What’s Wrong with the World

I completely agree. And I am for the death penalty. IMO, that is a principled position. NOr can the bare possibility of executing an innocent man make it illegitimate in itself. NOt in the slightest.

I wish one of those passersby had been either big enough, tough enough, or sufficiently trained in some sort of hand-to-hand combat to take the guy down before he killed the child, though. I would accept that outcome even if it meant the bad guy lived. It sounds like they tried, but not with very much force. Where's the big good guy by-stander with a straight left to the jaw that knocks the bad guy out cold instantly?

I certainly hope the deputy who shot him is a hero and gets in no trouble whatsoever. It sounds like that's going to be okay, though.

I would accept that outcome even if it meant the bad guy lived.

Absolutely. I'd suspect, though, that anything shy of lethal force would have been insufficient to halt the frenzy. At best, it would have been one of those scenarios involving a protracted struggle, in which the perp finally gets tasered, whacked with the truncheon many times, or just shot. In any case, when there is the imperative of saving a victim, the most efficient means should be employed to halt the attack; that doesn't mean "head shot", but it does mean that if an incapacitating shot happens to kill, then that's the way it goes.

but instead become blessed transgressions, occasions for the malefactor to be given a lifelong opportunity to change his mind about the path he walked.

Isn't there some middle ground here? It seems to me there is considerable space between killing the perpetrator and reducing his crime into a "blessed transgression."

This is the same game some conservatives like Jonah Goldberg play with torture -- either you accept waterboarding, or you think that 30 seconds of a terrorist's suffering carries more weight than the deaths of 9/11. No, but one is under our control, and the other isn't, and one does not justify the other.

I don't weep for the killer. As a father, I literally have to turn away from news stories about what he was doing. And that he was killed is vastly preferable to allowing him to run free. But him being subdued through non-lethal force would have been the best outcome, acknowledging that the difference between this and what happened is a lot less than the difference between what happened and him not being subdued.

And I just don't care. I'm thinking of the precious little world that ended as a result of his evil. I care about that.

Well, good for you. Congratulations for taking the heroic moral stand of caring about an infant who was murdered. That takes a lot of courage.

This is not an either-or proposition, and is insulting to those who oppose the death penalty by implying that it because we don't care as much as you about the victims.

Mr. JohnMcG:

God himself commands that murderers be executed. In Genesis 9: 5-6, God commands Noah and his descendants to execute murderers because murder is the ultimate violation of the divine image in humanity, and killing the perpetrator is the only proportional punishment.

The rest of the Torah reinforces that command, and the NT doesn't countermand it. Indeed, Sister Helen Prejean herself admitted as much in her book, Dead Man Walking, when discussing Jesus and the adulteress in John 8:

"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."

It seems to me there is considerable space between killing the perpetrator and reducing his crime into a "blessed transgression."

I think that blanket opposition to the death penalty, and much opposition besides, reduces that space to an imperceptible gap. No one has ever dissuaded me on this score.

This is the same game some conservatives like Jonah Goldberg play with torture..

No it isn't. Torture is always immoral, while capital punishment is declared licit all through the Bible and Church history.

Congratulations for taking the heroic moral stand of caring about an infant who was murdered. That takes a lot of courage.

Never intimated that it did. Why do moral stands have to be "courageous"? Is it courageous to, I don't know, get up and go to work when you always feel like crap? No. It's just what you have to do. And accepting that innocence > guilt, and good > evil are valid guides in these cases doesn't take courage. It's just the right thing to do.

This is not an either-or proposition, and is insulting to those who oppose the death penalty by implying that it because we don't care as much as you about the victims.

This is the question: how is a lifetime of three squares and a cot, let alone parole after 10 to 20 years, proportionate to the offense? I do not see it. The victim is dead, and the killer gets a do-over.

"...the most efficient means should be employed to halt the attack; that doesn't mean "head shot", but it does mean that if an incapacitating shot happens to kill, then that's the way it goes."

