New Jersey Gov. John Corzine signs a bill abolishing his state’s death penalty laws this week. (AP Photo/MJ Schear)The tide has turned against capital punishment in America. This week, New Jersey became the first state in the modern era to legislatively abolish its death penalty. In October, the New York State Court of Appeals tossed out New York’s death penalty, and cleared the state’s death row for good. Maryland came close to passing a repeal of the death penalty with the vocal support of its governor. An abolition bill passed Montana’s Senate earlier this year. Nebraska, one of the reddest states in the Union, came within one vote of abolishing its death penalty. In the meantime, the protocols of lethal injection are currently under scrutiny by the Supreme Court, leaving the nation’s execution chambers frozen. America has not gone this long without a single execution in decades.
But this movement away from capital punishment isn’t occurring because the United States is experiencing some sort of moral rebirth. A majority of America still believes that our worst criminals deserve to be put to death, but a substantially larger majority supports a moratorium on executions while the system’s flaws are addressed. Americans are worried that our criminal justice system is too dysfunctional to properly carry out death sentences. Our discomfort with executions has less to do with the ethics of crime and punishment, and everything to do with the state of the system that carries out those punishments.
America's skepticism is easy to understand, especially in light of the alarming streak of exonerations that began with the advent of DNA testing decades ago. More than 200 people have since been exonerated by DNA evidence proving them innocent. And at least 126 people have been released from death rows in 25 states.
The stories are shocking: forced false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, incompetent or fraudulent forensic analysis. Plain old inevitable human error. It is clear that if our justice system can go this wrong, we can’t allow it to continue to function as is.
As if the possibility of wrongful execution wasn't enough, the death penalty's many other systematic flaws have piled up so high that the nonpartisan American Bar Association called for a moratorium on executions this year. Here's why:
- The death penalty is arbitrary. The vast majority of capital sentences come from a small minority of counties, depending on the nature of individual prosecutors rather than crime rates.
- The death penalty is biased. Almost all of the people who typically receive the death penalty are poor, and many are mentally ill. Crimes of the same magnitude committed by persons with the resources to get a good lawyer typically do not result in death sentences. Crimes in which the victim was Black almost never result in death sentences.
- The death penalty is harmful to family members of victims of crime, who must endure years or even decades of entanglement with the legal system.
- The cost of capital punishment far exceeds prison sentences of life without parole. While no one wants to put a price tag on justice, one must ask whether the billions of dollars spent chasing a handful of executions would be better spent preventing crime and providing help to victims of crime.
Even the deterrence factor has been widely abandoned by death-penalty proponents, and for good reason. This year, when a handful of dubious studies revived the idea that death penalty somehow influences criminal behavior, they were subsequently and roundly debunked.
But even if the body of evidence in favor of abolishing capital punishment is overwhelming, facts alone won’t change laws. For years, New Jersey has experienced widespread and robust grassroots pressure for change—and it was merely the most advanced iteration of a process that is happening across the country.
The movement is both local and national. It is comprised of voices from all of the parties involved in the issue. Families of murder victims are testifying that the death penalty exacerbates the trauma of violent crime. Law enforcement officers—from prosecutors to police chiefs to wardens—are testifying from experience that the death penalty does not make them or us safer, and that our energies and resources are better spent elsewhere. The sum of all the movement’s parts is an example of American democracy at its finest: local engagement and innovation giving shape to broad-based coalitions that affect change on a state level and ultimately reshape the national discourse.
For a long time, this is an issue that was haunted by inertia—right or wrong, most people assumed the death penalty was here to stay. That has now changed. As the new year begins, states across the country will look toward New Jersey to see a future without capital punishment—and they’ll find that the future looks much brighter.
Greg Bloom is the National Constituency Organizer for Equal Justice USA, a national organization that advocates for a halt to executions. He can be reached at gregb[at]Quixote[dot]org.
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Mr. Bloom made some basic errors.
