CNN's Partners for "Death Row Stories"
Redford, Gibney, Sarandon: Zero credibility on the death penalty
Dudley Sharp
This important topic, the murder of innocents and the prosecution of their murderers, requires some respect for innocent murder victims and a respect for the truth -- impossible, without fact checking.
Is it likely that Redford's, Gibney's and Sarandon's (the authors'), article reflects the same lack of balance and lack of accuracy as produced within "Death Row Stories"?
Would their standards, all of a sudden, change?
My guess is that they were fed a bunch of anti death penalty nonsense and just accepted it, without question.
Willfully clueless? Respect for the truth and for innocent murder victims? Production values?
1) Exonerations
Here, a truly idiotic statement by the authors:
" . . . exonerations came in spite of the system, not because of it. It is a system that seeks execution first, and rarely asks questions of itself later — if at all."
This is so utterly devoid of reality, it is, simply, astounding.
Let's look at reality: "What is done before executions?"
There have been about 700,000 murders since 1973. There have been nearly 1400 executions since 1973, or 0.2% of those cases.
The due process protections for the death penalty has been called super due process by the US Surpreme Court.
In Texas death penalty trials, the defendant/convicted party needs only 1 out of 48 jury votes (2%) to avoid the death penalty, with the prosecutor needing to get 48 out or 48 jury votes against the defendant/convicted party for that murderer to get the death penalty (1).
Nationally, 37% of all death penalty cases are overturned on appeal, an additional 5% are commuted and only 15% are executed -- or 42% removed from death row because of super due process and concern. 15% executed after completion of super due process, with 11 years of appeals, on average.
With 0.4% actually innocent released upon appeals, with super due process, over a period of 41 years (2).
That is the system. Does it, remotely, appear to be "Executions first"?
That is how bad Redford, Sarandon and Gibney are.
Are the production values in "Death Row Stories" better?
2) DETERRENCE
The authors write: "a survey of the nation’s criminologists found 88 percent saying that capital punishment does not deter crime.
Well, yes and no.
My guess is the authors never looked at the study.
The answer to question 12 finds that 92% of the criminologists agree that the death penalty may have some deterrent effect (3).
The answer to question 8 found that 61% (or 46) of the criminologists found some support for the deterrent effects of the death penalty through the empirical, social science studies (3).
It appears you were fed a bunch of anti death penalty nonsense and just bought it with zero fact checking.
The problem with the question that got the 88% response, is this:
1. Do you feel that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment to murder—that it lowers the murder rate, or not?
Murder rates are not how deterrence is measured (4). So, there can be deterrence of some potential murderers with no noticeable effect on the murder rate, as what we are concerned with, with deterrence, is the net murder rate, not the gross rates, so they had to say no.
Had they removed the "---that it lowers the murder rate, or not", the response would have been as we see in question 8 and 12, as is obvious -- that how those 8 and 12 answers came to be.
3) More on Deterrence
The authors have no clue how deterrence is measured. It isn't by murder rates (4).
Every state in the US, as with every country, worldwide, with or without the death penalty, have regions, cities, towns, villages and neighborhoods, some with high, some with low and some with medium murder rates. Are the authors unaware?
Let's say Iceland has the lowest crime and murder rates in the world. Does that mean that no potential criminals are ever deterred in any other countries, because all those other countries have higher crime and murder rates? Of course not.
Did the authors consider Michigan and Maryland, Detroit and Washington DC?
Maybe the authors would consider looking at the murder rates in countries and cities around the world and which ones do or do not have the death penalty. (4) Maybe they'll learn something. Why are there countless exceptions to the authors' claim? Because the authors are unaware.
All prospects of a negative outcome deter some. It is a truism. Are we to believe authors who say that the most severe sanction of all deters none? (5)
The death penalty deters some potential murderers, just as all other sanctions deter some other potential criminals. The anecdotal evidence is, overwhelming, that the death penalty is a greater deterrent than is a life sentence. No surprise, all folks, as potential murderers, prefer life over death and fear death more than life (5)
3) Cost
It seems the authors fact checked none of the cost studies.
There are three states, maybe more, whereby the death penalty likely saves money over life without parole. (6)
By far, the most efficient state is Virginia, which has executed 71% of their death sentenced murderers (108) since 1976 and did so within about 7.1 years, on average, (6) and did so without even a hint of an innocent executed -- a responsible protocol that all states are capable of duplicating and that would likely save all states quite a bit of money.
If Virginia can do it, why not all other death penalty states?
4) Race
Although the authors put this under arbitrary . . .
I thought that the Maryland author of that Harris County study had called it unreliable, Has that changed?
Nationally, white murderers are twice as likely to be executed as are black murderers (7).
"There is no race of the offender / victim effect at either the decision to advance a case to penalty hearing or the decision to sentence a defendant to death given a penalty hearing." (7).
"After accounting for some of the many factors that may influence penalty decisions, neither race of the defendant nor race of the victim appreciably improved prediction of whom was sentenced to death . . . ". (7).
"Texas sentences murderers to death at a rate below the national mean." (7).
5) Colorado
Had any of the authors looked at all the cases put on death row, in Colorado, in their history of the modern death penalty and reviewed the mass exodus of death row, you may have realized that the death penalty process is not just the 3 currently on death row, as you seem to have so blindly thought, but the 23 sentenced to death.
Truly pathetic of the authors, if the truth means anything.
6) Arbitrariness
The authors think the death penalty is arbitrary.
Reality: The death penalty is the least arbitray of any sancition within the US.
About 10% of murders may be death penalty eligible. Of those, about 12% receive the death penalty. I doubt there is any major crime that receives the maximum sentence more than 12% of the time, excluding, possibly, those subject to mandatory minimums (8).
For example, depending upon state, rapes may be subject to probation or a life sentence and anything in between.
Death penalty eligible cases only have two optional sentences, death or life, by definition, much less arbitrary.
Death penalty eligible crimes are the only ones for which the US Supreme Court has described the protections as "super due process". The protections pre trial, at trial, in appellate review and in commutation/clemency proceedings are unmatched by any other sanction (8).
Those factors define the death penalty as the least arbitrary sanction in the US.
1) Texas Death Penalty Procedures
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
2) The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
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3) "Deterrence & the Death Penalty: A Reply to Radelet and Lacock
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4) a) "DEATH PENALTY DETERRENCE CLARIFIED"
b) DETERRENCE, THE DEATH PENALTY & MURDER RATES
c) "Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let's be clear"
b) DETERRENCE, THE DEATH PENALTY & MURDER RATES
c) "Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let's be clear"
5) OF COURSE THE DEATH PENALTY DETERS: A review of the debate
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
6) Saving Costs with The Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
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7) RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
8) THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS SANCTION
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest of protections
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/
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