Absolutely. I only mentioned the non-lethal bystander because it sounds like (unfortunately) none of the non-police bystanders had guns, and yet they got there before the cops. I just can't understand why they couldn't have stopped him. I'm glad they tried, but I'm always tempted in these cases to second guess. You guys couldn't have all jumped on him at once? And so forth. Which is probably unfair of me to the bystanders.

I've never, thank God, found myself confronted with the dilemma, so some will undoubtedly feel free to condemn me, but in my mind, just being a man means that one has to jump the guy, make an attempt to stop his barbarism. I'd not be able to sleep peacefully were I to stand around, pathetically watching an unfolding atrocity. May as well watch a snuff film.

...but in my mind, just being a man means that one has to jump the guy, make an attempt to stop his barbarism.

One of the requirements for instituting the death penalty from a Catholic perspective is that it is done in a context of love for the person being executed. Since capital punishment has been licit, it is assumed that this is possible, and thus, "you're just out for bloody vengeance against the murderer" isn't a valid or convincing argument against the death penalty.

I submit that the converse is also true; that it is possible to oppose the death penalty while respecting the injustice done to the victims, and "I care about the victims, unlike you people who see the crime as little more than a speed bump in the perpetrator's road to repentance," is an equally invalid and unconvincing argument.

With that established, we can discuss the prudence of capital punishment on firm ground. But a ****-swinging contest over who cares more about the victims doesn't do anybody any good.

My argument is only invalid if the question of whether a nation shall have capital punishment is a purely circumstantial and prudential one; if the question is one of justice, then it is so precisely because the gravity of the injury borne by the victims mandates it. In fact, if the question is purely prudential, then the victims do drop out of the equation: they're already gone, and the remaining issue is that of settling the relation of the perpetrator to society. If however, we're contemplating the demands of justice, which always implicates questions of proportionality, then the victims must be contemplated - how can one appreciate the nature of a crime without thinking upon its victims?

Hence, I don't perceive that there is a **** waving contest in any of this. The issue of capital punishment involves the questions of proportionate punishment, which is a question of justice, as well as those of prudence, of how to deal societally with violent offenders, how to secure the common good from their depredations.

Just to weigh in on Lydia's concerns about bystanders. I was trained in various martial arts for 4 years, and at the end of my training I was actually an instructor as well. I have personal experience in subdueing men larger than me physically, as well as countless stories of a close friend that was a City of Atlanta Police Officer. All of that said, if you do not know exactly what you are doing it can be very difficult to approach a crazed and aggressive individual (as this one clearly was). After years of training on pure fighting, I had to also be trained in managing adrenaline. Even when you know what you are doing, extreme situations make your body work very differently. All that to say that sometimes it sounds a lot easier to do what your asking than it is. These people were faced with something that we all hope that we never see, I admire their efforts and pray that this firefighter and others do no live haunted by the same doubts you expressed.

This is simply a nightmare come to life isn't it?

I appreciate that, Jay. I'm entirely ignorant of martial arts, and I don't even know how many people were involved here. I can well imagine that you are right.

To relate this incident to the death penalty seems to me to be somewhat wrongheaded. This guy was shot and killed in order to stop his attack on the child; he was not executed. Of course we can speculate on what would have happened had he been apprehended, brought to trial, etc., instead of shot, but we simply do not know enough yet to pronounce judgment. Was he insane? (I know a person who became a violent paranoid schizophrenic almost overnight because of a stroke). Was he high on something? Was he just plain evil? Seems to me that there may be more here than meets the eye.

This is not to imply that there is any question whatsoever as to whether he should or should not have been taken out. I believe the officers acted correctly and only wish they'd have arrived sooner. If I'd have been there I hope I'd have had the nerve to go after him with the large, thick stick I keep in my trunk.

The only relation to the DP is the hypothetical: what should have happened to him had he survived? All I'm saying is that he needed to go, either way.