The Death Penalty in the US: A Review
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
NOTE: Detailed review of any of the below topics, or others, is available upon request
In this brief format, the reality of the death penalty in the United States, is presented, with the hope that the media, public policy makers and others will make an effort to present a balanced view on this sanction.
Innocence Issues
Death Penalty opponents have proclaimed that 124 inmates have been “released from death row with evidence of their innocence”, in the US, since the modern death penalty era began, post Furman v Georgia (1972).
That number is a fraud.
Those opponents have intentionally included both the factually innocent (the “I truly had nothing to do with the murder” cases) and the legally innocent (the “I got off because of legal errors” cases), thereby fraudulently raising the “innocent” numbers.
Death penalty opponents claim that 24 such innocence cases are in Florida. The Florida Commission on Capital Cases found that 4 of those 24 MIGHT be innocent — an 83% error rate in death penalty opponents claims. If that error rate is consistent, nationally, that would indicate that 21 of the alleged 124 innocents MIGHT be actually innocent — a 0.3% actual guilt error rate for the 7800 sentenced to death since 1973.
It is often claimed that 23 innocents have been executed in the US since 1900. Nonsense. Even the authors of that “23 innocents executed” study proclaimed “We agree with our critics, we never proved those (23) executed to be innocent; we never claimed that we had.“ While no one would claim that an innocent has never been executed, there is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.
No one disputes that innocents are found guilty, within all countries. However, when scrutinizing death penalty opponents claims, we find that when reviewing the accuracy of verdicts and the post conviction thoroughness of discovering those actually innocent incarcerated, that the US death penalty process may be the most accurate criminal justice sanction in the world. Under real world scenarios, not executing murderers will always put many more innocents at risk, than will ever be put at risk of execution.
Deterrence Issues
16 recent US studies, inclusive of strong defenses of the studies, find a deterrent effect of the death penalty.
All the studies which have not found a deterrent effect of the death penalty have refused to say that it does not deter some. The studies finding for deterrence state such. Confusion arises when people think that a simple comparison of murder rates and executions, or the lack thereof, can tell the tale of deterrence. It cannot.
Both high and low murder rates are found within death penalty and non death penalty jurisdictions, be it Singapore, South Africa, Sweden or Japan, or the US states of Michigan and Delaware. Many factors are involved in such evaluations. Reason and common sense tell us that it would be remarkable to find that the most severe criminal sanction — execution — deterred none. No one is foolish enough to suggest that the potential for negative consequences does not deter the behavior of some. Therefore, regardless of jurisdiction, having the death penalty will always be an added deterrent to murders, over and above any lesser punishments.
Polling data
76% of Americans find that we should impose the death penalty more or that we impose it about right (Gallup, May 2006 – 51% that we should impose it more, 25% that we impose it about right)
71% find capital punishment morally acceptable – that was the highest percentage answer for all questions (Gallup, April 2006, moral values poll).
81% of the American people supported the execution of Timothy McVeigh, with only 16% opposed. “(T)his view appears to be the consensus of all major groups in society, including men, women, whites, nonwhites, “liberals” and “conservatives.” (Gallup 5/2/01).
85% of Connecticut citizens supported the execution of serial rapist/murderer Michael Ross (Jan 2005).
While 81% gave specific case support for Timothy McVeigh’s execution, Gallup also showed a 65% support AT THE SAME TIME when asked a general “do you support capital punishment for murderers?” question. (Gallup, 6/10/01).
22% of those supporting McVeigh’s execution are, generally, against the death penalty (Gallup 5/02/01). That means that about half of those who say they oppose the death penalty, with the general question, actually support the death penalty under specific circumstances, just as it is imposed, judicially.
Further supporting the higher rates for specific cases, is this, from the French daily Le Monde December 2006 (1): Percentage of respondents in favor of executing Saddam Hussein:USA: 82%; Great Britain: 69%; France: 58%; Germany: 53%; Spain: 51%; Italy: 46%
Death penalty support is much deeper and much wider than we are often led to believe, with 50% of those who say they, generally, oppose the death penalty actually supporting it under specific circumstances, resulting in 80% death penalty support in the US, as recently as December 2006.
