PRESS UNDERSTATES PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR DEATH PENALTY
Papers perpetuate anti death penalty myths

TO: Editor & Publisher Magazine and their on-line site, E&P Online
Editorandpublisher.com

FROM:   Dudley Sharp, Director, Death Penalty Resources, Justice For All

Greg Mitchell, features editor with E & P and, not coincidentally, co-author
of a recently released anti death penalty book, offers, in his OP/ED "PRESS
OVERSTATES PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR DEATH PENALTY" (11/2 online edition and 11/6
print edition, E & P)  a text book example of how journalistic standards have
eroded tremendously in this country. He argues that the American  support for
capital punishment is much weaker than the polls indicate and than the
US newspapers report.

Mitchell presents: "One Death Row controversy after another has emerged,
ranging from who we kill (a woman, in Texas) to how we kill (the electric
chair, in Florida), and the steady release of prisoners from Death Row, based
on DNA test results, now threatens the very institution of capital
punishment." Hardly. These are "controversies" based on 1. sexism, 2.
methodology, not morality, and 3. a science which guarantees to make the
death penalty safer than ever. Sexism and methodology offer no moral
foundation for removing a sanction. Sexism is only a different word for
prejudice and methodology can be changed.  And DNA offers a foundation for
greater certainty and therefor more support. Or would Mitchell have us not
equally punish women and men for similar crimes? And if all execution
jurisdictions go to lethal injection? Then what? Mitchell's article is simply
another anti-death penalty rant based on emotion, not reason.

Mitchell cites that "(p)olls, in fact, are now drifting in the
anti-death-penalty direction. A recent Gallup Poll found backing for capital
punishment at its lowest level in nearly a decade, down from 80% to 64%. "
What he fails to note is that a recent Reuters/Zogby poll (10/9) shows that
minority support for executions  varies from a high of 78% (Italian
Americans) to a low of 64% (African Americans).

What he also failed to review is the basis for that decline in support. That,
I will do.

Mitchell recalls that "(an) ABC News poll this year . . .  showed support for
the death penalty falling off to 48% when life without parole was proposed as
an option.

How about the media offering a poll based on reality? No one has yet done so.

Sample polling question:

Based on the crime of
 (newspaper editors select one of the following)
1) the kidnapping/rape/torure/murder of at least 33 young men and boys (John
Wayne Gacy)
2) the kidnapping/rape/torture/murder of at least 28 young women ( Ted Bundy)
3) the kidnapping/rape/torture/decapitation murder of young Adam Walsh, or
others (some would argue that the torture and rape of Adam have not been
proven to a legal certainty. I agree. But no one denies the practical reality
of the claim)
4) the premeditated bombing of a building, with the intent of murdering large
numbers of innocents and accomplishing that goal by so murdering 168
innocents, including 18 nursery school aged children

, should the jury be given the option, between assessing life or death, for
the murderers in those cases?

I strongly suspect that, given this real life scenario, that those polled
would likely respond "Yes" about 80% of the time. In reviewing the reality of
the facts, where  the life stories of the victims, the crime scene photos and
the actual suffering that the victims and their loved ones endured, support
would likely soar to 90% or more, that the jury should have the option
between life or death. And such is what is presented to juries.

What somehow goes uncharted, is the fact that juries already have the choice
between a life and a death sentence.  Therefore, those polled should be given
the same real life option that juries are given. It is not a choice of only
one or the other, as polls now present the question. It is a choice of one,
when both are options. So the actual polling data that Mitchell and I both
recite is contrary to the way we now select punishments. Lets test reality.

Mitchell continues: "A Gallup Poll in June showed that 41% believe the death
penalty is applied unfairly in this country - and 80% said they believed an
innocent person had been executed in the past five years."

One might ask, why does the public believe this? Possibly because the media
doesn't do their job. It would be interesting to review if these polling
results reflect the reality of the death penalty system , or a fiction based
on inaccurate and misleading presentations by the media? What if the public
knew that

1) white murderers have been twice as likely to have been executed as have
been black murderers, since 1973;
2) that white murderers are executed 15 months more quickly than are black
death row inmates;
3) that under all racial/ethnic scenarios that it is the nature of the crimes
themselves, and not racism, which dictates the punishment;
4)  that, of all of the world's social and government institutions, that put
innocents at risk, I know of only one whereby there is no proof of an
innocent killed since 1900 - the US death penalty
5) that there is overwhelming proof that living murderers do harm and murder
again, meaning, of course, that murderers serving life, will always have more
opportunity to harm and murder , again, while in prison, after escape and/or
after improper release, than will executed murderers;
6) that the media has not critically reviewed  the claims of innocents
sentenced to die, and if they did, they would find that
    a) Mitchell praises the Chicago Tribune for its contributions to
anti-death penalty sentiment, but fails to note that
        1)only 1 of the 13 allegedly innocent freed from Illinois death row
has been confirmed as factually innocent; and that
        2) in that one case, where all of the claims of police and
prosecutorial misconduct, made by the Chicago Tribune, were fully examined by
the independent fact findings of a jury, that being in the case of the DuPage
7, that the jurors found totally the opposite of the Chicago Tribune stories
regarding Rolando Cruz.
    b) that the foundation of the current claims that 87 exonerated death row
inmates have been   freed since 1973  is a 1993 Congressional report that
makes no distinction between    those legally and factually innocent and that
exonerated most certainly doesn't mean factually innocent
    c) that a review of anti-death penalty claims reveals that only 20-40 of
those 87 cases are claiming factual innocence with evidence to support the
claim and that even those such claims have never been independently
confirmed. In other words, by unconfirmed anti death penalty claims, about
99.6% of death sentences are given to factually guilty people and all those
allegedly factually innocent have all been removed from death row - alive. It
is unlikely that there is any other criminal sanction in the world which is
so adept at convicting the factually guilty and so resourceful in freeing
those factually innocent convicted.

