. Obviously, there is no place in the Graham brief for Officer Gillespie, whose murderers were well into their 20s after having commenced their "careers" in their teens. They surely did "mature" -- to the next level, murder of a policeman, illustrating Justice O'Connor's position [8] that youth can indicate a potential for greater rather than lesser future dangerousness. Nor is there room for the victims of Richard Biegenwald (committed murder at age 18 and multiple murders after parole at ages 41-42), Grant Cooper (murdered at 18, 36, 60) and Reginald McFadden (murder at 16 plus rape and at least two murders 25 years later at 41, after "second chance" parole as "rehabilitated" and "an excellent risk for release."). Nor for late bloomers, such as Clarence Ray Allen, who do not start murdering until middle age. For the chance taken to keep him alive after his first murder conviction, he made three more victims pay with their lives [n55]. (Allen's lawyers argued he should be spared because setting an execution date would cause him to have a heart attack [n362].)

So imperfection results in multiple deaths of people who never have committed any crimes. Yet when it comes to giving multiple extra chances to multiple violent offenders, their advocates, who demand perfection for the death penalty, here seek understanding of inevitable human fallibility and mistakes. The very word "chance" shows that the court is being urged to gamble, to play Russian roulette with people's lives.

Let's be very clear. A chance to do right is also a chance to do wrong. Some extra chance beneficiaries justify the faith placed in them. But others do not. If five or six justices seize from a supposedly self-governing society the right to decide who does or does not deserve multiple chances, a price will surely be paid by anonymous people not visible from the safety and security of a judicial ivory tower [9, 42, n305]. Many are themselves quite young today and living normal, healthy, law-abiding hope-filled lives. Renewed acts of violence by human time bombs dropped on an unsuspecting population from that ivory tower will irreversibly -- and with no extra chances -- cost these individuals their health, ability to function, normalcy, happiness and, for some, their very lives. There will be no second chance for the last group -- ever. But the champions of multiple chances for convicted violent criminals will not be demanding perfection to avoid this calamity.

Edelman contended: "It is inevitable that there will be instances where tragedy occurs. But very seldom is a youth released who then commits a serious crime." But, because "very seldom" does not mean never, Edelman effectively condemns unknown innocents to the trauma of serious crime. This is a conscious tradeoff -- without 100 percent perfection for the innocent. Edelman is prepared to impose "tragedy," human sacrifice, for the cause of releasing violent youths. Moreover, "very seldom" -- and indeed far more rarely, if ever -- is the wrong person executed. As Justice Scalia pointed out (18), the possibility of mistaken execution "has been reduced to an insignificant minimum. This explains why those ideologically driven to ferret out and proclaim a mistaken modern execution have not a single verifiable case to point to ...." By contrast, as noted, innumerable innocent lives have been lost and ruined due to the imperfections in keeping convicted murderers alive and releasing others who have a proven capacity for vicious violence.

Manifestly, elites (media, defiant elected officials [33-34] and unaccountable judges) have been far more concerned with the almost non-existent imperfections in executing guilty murderers than with the major imperfections in unnecessarily inflicting suffering on victims who never should be victimized in the first place. In reality, the elite attitude toward the unnecessarily victimized has been virtually blasé, out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Accordingly, with guilt uncontested, judges once turned loose upon a truly innocent population Joseph Frady, originally sentenced to death by a jury for bludgeoning his victim to death, on contract, so that one eye popped from its socket and a mixture of blood and brains came out.

The country, in the words of the four Frady dissenters, "should awake to what has taken place."

Conclusion
Given ginned up concern about convicting the innocent, it is altogether appropriate and necessary to refute inflated, unwarranted and utterly bogus "exoneration" claims by death penalty opponents. However, some day, they may find their Holy Grail. What then? When they make well-publicized shrill demands for abolition due to less than absolute perfection, they should be asked this: Will they agree to abolish any parole ever for violent convicts because the system can never come close to determining exactly who will not commit more (and more serious) violent crimes, and thus is unable to guarantee that no law-abiding person will ever again be brutally victimized at the hands of a person previously convicted of such crimes? If opponents do not agree, then their demand for perfection should be seen for what it is: a selective red herring hypocritically used by people obsessed with seeking to save murderers while not caring one whit about the vast imperfections that result in countless wholly avoidable rapes, mutilations and murders of the truly innocent.