"All I'm saying is that he needed to go, either way."

I simply don't think we know enough yet to make that determination.

"I've never, thank God, found myself confronted with the dilemma, so some will undoubtedly feel free to condemn me, but in my mind, just being a man means that one has to jump the guy, make an attempt to stop his barbarism. I'd not be able to sleep peacefully were I to stand around, pathetically watching an unfolding atrocity. May as well watch a snuff film."

Last summer, whilst hanging outside a bar in Norman, OK at 2:30 in the morning (don't ask) I saw, across the parking lot, a man physically assault a woman, wrestle her to the ground, and put her in a choke hold. Being the great example of manliness that I am, I naturally stood there and hesitated for a moment, to see if (hoping) he would release her and the whole thing would die down and go away, so I wouldn't have to get my clothes wrinkled. After waiting about 5 seconds and deciding he wasn't going to let her go, I started running at top speed towards the situation, and yelling. Being that it was dark and I was about 40 yards away from the situation, I couldn't tell exactly what I was getting myself into. How big was the guy? Did he have a weapon of some kind? No way to tell until I got up there close enough to get into trouble. Well, as I ran towards them and continued yelling, the guy got up to face the new threat. Thankfully (whew! wiping sweat from brow) he was kind of a little guy, and so drunk he could hardly stand up straight (which perhaps explains why he preferred to get the gal on the ground). After a brief shoving match in which I most certainly got the better of him, his buddy came out of the bar and pulled him away.

The point is, yeah, you just get in there and do what you have to do. So, what if I had arrived on the scene and realized I was in a situation where I was going to get my ass kicked, or worse? Well, I wouldn't have been too happy about that, believe me. I'm a lover, not a fighter. But better me than a defenseless drunk woman (who happened to be the guy's girlfriend, of course). At least this was my thinking at that moment, in Norman, OK at 230 am. This is not one of the most fun parts about being a man. But it is required. You don't stand around wringing your hands. You do something. You put your body between a helpless victim and a vicious aggressor.

Bryonic,

First of all, I agree with the principle in play here, but the truth of the matter is you ran into a guy that was a drunk abusive idiot that did not want to fight. I have in my lifetime met more than a few of those and have had the privilege of stopping abusive men in many different situations. Now compare that with my friend the City of Atlanta police officer who gets a call that a muscular, 6'4ish homeless man in is the local fountain with a large knife biting the heads off of pigeons. As this guy is not a threat to people at the moment they can not open fire on him. It took nearly 10 police officers with night sticks to subdue this gentleman. He was insane, aggressive, and had zero reard for anyone's health. I gather the man in this story is more like item B.

I do think that off of Jeff's original point there is a fascinating aspect here of how we deal with crazy people hurting others as matter of rule. The officer that fired on the man made a judgement call that makes perfect sense to me. With all of my training in fighting I was taught that the more dangerous the opponent the more extreme force ought to be applied immediately. My point is that even if I was faced with hand to hand combat versus putting a bullet in the guy, the more dangerous he was the more likely I would be to attack with extreme prejudice. If I wasn't trying to kill him, it would be very close. You certainly would not want to leave his arms and legs working. I am not aware of a fighting art that allows you to peacefully subdue an opponent hell bent on hurting everyone. On a one to one level and on a grander scale, some people leave you no choice.

I agree with Bryonic that we have to put ourselves between helpless others and those people that are determined to hurt them. But if we do not promptly put the offending party down and down hard then all we do is offer ourselves as a momentary distraction. That is off point though.

Where a crazed, large person is attacking a child and there are multiple unarmed people trying to help, would there be some point to having one person grab the child and run off with him while the others continued at least to _delay_ the bad guy as best they can?

Are there things that a person can do that demand that they be cut of from the culture so indsiputable and resolutely that the most humane thing IS the death penalty?

More bluntly, are their crims that SOOOO defy the sanctity of life and all of our sensibilities that to even so much as use sale-tax on cigarettes to keep them alive, with "three square a day" and healthcare is an afront to all of our sensibilities?