7) that in reviewing the effect of deterrence, that no social scientist has,
or ever will, state that the death penalty deters no one, but that there are
quite a few studies that find for deterrence. The common anti death penalty
claim that the death penalty is not a deterrent has no evidence to support
it. In fact, we know that all sanctions deter somebody and therefore, it
would be absurd to claim that the most severe sanction deters no one.

It appears that Mitchell and those papers Mitchell champions as supporters of
moratoriums and/or abolition are not interested in critically examining those
issues. Hardly a journalistic triumph.

I think Mitchell is correct when he states that "(m)ore politicians will
begin speaking out against executions if they see it no longer means
political death to do so." I find that such would be those hypocritical
politicians who have no moral compass but that of polls. Hardly a moral
foundation for change. But that is likely all Mitchell can come up with.

Mitchell thinks that the US should "join the rest of the modern Western world
in abandoning capital punishment". Again, Mitchell establishes my main point,
that is, he fails to tell the whole story.  As the liberal New Republic
(7/31/00) recently revealed (many of us already knew it) , the majority of
Europeans support capital punishment. It is the European elite in government,
academia and the media that reject execution. The European people support
executions as an option for those who commit vile crimes. But,of course,
Mitchell supports the anti democracy position of no execution. Furthermore,
Mitchell fails to note that countries cannot enjoy the economic benefits of
joining the European Union without getting rid of the death penalty. Simply
put, the economic benefits of joining the EU trump the justice factor of
execution.

But Mitchell knew that. He just didn't want the readers to see this reality.
And such reflects the poor journalistic standards we are so often exposed to
on this issue.

It remains to be seen if journalists have any desire to fully and critically
review these issues. If recent history is our guide, the answer is that they
do not. The slide in death penalty support is a reflection of greater
anti-death penalty activism and journalistic abandonment of their Fourth
Estate duties, or a unifying of the two.

If fact and reason prevail, the support for executions will rise.

PS Some months agao, I did an extensive interview with E&P covering all of
these issues and many more.. What happened to it?

Dudley Sharp Director of Death Penalty Resources Justice for All 

To: The Editors
        Letters to the Editor
        The New Republic

Re: "Europe's death-penalty elitism:Death in Venice", 7/31/00  at
        http://www.tnr.com/073100/marshall073100.html

My complements to the New Republic and author Marshall for a very thorough
and accurate article on death penalty opinion in Europe ("Europe's
death-penalty elitism: Death in Venice", 7/31/00).  I have attempted to make
the point, for quite some time, that the majority of the European population
is quite supportive of the death penalty. Being able to quote such an icon of
liberal anti-death penalty thought asTNR to support that fact will be an
assist. Thank you for your temerity in publishing such an article.

I cannot resist in challenging one assumption, that is, that the death
penalty is revenge. People appear to support executions, for the same reason
that they support any other punishment, be it probation, fines, community
service, imprisonment, etc. - this is, that some believe that it should be a
punishment option as a response to certain crimes. In fact, the death penalty
is never mandatory and US  juries have at least one other option to choose
from when deciding punishments in capital crimes.

The death penalty is a limited and statutorilly controlled punishment, where
the application is specifically taken out of the hands of those most affected
by the crime. Revenge is totally the opposite and does not even require
issues of guilt or innocence to be considered. No one questions that
execution is a severe punishment. However, there is no rational or factual
foundation in calling executions revenge.

One of the requirements for joining the European Union is doing away with the
death penalty. It is clear that, over the past few years, the newest members
to the EU have done away with the death penalty for the financial benefits of
the EU and not because of some moral revelation in opposition to that
sanction. 

The moral basis for all punishments is that they are deserved. The EU has not
attempted to tell us why it is morally permissable to take away the
fundamental human right of freedom, via legal imprisonment, but it is not
morally acceptable to take away another fundamental human right, life, via
legal execution, for the commission of horrible human rights violations, such
as rape/murders.

