At least as far back as Woodrow Wilson, progressives and liberals have seen our anti-tyranny Constitution as an obstacle to imposing their self-presumed superior morality and wisdom on everyone else. So it was unremarkable when, in February, The New York Times disgorged an article trashing the Constitution as an unworthy model for the rest of the world. Remarkable is what was omitted from the responses, which focused on Justice Ginsburg's urging drafters of new foreign constitutions not to consult the one she took an oath to defend. She and others complained that it did not provide sufficient "rights." Unanswered by various critics was law professor Sanford Levinson's claim that "the U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any ... in the world[.]" Actually, because justices must be lawyers, the Constitution is easy to amend. << MORE >>

Dudley Sharp, contact info below

Are death penalty opponents really concerned about innocents at risk? Of course.

However, as innocents are more at risk without the death penalty, it is appropriate to challenge their understanding of that easily accessible fact.

1) There is no known actual innocent executed in the US, at least since the 1930's. Possibly, 0.4% of all those sentenced to death since 1973 may have been actually innocent. All were released. An incredible record of accuracy - 99.6% accuracy in proper actual guilt convictions, with the 0.4% released (1).

2) Anti death penalty folks say taking the death penalty away eliminates actual innocents dying prior to their exoneration.

Nonsense. While we have executed about 1250 murderers in the US (1973-2012) about 5,000 inmates per year die while in custody (2), or about 200,000 total, during that time (2). We cannot bring back any of those that may have been innocent, either.

It is more likely that an actual innocent will die in custody than it is that an actual innocent will be executed.

3) Murderers that we have allowed to murder again, recidivist murderers, MIGHT number around 28,000 since 1973 , based upon existing studies (3).

However, I think it likely that the numbers are closer to 14,000, based upon my review in footnote 3.

4) 28 studies, beginning in 2000, find for a deterrent effect, ranging from 1-28 innocent lives spared per execution, or totals from 1,254 - 35,112 innocent lives saved (4).

Based upon an estimated 700,000 murders in the US (1973-2011), that represents a range from 0.18% to 5% of potential murderers who were deterred from committing murder - a huge savings in innocent lives spared, but, statistically, a very small reduction in murder rates.

5) The death penalty spares more innocent lives than does a life sentence, in two additional ways, as well: Enhanced due process and enhanced incapacitation. No one questions that the death penalty has greater due process protections than a life sentence, thereby the death penalty protects actual innocents to a higher degree than any lesser sanction. Neither does anyone question that living murderers harm and murder, again and that executed ones do not.

6) REALITY: ARE DEATH PENALTY OPPONENTS REALLY CONCERNED ABOUT INNOCENT LIVES AT RISK?

Of course, but . . .

The reality is that we can spare murderers lives and thus sacrifice more innocents or we can spare more innocent lives by executing more murderers.

Look at Ernest van den Haag's interview of well known anti death penalty activists.

He asked them, if it was proven that 100 innocent lives were spared per execution, via deterrence, would you still oppose the death penalty. All said yes. (4)

Based upon our 1250 executions (1973-2012), those anti death penalty folks would prefer sparing the lives of 1250 murderers over saving the lives of 125,000 innocents. Think about that

Well known anti death penalty scholars "(Charles) Black and (Hugo Adam ) Bedau said they would favor abolishing the death penalty even if they knew that doing so would increase the homicide rate by 1,000 percent." (4).

For them, 6.3 million additional murders of innocent people (from 1973-2011) is preferable over executing 1250 known murderers. Astounding.

For some very well known leaders of the anti death penalty movement, their motivation is not protecting innocents, but protecting the lives of all murderers, no matter the cost in innocent lives.

That's their moral choice. They, and all death penalty opponents, need to face that.

NOTE: I am making two points with this information. If anti death penalty folks were concerned about innocents, their efforts would be to fix the huge problems in the criminal justice system which really sacrifice innocents lives, as opposed to trying to end the death penalty, a penalty which assists in sparing additional innocent lives.

I think many of those opposed to capital punishment would change their minds if they knew that sparing murderers sacrificed more innocent lives.

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.

(1) a. The 130 (now 140) death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx

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

c. "The innocence tactic: Unreliable studies and disinformation", reports By United States Congress, Senate, 107th Congress, 2d Session, Calender no 731, Report 107-315. The Innocence Protection Act of 2002, (iv) The innocence tactic: Unreliable studies and disinformation, p 65-69, http://alturl.com/6j7oc

d. "The Innocent and the Shammed", Joshua Marquis, Published in New York Times, 1/26/2006
http://coastda.blogspot.com/2006/01/innocent-and-shammed-nyt-oped.html

(2) Deaths in Custody Statistical Tables, Bureau of Justice Statistics, SEE 7 links on right side of page. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/dcrp/dictabs.cfm

(3) "Recidivism of Prisoners Released", Bureau of Justice Statistics, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=44

See both studies, of 1983 and 1994 data

6.6% recidivism rate, 1989 study of 1983 data
1.2% recidivism rate, 2002 study of 1994 data

The combined recidivism rate for the two studies is 3.9%. These rates are based upon re-arrest, not re-conviction.