I suppose the US has the resources to find and garrison off an island... but short of that, is there something else that can be done to say "Dammit, we don't want you even on our earth when you transgress the moral law written on the hearts of men - we will not pay for you, we will not house you, we are saying 'its over!' and that is that!"

What? We should be opposed to the death penalty because living in bars and cinderblock until a natural end that most of us will not enjoy (thanks to our freedom and health choices!) is MORE humane? Give me a HUGE break.

If you do evil things, we won't allow you to repeat them or sponge off of us, you will be getting on "the angel bus" - just like the rest of us - only all the sooner because we will not put up with supporting your sorry, sorry butt.

Lydia,

That is a great idea assuming that you have multiple people working together and willing to intercede. AGAIN, I support interceding and have in the past in situations that were obviously no where near this insane. But to the point, I was once at a party and walked into a room with multiple men and a hand full of women, one woman on the bed particularly drunk/high.(a long time ago when I was less interested in God) As the men in the room began to encourage others to molest this girl and worse, the guy next to me who was clearly upset looked at me afraid and said, "I can't believe this is happening." He and others in the room that hated what they were seeing were watching it as if they were powerless to stop it and that this woman's rape was a foregone conclusion. He and others looked astonished when I told him that it was not going to happen, picked the girl up off of the bed and threatened to kick the crud out of any person who was entertaining the idea of impeding my egress.

My point again, people freak out when things are happening like that and I have seen more than once otherwise good men and women stupefied by the shock of seeing something outrageous happen. This type of thing is crazy and normal people react abnormally to abnormal situations. Not a defense, just a fact. It can be hard to organize people in high stress situations. That is why the military has to condition people to following orders in combat situations.

aristocles,

Have you passed you analysis on to our current and previous popes, because they seem to have come to a different conclusion.

Yes, I know, "prudential decision," but my experience of both these men is that their judgement is generally more prudent than ours.

Lydia,

Just wanted to let you know that although I disagree with you about the death penalty, I do not consider your support for it to disqualify you from calling yourself "pro-life."

the more dangerous he was the more likely I would be to attack with extreme prejudice.

Exactly right.

Gee, thanks, John McG. Of course, I never worry about whether I'm "not pro-life" for being in favor of the death penalty, since I've been a principled and hawkish retributivist for my entire life, and since the difference between an innocent unborn child and a heinous murderer has always been luminous to me. But as I gather you (perhaps as a result of some anti-death-penalty, pacifist folks who influence you) regard this as a very charitable approach on your part, I do appreciate your restraint.

Lydia,

I'd be careful, that response might technically qualify as assault; and if you kept it up, the rest of us might be too, ah . . . "shocked" to intervene.

I only feel compelled to intervene when one party is clearly innocent and/or incapable of defending themselves. If you pick a fight here at WWTW you are on your own.

For that matter, while the possibility of the execution of an innocent man troubles me, I don't regard this consideration as very telling. Perhaps this will sound counterintuitive, but if magistrates cannot be expected to do their due diligence in capital cases, withholding the ultimate sanction in cases of doubt, or unclarity of evidence, then how can they be expected to be diligent and just in the prosecution of lesser offenses? If they'll fudge, or make mistakes, when the stakes are highest, they'll make them when the stakes are lower. Those who cannot be faithful in great matters won't be faithful in lesser matters; for if they don't regard important things as important, they won't assign (relatively) unimportant things their due weight, either. It seems to me that the argument against capital punishment is really a skepticism concerning the possibility of justice: because perfect justice is unattainable, proximate justice is a sham as well.

As for the miscreant, I can only say, in the words used at other, less intellectual websites I frequent: "Good shoot."

JohnMcG (as well as Other Christians of the Anti-D.P. persuasion):

It is widely assumed that whenever the death penalty is under discussion, that if any theological considerations are to be invoked at all, these will weigh against it. "Surely, mercy is to be favored" is often the prevailing thought. However, the situation is much more complicated than that.