In fact, within centuries of conflict, we have overwhelming proof that
honorable Europeans wll willingly sacrifice their own lives in the defense of
freedom. It is not that surprising that they find justice within a system
that will execute dishonorable murderers who willfully destroy the lives of
the innocent.

Sincerely,

Dudley Sharp, Director, Death Penalty Resources, Justice For All, PO Box
55159, Houston, Texas  77255, ph. 713-935-9300, page 713-508-6979, fax
713-935-9301,e-mail Sharpjfa@aol.com,  jfanet@msn.com

 JFA is a Texas based criminal justice reform organization

    JUSTICE FOR ALL websites.

    http://www.jfa.net/
    http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
    http://www.murdervictims.com/

To: All Baltimore Sun reporters and all Maryland legislators

In response to the Baltimore Sun's editorial "Alarming disparities in death
penalty cases" (9/15/00).

The following questions are a result of the media coverage regarding two
recently discussed studies. The Little study, regarding the allegation that
federal death penalty referrals are much less likely from non death penalty
states than from death penalty states and that study discussed by Janet Reno,
regarding alleged disparities in the federal death sentence for minorities. I
suggest that the following questions, among others, would have to be fully
answered before any conclusions could be made from either study.

The Little study, regarding different levels of federal referrals from death
penalty states vs non death penalty states:

1) Aren't major metropolitan cities overwhelmingly those jurisdictions
most likely for such federal capital crimes to occur?
2) Aren't the overwhelming majority of major metropolitan areas within
states with the death penalty?
3) What is the variable, between federal referrals, within states with
and without the death penalty, of the actual numbers of potential death
penalty cases eligible for referral vs those actually referred and what
percentage (of originating state death penalty jurisdiction) of those
death penalty referrals resulted in the pursuit of a death sentence by
the Attorney General?
4) Is there any fact based evidence that individual personnel within the
various federal jurisdictions are using the individual states' death
penalty standing in shaping their decisions on federal death penalty
referrals?

As per Justice Department/Janet Reno study, regarding racial/ethnic
disparities in federal death sentencing:

4) When using the known murder rates of perpetrators by race/ethnicity,
we find that about 63% of all murders within the US are committed by
minorities. Is there any factual basis for believing that an 80%
minority population of the federal death row is inconsistent with
minority participation in federal death penalty offenses? And, if so,
taking into consideration the severity of the crimes committed, among
all other variables, is race or ethnic bias the only logical conclusion
of any race/ethcity variables found on federal death row?
5) Based on the specific nature of the crimes committed, and using an
arbitrary but defensible 20% variable, is there any evidence that an 80%
minority federal death row population is outside that reasonable area of
variability?
6) Is there any factual foundation for a finding that biased personnel
within various federal jurisdictions are responsible for selecting
federal death penalty cases, based on discrimination?

For both studies:

7) Would not all reputable statisticians find that the pool of federal
death penalty cases and referrals is much too small to make any
reasonable conclusions regarding any type of bias?

Best regards,

Dudley Sharp, Director, Death Penalty Resources, Justice For All, PO Box
55159, Houston, Texas  77255, ph. 713-935-9300, page 713-508-6979, fax
713-935-9301,e-mail Sharpjfa@aol.com,  jfanet@msn.com

 JFA is a Texas based criminal justice reform organization

    JUSTICE FOR ALL websites.

    http://www.jfa.net/
    http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
    http://www.murdervictims.com

Back to Top

We are always looking for new pro-death penalty info
To contribute send an e-mail to: Sean@DPINFO.COM 

Innocence and the death penalty.
By Dudley Sharp:

The anti death penalty movement
(antis) have been very successful in
getting their point across regarding the
risk to innocents being executed.
Additionally, when it comes to the
media and the death penalty, the
media has simply  forgotten both
Journalism 101 and an ethical duty to
the Fourth Estate.

Regarding the bogus 87 exonerated
cases from DPIC. The media, on its
own, somehow turned them into
innocence. Did any journalist ask

1) What is meant by exonerated?
2)How many of those exonerated are
you claiming are factually innocent?
3) What proof do you have to support
the claim?
4) Is their any independent source
which can verify your claim and/or
where can we research,
independently, your claims?
5) Do the appellate judges and the
district attorneys share your opinion?
6) How many appellate judges, or
reviews of the appellate record, or
interviews with the district attorneys,
has the media conducted to
investigate these claims? When
George Bush claims no innocents
executed under his watch an army of
reporters descends on Texas to
investigate. When a Columbia U.
professor claims that 68% of all death
penalty cases have error, no journalist
uinvestigates.

see my brief essay at ABCNews.com

www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/TakingSides/takingsides7.html 

6) Regarding the Illinois moratorium,
has any outside news agency
investigated Governor Ryan's claims
or the Chicago Tribune assessments?
To my knowledge, no. Incredible.
Governor Ryan has admitted
depending on the Chicago Tribune
series. In my opinion, by the DuPage
7 reporting alone, the CT has proven
to be a very undependable source of
objective information.