Racial issues
White murderers are twice as likely to be executed in the US as are black murderers and are executed, on average, 12 months more quickly than are black death row inmates.
It is often stated that it is the race of the victim which decides who is prosecuted in death penalty cases. Although blacks and whites make up about an equal number of murder victims, capital cases are 6 times more likely to involve white victim murders than black victim murders. This, so the logic goes, is proof that the US only cares about white victims.
Hardly. Only capital murders, not all murders, are subject to a capital indictment. Generally, a capital murder is limited to murders plus secondary aggravating factors, such as murders involving burglary, carjacking, rape, and additional murders, such as police murders, serial and multiple murders. White victims are, overwhelmingly, the victims under those circumstances, in ratios nearly identical to the cases found on death row.
Any other racial combinations of defendants and/or their victims in death penalty cases, is a reflection of the crimes committed and not any racial bias within the system, as confirmed by studies from the Rand Corporation (1991), Smith College (1994), U of Maryland (2002), New Jersey Supreme Court (2003) and by a view of criminal justice statistics, within a framework of the secondary aggravating factors necessary for capital indictments.
Class issues
No one disputes that wealthier defendants can hire better lawyers and, therefore, should have a legal advantage over their poorer counterparts. The US has executed about 0.15% of all murderers since new death penalty statutes were enacted in 1973. Is there evidence that wealthier capital murderers are less likely to be executed than their poorer ilk, based upon the proportion of capital murders committed by different those different economic groups?
Arbitrary and capricious
About 10% of all murders within the US might qualify for a death penalty eligible trial. That would be about 60,000 murders since 1973. We have sentenced 7800 murderers to death since then, or 13% of those eligible. I doubt that there is any other crime which receives a higher percentage of maximum sentences, when mandatory sentences are not available. Based upon that, as well as pre trial, trial, appellate and clemency/commutation realities, the US death penalty is likely the least arbitrary and capricious criminal sanctions in the world.
Christianity and the death penalty
The two most authoritative New Testament scholars, Saints Augustine and Aquinas, provide substantial biblical and theological support for the death penalty. Even the most well known anti death penalty personality in the US, Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, states that “It is abundantly clear that the Bible depicts murder as a capital crime for which death is considered the appropriate punishment, and one is hard pressed to find a biblical ‘proof text’ in either the Hebrew Testament or the New Testament which unequivocally refutes this. Even Jesus’ admonition ‘Let him without sin cast the first stone,’ when He was asked the appropriate punishment for an adulteress (John 8:7) — the Mosaic Law prescribed death — should be read in its proper context. This passage is an ‘entrapment’ story, which sought to show Jesus’ wisdom in besting His adversaries. It is not an ethical pronouncement about capital punishment.“ A thorough review of Pope John Paul II’s current position, reflects a reasoning that should be recommending more executions.
Cost Issues
All studies finding the death penalty to be more expensive than life without parole exclude important factors, such as (1) geriatric care costs, recently found to be $69,0000/yr/inmate, (2) the death penalty cost benefit of providing for plea bargains to a maximum life sentence, a huge cost savings to the state, (3) the death penalty cost benefit of both enhanced deterrence and enhanced incapacitation, at $5 million per innocent life spared, and, furthermore, (4) many of the alleged cost comparison studies are highly deceptive.
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Whatever your feelings are toward the death penalty, a fair accounting of how it is applied should be demanded.
copyright 1998-2007 Dudley Sharp
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 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
www(dot)dpinfo.com
www(dot)cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www(dot)clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
joshmarquis(dot)blogspot.com/
www(dot)lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www(dot)prodeathpenalty.com
www(dot)yesdeathpenalty.com/deathpenalty_contents.htm (Sweden)
www(dot)wesleylowe.com/cp.html
Permission for distribution of this document is approved as long as it is distributed in its entirety, without changes, inclusive of this statement.
— Dudley Sharp - Dec 22, 04:09 AM - #