In my view, the underlying principle of retributive justice needs to be explained, especially since nowadays it's largely misconceived.

By retributive justice, I don't mean the animalistic indulgence, impersonal spite, or maliciousness against an offender. Rather, there are important social values (i.e., the RIGHT TO LIFE) which MUST BE UPHELD for the sake of an orderly society and that those who affront these values by their violent behaviour must be called to account for their actions by proportionate punishment.

For instance, in the case of someone who deliberately takes a life, our willingness to impose the death penalty is our testimony to how seriously we take the value he has offended against.

There is nothing brutal in treating a person as a responsible agent who can be held accountable for his acts and requiring he sustain the burden proportionate to the burden he has wrongly inflicted against others.

Quite the contrary, what is brutalizing and dehumanizing (contra asimplesinner & JohnMcG) is to overthrow our principle of retributive justice and, in effect, TREAT THE CRIMINAL AS LESS THAN A RESPONSIBLE AGENT -- as some sort of behavioral animal who's not really responsible and culpable for his crimes, who has to be treated and cured but not punishment.

Finally, we can't have a concept of mercy if we don't have a principle of retributive justice to begin with.

There first has to be an understanding that these offences demand such punishment and once we have a principle like this in place, then there can be mercy on the part of a governor or whoever can relax the strict requirements of Justice in an individual case. But if we try to codify the notion of mercy without a sense of retributive justice in the first place, we don't have mercy -- we have SENTIMENTALITY!

Catholics should note that the previous Holy Father, John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae looked at the situation in terms of modern social conditions and judged, in his personal opinion, that the conditions under which Capital Punishment should be used would be quite rare. Yet, he didn’t eliminate it all together.

Moreover, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, issued a memorandum subsequent to EV in which he pointed out that presumably because of the ambiguities that surround this question, there can be a legitimate diversity of opinion among Catholics regarding when Capital Punishment should be used. Note that he expressly did not state that he was against it.

... then how can they be expected to be diligent and just in the prosecution of lesser offenses?

Heh.

Not really. But their failings are multifarious. Relatively trivial offenses are requited with harsh sentences, if the crimes fall into certain categories, and heinous offenses are not sanctioned proportionately, as when murderers are sentenced to 30, do 18, and are paroled. It's not clear to me how capital punishment relates, except that I suspect it isn't applied often enough.

Well, it was (like many of the things I say) a semi-serious question. If we got this culture to embrace a more death-penalty-as-justice attitude, aren't we as likely to see 'execution reality TV' - where ordinary murderers get parole, but hate-crime murderers get the studio audience treatment, where the audience votes on the method of execution - as we are to see real justice?

That's entirely possible, if somewhat hyperbolic. (Yes, that sentence appears to contradict itself. I happen to think that our reality is virtual enough to reconcile it.) My objection is that many opponents of capital punishment are claiming more than this; not that our culture is so far degraded that we cannot even discern the nature of justice and how to practice it, and so must exercise great caution, but that the sole metric is the minimum degree of punishment required to prevent further harm to society, and that it would be immoral to administer more.

Myself, I don't think harm would come of our applying the d.p. more, but I don't think getting that to happen would be a result of changing the society. That is, I think the society as a whole has a fairly good sense of justice in these types of cases. Here I really do think, most definitely, that the elite in the judiciary are far removed from the ordinary Joe in the culture. D.P. support is very high among ordinary folks (I've read) across the political spectrum. Getting it applied in more cases where it is quite obviously just would require two things (at least): First, the Supreme Court should reverse its ruling that all d.p. cases must be automatically appealed all the way up to itself (the federal S.C.). This is obviously not found anywhere in the Constitution and was beyond their authority to require. It provides a disincentive for state prosecutors to seek the death penalty even when it is obviously deserved, simply for reasons of the sheer expense to the state. Second, such appellate courts as do review d.p. cases (state courts, if all were well constitutionally) must stop the frivolous throwing out of d.p. convictions in cases where there was clearly no procedural violation but the appellate judge is obviously just inventing one and pretending it was there because he wishes to void as many d.p.-carrying convictions as come before him.