Please see my on line debates with
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune at

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/
columnists/zorn/feature/0,1438,13673
-13674,00.html

7) Is this really a concern for the
innocent or simply a campaign against
the death penalty? All are concerned
about the potential of an innocent
executed. Morally, I think we all have
equal concern about innocents put at
risk.. From a practical standpoint,
meaning regarding support for
executions, the pro death penalty
forces have the most to loose by such
an occurrence. I am not saying that
opponents want it to happen any more
than pros, but that such an occurrence
would benefit anti efforts and harm
support for executions.

However, the current efforts are
primarily directed as an attack against
the death penalty. How can we prove
that? Have the media and antis
concentrated their national efforts
regarding the staggering number of
innocents harmed and murdered by
parolees, probationers, pre trial
releasees, mandatory releasees, early
releasees or improper releasees of
known violent offenders? Never. Or
are they now concentrating on the
death penalty, where there is no proof
of an innocent executed since 1900?
Always.

What we are speaking to is errors in
judgment, procedure and
implementation of criminal justice
practices. Based on the factual reality
of harm to innocents, by number and
probability,  antis and the media
would be doing 99.9% of their stories
against the criminal justice practices
of early release and 0.1% of their stories on
the death penalty. But, of course, they
don't. That is because antis and the
media are against the death penalty
and not the other practices. So we
see, by fact and reason, that the
reporting regarding the innocents at
risk via execution is about being
against the death penalty and not
about a concern for innocence.

Furthermore, is there any social
institution, which puts innocents at
risk, where we have no proof of an
innocent killed since 1900? I believe
there is only one, the death penalty.

As we know that there is no such
proof of an innocent executed in the
US  since 1900, and as we know that
living murderers harm and murder
again, and as we know that executed
murderers cannot harm or murder
again, we always know that executing
murders will always result in a lower
probability and a lower reality of
harming and murder to innocents.

Executing murderers will always
result in more protection to the
innocent than any other punishment
and any corresponding risk of
executing an innocent. So, if
protection of the innocent is really a
concern and executions is the topic,
all logic and fact support that one will
ask for an expansion of death penalty
statutes and an increase in executions.

Getting rid of the death penalty and
replacing it with life without parole
will, by necessity, result in greater
risk to the innocent. This is
indisputable.

Furthermore, the appellate process
guarantees that any risk to the
innocent will be more pronounced by
sentences less than the death penalty.
Why? The only punishment which
SCOTUS has referred to as having
"super due process" is the death
penalty. By the overturning rate in
death penalty cases, we know that
even undetected innocents are more
likely to be freed than those who
receive a lesser sentence.

No one disputes that death penalty
cases have the greatest level of due
process protections. Therefore, if
your objection to execution is the
possibility of irreversible error, such
due process concludes that it is more
likely that an innocent sentenced to a
life term will die, as in innocent in
prison, than it is that an innocent is
likely to be executed. Both
irreversible error, but one much more
likely than the other.


Innocence and the death penalty #2

Unquestionably, everyone's greatest
concern with the death penalty is the
possibility of putting innocents at risk
of execution.  Using reason and facts,
we find that a concern for innocents
will result in greater support for the
death penalty.

First, we know that the 23 "innocents"
executed claim from 1987 is false.
The authors of that 23 "innocent"
executed study, Profs. Bedau and
Radelet, stated in 1988, "We agree
with our critics that we have not
proved these executed defendants to
be innocent; we never claimed that we
had." There is, in fact, no
unchallenged claim of an innocent
executed in the US since 1900 and,
more relevant, not since the modern
era of the death penalty began in
1973.

Barry Scheck, defense attorney for OJ
Simpson, co-founder of the Innocence
Project, and featured speaker at the
Wrongfully Convicted on Death Row
Conference in Chicago (11/13-15/98),
stated that there was no proof of an
innocent executed (in the US).


Currently, anti death penalty groups
present  unconfirmed allegations that
some 87 death row inmates have been
"exonerated" from 1973 through
2000.  However, it appears they have
confused the legally innocent with the
factually innocent.  Big difference.

A review of those cases at the (anti-
death penaltty) Death Penalty
Information Center website, finds that
only about 20 of those cases claim to
be factually innocent, with alleged
evidence to support the claim. And
one would expect the DPIC to post
those cases most supportive of their
position and in the best possible light.

Prof. Lawrence Marshall, who
organized the Wrongfully Convicted
on Death Row Conference in
Chicago, stated that, "In a good half
of these 75 (now claimed to be 87)
cases, the exoneration is so complete
that it erases any doubt whatsoever."
Such uncorroberated claims represent
about 40 innocents released from
death row.

Assuming Marshall's accuracy, that is
about 40 alleged factually innocent
convicted, out of about 7000 death
sentences since 1973.  So differing
anti-death penalty sources are alleging
that somwhere between 20-40
innocents may have been sentenced to
death since 1973. Meaning that, with
uncorroberated data, supplied by anti-
death penalty sources, death penalty
sentences are 99.6% accurate in
convicting the factually guilty, and
none of those alleged innocent are,
currently, subject to execution.