I suspect the real recidivism rate, looking at 1973-2011, will be closer to half that, at 2%.

Why the recidivism rates should be higher: Both of these studies only looked at recidivism for 3 years after release. We are concerned with recidivism for 38 years and less, years 1973-2011, as the modern era of new death penalty statutes began in 1973. Recidivism rates will be higher if released prisoners were tracked 4 years and beyond, as opposed to only 3 years. In addition, rates from 1973-1983, will likely be about the same as the 6.6%, if not higher, because we had barely started the period of longer sentences and increased incarcerations rates.

Why the recidivism rates should be lower: The dramatic reduction in recidivism between the two studies reflects a dramatic increase in sentencing terms and incarceration rates, which amounted to lower rates of early release and thus recidivism.

EXACT NUMBERS: Based upon convictions, 8.4% of those on death row had murdered, at least one person, prior to committing additional murder or murders which put them on death row -- an estimated 600-1000 additional innocents murdered, by those who had murdered before, just for that small set that have made it to death row. ( "Table 8. Criminal history profile of prisoners under sentence of death by race and Hispanic origin, 2005", p 6, Capital Punishment, 2005, Bureau of Justice Statistics,
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cp05.pdf ) 2005 last year of this analysis.

(4) Louis P. Pojman. "The Wisdom of Capital Punishment." p 281, Excerpted from The Death Penalty by Louis P. Pojman and J. Reiman. Copyright 1998.

taken from http://faculty.msmary.edu/conway/PHIL%20400x/Pojman%20Wisdom%20of%20CP.pdf

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An unbridgeable values chasm exists between victims of the worst crimes and the zealous devotees of their depraved victimizers. Last month, 18-year-old Alyssa Bustamante, protected from capital punishment by five U.S. Supreme Court justices undemocratically imposing their unrepresentative moral values, was sentenced to mislabeled "life in prison" for the October 2009 murder of 9-year-old neighbor Elizabeth Olten. Four months before that murder, the Court devoted 44 pages to the "embarrassment" of Savana Redding, a 13-year-old searched for illicit drugs. These and other cases graphically shed light on unelected justices who run our lives. << MORE >>

In common parlance, "getting away with murder" is a metaphor for doing something wrong without suffering deserved adverse consequences. Getting away with actual murder has meant that the killer did not get caught, or else he avoided conviction or appropriate punishment thanks to a good lawyer (often taking advantage of judge-concocted rules favoring guilty defendants). << MORE >>

Dudley Sharp talks on the Thom Hartman show about the death penalty on Amnesty International's "International Day of Action for Troy Davis" day.

Troy Davis is the convicted murderer of Officer MacPhain in Georgia who was recently put to death. 

 From the Thom Hartmann Show www.thomhartman.com

INTRODUCTION Because some occupations are hazardous, risking injury and death, Congress enacted the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act to protect workers. While no sane person would advocate avoidable unsafe working conditions for the law-abiding, this sensible view has been grotesquely perverted into an illustration of Justice Benjamin Cardozo’s famous reminder (51) of “the tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.” << MORE >>

"Smoke and mirrors" - that is what the federal judge called Davis' innocence claims, after he held the innocence evidentiary hearing ordered by the US Supreme Court. << MORE >>

Based upon the evidence presented in the June, 2010 hearing, it was clear that the federal district court would rule against Davis and that SCOTUS would not intervene. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone who knew the facts of the case. Anti death penalty folks, were, of course, fed a bunch of nonsense by their leadership and they simply accepted it. 1) Debunking the Myths Surrounding The Murder of Officer Mark MacPhail Sr. and the Conviction of Troy Anthony Davis" http://www.fop9.net/markmacphail/debunkingthemyths.cfm 2) Innocence claims will offer no reprieve for Troy Davis Dudley Sharp, 6/25/10 Based upon the media reports, alone, of the two day hearing of June 2010, just as I suspect Davis' attorneys have known all along, the appellate case cannot prevail in overturning the findings that Troy Davis is guilty of the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. What happened in the two day hearing was very ordinary, if you are aware of anti death penalty nonsense. (1) << MORE >>

In making the case for judicial review, Chief Justice John Marshall pointed out that judges take a sworn oath to uphold the laws of the United States. Until last month, it would have been unnecessary to stress that he was obviously referring to actual laws, not the unfulfilled fantasies of a lone member of Congress. Nevertheless, on July 7, in a case largely ignored by the media, dissenting Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan carried judicial activism to new heights by advocating a stay of execution on the basis of an imaginary law.<< MORE >>