"To relate this incident to the death penalty seems to me to be somewhat wrongheaded. This guy was shot and killed in order to stop his attack on the child; he was not executed. Of course we can speculate on what would have happened had he been apprehended, brought to trial, etc.,"

There is a woman living on a island in Puget Sound. She has problems trusting people. She has no hands. When she was sixteen, she ran away from home. Her criminal raped her, mutilated her, and left her to die in a ditch. By her own efforts she crawled for help. He was convicted. Served his time-eight years. When released, he did it again, but this time made certain his next victim was dead. When caught--and he was about as stupid as they come--the prosecuting D.A. said, "Now we've got him." 'Now.' What was the matter with 'then'? How many more innocents must die so people can feel good about opposing the death penalty?

"Congratulations for taking the heroic moral stand of caring about an infant who was murdered. That takes a lot of courage."

It does. If a trial had been held, the people who presumed to speak for the child and who wanted the death penalty would have been vilified. There is no shortage of people who vilify the victim and the victim's sympathizers to achieve exoneration or mitigation of the crime.

The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below

Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
 
Living murderers, in prison, after release or escape or after our failures to incarcerate them, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
 
This is a truism.
 
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.

Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
 
That is. logically, conclusive.
 
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses,  find for death penalty deterrence.
 
A surprise? No.

Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
 
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don’t. Studies which don’t find for deterrence don’t say no one is deterred, but that they couldn’t measure those deterred.
 
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn’t deter some? There isn’t one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
 
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is  compelling and un refuted  that death is feared more than life.

“This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death.” (1)
 
” . . . a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, (capital) punishment.” (1)

“Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many as eighteen or more murders for each execution.” (1)
 
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it’s a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
 
Reality paints a very different picture.
 
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
 
What percentage of convicted capital murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
 
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
 
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
 
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
 
Furthermore, history tells us that “lifers” have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc.

In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
 
——–
 
Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 20-25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have all been released upon post conviction review. The anti death penalty claims, that the numbers are significantly higher, are a fraud, easily discoverable by fact checking.

6 inmates have been released from death row because of DNA evidence.  An additional 9 were released from prison, because of DNA exclusion, who had previously been sentenced to death.

The innocents deception of death penalty opponents has been getting exposure for many years. Even the behemoth of anti death penalty newspapers — The New York Times — has recognized that deception.

“To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . “. ‘ (2) This when death penalty opponents were claiming the release of 119 “innocents” from death row. Death penalty opponents never required actual innocence in order for cases to be added to their “exonerated” or “innocents” list. They simply invented their own definitions for exonerated and innocent and deceptively shoe horned large numbers of inmates into those definitions - something easily discovered with fact checking.

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

If we accept that the best predictor of future performance is past performance, we can reasonable conclude that the DNA cases will be excluded prior to trial, and that for the next 8000 death sentences, that we will experience a 99.8% accuracy rate in actual guilt convictions. This improved accuracy rate does not include the many additional safeguards that have been added to the system, over and above DNA testing.

Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty?
 
Unlikely.
 
———————–
Full report -  All Innocence Issues: The Death Penalty, upon request.

Full report - The Death Penalty as a Deterrent, upon request
 
(1) From the Executive Summary of
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs, March 2005
Prof. Cass R. Sunstein,   Cass_Sunstein(AT)law.uchicago.edu
 Prof. Adrian Vermeule ,   avermeule(AT)law.harvard.edu
Full report           http://aei-brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/page.php?id=1131
 
(2) “The Death of Innocents’: A Reasonable Doubt”,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times
—————————–

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.
 
Pro death penalty sites 

homicidesurvivors(dot)com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx

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

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