No one disputes that death penalty
cases have the greatest level of due
process protections. Therefore, if
your objection to execution is the
possibility of irreversible error, such
due process concludes that it is more
likely that an innocent sentenced to a
life term will die, as in innocent in
prison, than it is that an innocent is
likely to be executed. Both
irreversible error, but one much more
likely than the other.

As virtually everyone agrees that all
punishments deter some, are we to
conclude that, somehow, the most
severe sanction deters none?

Furthermore, the assertion that the
death penalty is not at deterrent is
simply false. In reviewing 30 years of
deterrent studies, the strongest
statement one may make against
deterrence is that there is conflicting
data. And no one has proven the death
penalty is not a deterrent..

While I believe that quite a solid case
for deterrence does exist, if unsure,
we should head the words of
Marquette U. Professor John
McAdams, who concludes, "If we
execute murderers and there is in fact
no deterrent effect, we have killed a
bunch of murderers. If we fail to
execute murderers, and doing so
would in fact have deterred other
murders, we have allowed the killing
of a bunch of innocent victims. I
would much rather risk the former.
This, to me, is not a tough call."

Finally, executed murderers cannot
harm again. Living murderers do harm
again, quite often.

Therefore, a concern for innocents
will always result in more support for
executions.
Back to Top

To:     The Editors
        Letters to the Editor
        The Keene Sentinel

The Keene Sentinel makes important errors of fact and judgment in their
8/1/00 editorial "Racism is alive and well on Death Row".

The Sentinel believes that because 60% of white defendants and only 41% of
blacks defendants negotiated their way out of a federal death penalty that
such represents "that black defendants prefer being sentenced to death."
While this Sentinel absurdity is obviously tongue in cheek, it also reflects
an ignorance of the nature of plea bargains. Of course, neither black nor
white defendants are keen on being executed. Plea bargains are based on many
factors, including culpability, evidence and the willingness on the part of
the defendant to accept a plea bargain, to name but a few. Until all such
evidence is fully reviewed, no conclusion of racist intent can, responsibly,
be made.

To illustrate, we know that, nationally, white murderers are twice as likely
to be executed as are black murderers and are also executed 15 months more
quickly than their black ilk.  Does this establish discrimination against
white murder defendants? Of course not. Many factors are involved and a full
case review is necessary before a responsible conclusion can be made.

The Sentinel states that in 1987, that the US Supreme Court concluded in the
famous race based death row appeal McClesky v Kemp (aka McClesky v Georgia)
that "racial discrimination (IN SENTENCING) is irrelevant.". In fact, the
Court made no such finding and the Sentinel's comments represent a total
distortion of the McClesky decision. It is precisely this type of misinformed
commentary, evidenced by the Sentinel, which has become standard in the death
penalty debate.

It is testiment to the wisdom of the McClesky decison, that the Court spoke
in 1987, to the future wrongful assumptions made by the Sentinel and others.
The Court found that  "(w)here the discretion that is fundamental to our
criminal justice process is involved, we decline to assume that what is
unexplained [by measured factors] is invidious."(481 US at 313). Good advice.

Your editorial illustrates that conclusions based on little knowledge and
much assumption are hardly worthy of a newspaper titled the Sentinel.

Dudley Sharp, Director, Death Penalty Resources, Justice For All, PO Box
55159, Houston, Texas  77255, ph. 713-935-9300, page 713-508-6979, fax
713-935-9301,e-mail Sharpjfa@aol.com,  jfanet@msn.com

 JFA is a Texas based criminal justice reform organization

    JUSTICE FOR ALL websites.

    http://www.jfa.net/
    http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
    http://www.murdervictims.com/

References for fact checking:
1) 
http://dsc.gsu.edu/dscjlk/PROFILE%20FOR%20JOE%20KATZ/mccleskeyarticlerevised.h
tml

2) http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue251/item5519.asp

3)
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html#C.++RACE,+SENTENCING+AND+THE+DEATH+PENA
LTY

The Times made errors of fact and omission within their brief article
"Execution delay to aid Gore" (8/4/00).

First, the title of the article makes a claim with no evidence to support it.
According to the Associated Press interviews, Democratic Presidential nominee
Gore is the only candidate actually calling for an expansion of death penalty
statutes in the US. Therefore, from that philosophical standpoint this delay
will likely have no effect on anyone's vote.

Secondly, the Times' claim that "Until now, there have been no guidelines on
how inmates on the federal
Government's death row could seek clemency from the President." This is
totally untrue. Such clemency procedures have always been in place for all
federal sentences. President Clinton, for some reason, decided that he should
create clemency procedures just for the death sentence and distinct from
other sentences. Some may see this as a cynical effort by Clinton to prevent
himself from having to make this decision
and to somehow benefit Gore. Such decision could actually hurt Gore if voters
view this with such a spin.
This particularly in light of the loud criticism which Clinton attracted when
he originally ran for president and left the campaign trail to oversee the
execution of an allegedly mentally impared murderer in Arkansas.

The claims of systemic racism and the potential innocence of Garza are just
absurd.

The evidence for Garza's innocence claims have been fully reviewed for years
by the appellate courts and, originally, at trial. The case for  his guilt is
overwhelming.

Regarding racism, white murderers are twice as likely to be executed in the
United States as are black murderers and are executed 15 months more quickly
than their black ilk. Hispanic murderers are also executed at a lesser rate
than are white murderers.

Dudley Sharp, Director, Death Penalty Resources, Justice For All, PO Box
55159, Houston, Texas  77255, ph. 713-935-9300, page 713-508-6979, fax
713-935-9301,e-mail Sharpjfa@aol.com,  jfanet@msn.com

 JFA is a Texas based criminal justice reform organization

    JUSTICE FOR ALL websites.

    http://www.jfa.net/
    http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
    http://www.murdervictims.com/

RELEASE DATE:                                CONTACT:  Michael Rushford
July 12, 2000                                            (916) 446-0345

                   McGINN DNA CONFIRMS GUILT
            Confirmation is typical in capital cases
                               
    USA Today reports in today's edition that the DNA test for
convicted Texas murderer Ricky McGinn is consistent with his
guilt of rape as well.  The Sacramento-based Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation notes that such confirmation is common in post-
conviction DNA testing in capital cases.
     McGinn was convicted of the rape and murder of his 12-year-
old stepdaughter, Stephanie Flanary.  Forensic evidence had
previously tied McGinn to the murder, but he still maintained his
innocence of the rape.  Governor George W. Bush delayed the
execution for DNA testing of a pubic hair found in Stephanie's
body.
     DNA testing in three other Texas death row cases has
similarly confirmed guilt:
       Domingo Cantu was executed Oct. 28, 1999 for the 1988 rape
and murder of a 94-year-old woman in Dallas.  At trial, the
victim's blood was matched to blood on his T-shirt and underwear
by serology.  Shortly before execution, he requested and received
DNA testing of the evidence, which matched the victim to a
probability of 4 billion to one.
       David Hicks was executed Jan. 20, 2000 for the 1988 murder
and sexual assault of his own grandmother, then 88 years old.
Although earlier DNA testing was used at trial, he requested and
received new testing.  A sample from the victim's anal cavity
matched Hicks to a probability of one trillion to one.
       Odell Barnes was executed March 1, 2000 for the 1989
murder of a Wichita Falls woman.  Testing of a vaginal swab was
inconclusive with the techniques available at the time of trial.
Retesting in 1998 provided a positive match.  Barnes then
claimed, for the first time, that he had consensual sexual
relations with the victim, two decades older than him, a story
that would have made the testing unnecessary and irrelevant had
he told it in the first place.
     Two well-known, but commonly misunderstood, cases from
Virginia also involve DNA confirmation of guilt.  Roger Coleman,
convicted of rape and murder of his sister-in-law in 1982, sought
and obtained a court order for DNA testing by an expert of his
own choice.  The expert found the sample matched, and that the
probability of the match being random was only a small fraction
of a percent.  Two years later, Time Magazine ran a cover story
on Coleman, claiming he "might be innocent" and describing other
evidence in detail, but omitting any mention of the DNA test.
The evidence is described in the federal district court's opinion
issued shortly before Coleman's execution:  Coleman v. Thompson,
798 F. Supp. 1209, 1213-1214 (W.D.Va. 1992).
     Joseph O'Dell was convicted of the 1985 murder, abduction,
rape, and sodomy of 44-year-old Helen Schartner.  Five years
after the trial, he asked for DNA testing based on new methods.
The prosecution consented.  As with Coleman, O'Dell chose the
lab.  Of the two stains tested one did not match, but the other
was a conclusive match in the opinion of O'Dell's chosen lab,
with a pattern occuring only once in 166,000 people in the North
American Caucasian population.  The evidence is described in the
federal appellate court's opinion:  O'Dell v. Netherland, 95 F.
3d 1214, 1247-1248, 1253 (4th Cir. 1996). 
     The Death Penalty Information Center claims that DNA was
"involved" in the cases of eight persons released from death row
since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.  However,
their list does not indicate how many of these cases involve
actual proof of innocence.  The list includes cases where the
prosecution's theory from the beginning was that there were
multiple perpetrators, so that the presence of another person's
DNA does not disprove guilt.

 Kent Scheidegger, CJLF Legal Director, is available for comment
at (916) 446-0345.

Questions by Dudley Sharp:

Questions for the media and anti-death penalty folks

Is there proof of an innocent executed in the US since 1900?

Is the proof overwhelming that living murderers harm and murder again?

Is the proof overwhelming that executed murderers do not harm and murder
again?

Is the proof overwhelming that living murderers are infinitely more likely to
harm and murder again than are executed murderers?

Is the reality that if antis have their way that no executions will put more
innocents at risk because living murderers are infinitely more likely to harm
and murder again than are executed murderers?

If innocents have been executed in the US since 1900, is it a benefit to
innocents to put more of them at risk by allowing known murderers to live?

Dudley Sharp, Director, Death Penalty Resources, Justice For All, PO Box
55159, Houston, Texas  77255
 JFA is a Texas based criminal justice reform organization

    JUSTICE FOR ALL websites.

    http://www.jfa.net/
    http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
    http://www.murdervictims.com/

Pro & Con: The Death Penalty in Black and White

State of Missouri v. Bert Leroy Hunter  

  Get the latest death penalty news from Yahoo

Just in from Charlene Hall
Justice For All Webmistress
www.jfa.net
www.prodeathpenalty.com
www.murdervictims.com
Several excellent articles about the death penalty in general and Gary Graham in particular.

Attitude toward death penalty gets in the way of facts -
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/leo.html
Executions, guilt, and the facts of the Graham case
JOHN LEO - Jewish World Review - 6/27/00

The last guys 'proved innocent'-
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter.html
ANNE COULTER - Jewish World Review - 6/27/00

To Execute a Murderer - http://www.spectator.org/special/special.htm
Making martyrs of criminals, the left is trying to make it more difficult
EVAN GAHR - American Spectator - 6/23/00

Death Penalty "Error" Study has Errors of its Own -
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/LiebmanCJLF.htm
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation - 6/19/00

Death Penalty - Still Guilty -
http://enquirer.com/columns/bronson/2000/06/18/pb_bronson_death.html
PETER BRONSON - Cincinnati Enquirer Editorial - 6/18/00

Death of Death - http://www.spectator.org/archives/0004TAS/york0004.htm
Death penalty abolitionists could never get the public to support their
cause -- until they came up with a new way to sell their product.
BYRON YORK - American Spectator - April 2000

Letters to the Editor
National Review

By Dudley Sharp Director, Death Penalty Resources, Justice For All

JUSTICE FOR ALL websites.
    http://www.jfa.net/
    http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
    http://www.murdervictims.com/

As is his nature, Robert Pambianco was too kind ("Alter Falters When debating
capital punishment, innocence is not the issue", NR, 7/3/00).

The subject of the risk of executing the innocent has been but another anti
death penalty deception which has had a huge assist from members of the
mainstream press.

The antis have put forward 87 alleged innocents that have been sent to death
row since 1973. If the media had done ANY investigation, they would find that
even the anti death penalty movement itself is only claiming that the
factually innocent so sentenced is from 25-40.  The overtly anti-death
penalty Death Penalty Information Center out of Washington, DC, originally
called the 87 exonerated. The media turned them into the factually innocent.

Therefore, about 99.5% of all death sentences since 1973 were factually
guilty murderers and all of the allegedly innocent have been removed from
death row, via appeal. By conviction and appeal. there is likely no more
accurate criminal sanction in the world.  And yes, all social institutions
can be improved. The advent of DNA testing makes death penalty accuracy even
higher. And yes, George Will, this IS a government program.

Think for a moment. Is there any social institution, where innocents are put
at risk, where there is no proof of an innocent being killed since 1900 I
suspect there is only one - the death penalty.

And Pambianco points out what appears to be so obvious. Ending capital
punishment will always RESULT in more harm and murder to innocents than will
the
RISK to innocents executed if we continue the sanction. The majority of the
media and the anti-death penalty movement (or are they one and the same?)
have strangely avoided that obvious fact. Or possibly someone is denying that
living murderers will always put more innocents at risk than will executed
murderers? I didn't think so.

Regarding deterrence, no social scientist has said or will say that
executions deter no one. Yet there are numerous studies which do find for
deterrence. All punishments deter someone.  Yet, the anti-death penalty folks
would have us accept that the most severe sanction deters no one. How absurd.
Again, the anti death penalty movement chooses to put more innocents in harms
way.  Those supporting executions are less willing to do so.

Pambianco asked why don't anti death penalty groups concentrate on the moral
issue. Because they know they will loose. When our children are raped,
tortured and murdered we do believe, by an overwhelming margin, that such
perpetrators deserve the ultimate sanction.

Dudley Sharp

By Paul G. Cassell
          Copyright 2000 Wall Street Journal
          June 17, 2000

          On Monday avowed opponents of the death penalty caught the
attention of Al Gore among others when they released a report
purporting to demonstrate that the nation's capital punishment system
is "collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes." Contrary to the
headlines written by some gullible editors, however, the report
proves nothing of the sort.

          At one level, the report is a dog-bites-man story. It is
well known that the Supreme Court has mandated a system of super due
process for the death penalty. An obvious consequence of this
extraordinary caution is that capital sentences are more likely to be
reversed than lesser sentences are. The widely trumpeted statistic in
the report -- the 68% "error rate" in capital cases -- might
accordingly be viewed as a reassuring sign of the judiciary's
circumspection before imposing the ultimate sanction.

          Deceptive Factoids

          The 68% factoid, however, is quite deceptive. For starters,
it has nothing to do with "wrong man" mistakes -- that is, cases in
which an innocent person is convicted for a murder he did not commit.
Indeed, missing from the media coverage was the most critical
statistic: After reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, the study's
authors (like other researchers) were unable to find a single case in
which an innocent person was executed.  Thus, the most important
error rate -- the rate of mistaken executions -- is zero.

          What, then, does the 68% "error rate" mean? It turns out to
include any reversal of a capital sentence at any stage by appellate
courts -- even if those courts ultimately uphold the capital
sentence. If an appellate court asks for additional findings from the
trial court, the trial court complies, and the appellate court then
affirms the capital sentence, the report finds not extraordinary due
process but a mistake. Under such curious scorekeeping, the report
can list 64 Florida post conviction cases as involving "serious
errors," even though more than one-third of these cases ultimately
resulted in a reimposed death sentence, and in not one of the Florida
cases did a court ultimately overturn the murder conviction.

          To add to this legerdemain, the study skews its sample with
cases that are several decades old. The report skips the most recent
five years of cases, with the study period ostensibly covering 1973
to 1995. Even within that period, the report includes only cases that
have been completely reviewed by state appellate courts. Eschewing
pending cases knocks out one-fifth of the cases originally decided
within that period, leaving a residual skewed toward the 1980s and
even the 1970s.

          During that period, the Supreme Court handed down a welter
of decisions setting constitutional procedures for capital cases. In
1972 the court struck down all capital sentences in the country as
involving too much discretion. When California, New York, North
Carolina and other states responded with mandatory capital-punishment
statutes, the court in 1976 struck these down as too rigid. The
several hundred capital sentences invalidated as a result of these
two cases inflate the report's error totals. These decades-old
reversals have no relevance to contemporary death-penalty issues.
Studies focusing on more recent trends, such as a 1995 analysis by
the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, found that reversal rates have
declined sharply as the law has settled.

          The simplistic assumption underlying the report is that
courts with the most reversals are the doing the best job of "error
detection." Yet courts can find errors where none exist. About half
of the report's data on California's 87% "error rate" comes from the
tenure of former Chief Justice Rose Bird, whose keen eye found
grounds for reversing nearly every one of the dozens of capital
appeals brought to her court in the1970s and early 1980s. Voters in
1986 threw out Bird and two of her like-minded colleagues, who had
reversed at least 18 California death sentences for a purportedly
defective jury instruction that the California Supreme Court has
since authoritatively approved.

          The report also relies on newspaper articles and secondhand
sources for factual assertions to an extent not ordinarily found in
academic research. This approach produces some jarring mistakes. To
cite one example, the study claims William Thompson's death sentence
was set aside and a lesser sentence imposed. Not true. Thompson
remains on death row in Florida today for beating Sally Ivester with
a chain belt, ramming a chair leg and nightstick into her vagina and
torturing her with lit cigarettes (among other depravities) before
leaving her to bleed to death.

          These obvious flaws in the report have gone largely
unreported.  The report was distributed to selected print and
broadcast media nearly a week in advance of Monday's embargo date.
This gave ample time to orchestrate favorable media publicity, which
conveniently broke 24 hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee
began hearings on capital-sentencing issues.

          The report continues what has thus far been a glaringly one-
sided national discussion of the risk of error in capital cases.
Astonishingly, this debate has arisen when, contrary to urban legend,
there is no credible example of any innocent person executed in this
country under the modern death-penalty system. On the other hand,
innocent people undoubtedly have died because of our mistakes in
failing to execute.

          Real Mistakes

          Collen Reed, among many others, deserves to be remembered
in any discussion of our error rates. She was kidnapped, raped,
tortured and finally murdered by Kenneth McDuff during the Christmas
holidays in1991. She would be alive today if McDuff had not narrowly
escaped execution three times for two 1966 murders. His life was
spared when the Supreme Court set aside death penalties in 1972, and
he was paroled in 1989 because of prison overcrowding in Texas. After
McDuff's release, Reed and at least eight other women died at his
hands. Gov. George W. Bush approved McDuff's execution in 1998.

          While no study has precisely quantified the risk from
mistakenly failing to execute justly convicted murderers, it is
ndisputed that we extend extraordinarily generosity to murderers.
According to the National Center for Policy Analysis, the average
sentence for murder and non-negligent manslaughter is less than six
years. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that of 52,000
inmates serving time for homicide, more than 800 had previously been
convicted of murder. That sounds like a system collapsing under the
weight of its own mistakes -- and innocent people dying as a result.

Mr. Cassell is a professor of law at the University of Utah.

See Paul Cassell's web site for more info   

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