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The 133 death row "innocents" scam
Dudley Sharp, contact info below
NOTE: fact checking issues, on innocence and the death penalty .
It is very important to take note that the 133 "exonerated" from death row is a blatant scam, easily uncovered by fact checking.
Richard Dieter, head of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) and DPIC have produced the claims regarding the exonerated and innocents released from death row list.
The scam is that DPIC just decided to redefine what exonerated and innocence mean according to their own perverse definitions.
How Dieter and DPIC define what "exonerated" or "innocent" means.
". . . (DPIC) makes no distinction between legal and factual innocence. " 'They're innocent in the eyes of the law ,' Dieter says. 'That's the only objective standard we have.' "
That is untrue, of course. We are all aware of the differences between legal guilt and actual guilt and legal innocence (not guilty) and actual innocence, just as the courts are.
The only issue in the death penalty innocence debate is how many actual innocents are sent to death row and what is the probability of executing an actual innocent. Legal innocence is not the issue, for the simple fact that we cannot execute a legally innocent person. So the concern is over the actual innocent, those who had no connection to the murder (s).
Furthermore, there is no finding of actual innocence, but it is "not guilty". Dieter knows that we are all speaking of actual innocence, those cases that have no connection to the murder(s). He takes advantage of that by redefining exonerated and innocence.
Dieter "clarifies" the three ways that former death row inmates get onto their "exonerated" by "innocence" list.
"A defendant whose conviction is overturned by a judge must be further exonerated in one of three ways: he must be acquitted at a new trial, or the prosecutor must drop the charges against him, or a governor must grant an absolute pardon."
None establishes actual innocence.
DPIC has " . . . included supposedly innocent defendants who were still culpable as accomplices to the actual triggerman."
DPIC: "There may be guilty persons among the innocents, but that includes all of us."
Good grief. DPIC wishes to apply collective guilt of capital murder to all of us.
Dieter states: "I don't think anybody can know about a person's absolute innocence." (Green). Dieter said he could not pinpoint how many are "actually innocent" -- only the defendants themselves truly know that, he said." (Erickson)
Or Dieter won't assert actual innocence in 1, 133 or 350 cases. He doesn't want to clarify a real number with proof of actual innocence, that would blow his entire deception.
Or, Dieter declare all innocent: "If you are not proven guilty in a court of law , you're innocent." (Green)
Dieter would call Hitler and Stalin innocent. Those are his "standards".
And that is the credibility of the DPIC.
For fact checking.
1. "Case Histories: A Review of 24 Individuals Released from Death Row", Florida Commission on Capital Cases, 6/20/02, Revised 9/10/02 at http://www.floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us/Publications/innocentsproject.pdf
83% error rate in "innocent" claims.
2. "Is 'the innocence list' an appropriate name?", 1/19/03
FRANK GREEN, TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org/coverage/106.html
Dieter admits they don't discern between legal innocence and actual innocence. One of Dieter's funnier quotes;"The prosecutor, perhaps, or Dudley Sharp, perhaps, thinks they're still guilty because there was evidence of their guilt, but that's a subjective judgment." Yep, "EVIDENCE OF GUILT", can't you see why Dieter would think they were innocent? And that's how the DPIC works.
3. 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
"To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . ".
That is out of the DPIC claimed 119 "exonerated", at that time, for a 75% error rate.
NOTE: It's hard to understand how an absolute can have a differential of 33%. I suggest the "to be sure" is, now, closer to 25.
4. CRITIQUE OF DPIC LIST ("INNOCENCE:FREED FROM DEATH ROW"), Ward Campbell, http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DPIC.htm
5. "The Death Penalty Debate in Illinois", JJKinsella,6/2000, http://www.dcba.org/brief/junissue/2000/art010600.htm
6.THE DEATH PENALTY - ALL INNOCENCE ISSUES, Dudley Sharp
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2006/03/20/all-innocence-issues--the-death-penalty.aspx
Origins of "innocence" fraud, and review of many innocence issues
7. "Bad List", Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review, 9/16/02
www.nationalreview.com/advance/advance091602.asp #title5
How bad is DPIC?
8. "Not so Innocent", By Ramesh Ponnuru,National Review, 10/1/02
www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru100102.asp
DPIC from bad to worse.
- dudleysharp
June 15, 2009 4:22AM
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The Idea that Many People on Death Row are Innocent is Nonsense
- From Josh Marquis
By Joshua Marquis - District Attorney, Media Commentator
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Sadly True
"No human endeavor is without risk and every year tens of thousands of people are killed by mistakes by pharmacists and doctors. Yet we don’t stop medicine or surgery, we seek to improve it and reduce the risk."
This is sadly true. But the comment made in this context, makes it really, really dumb. Presumably, someone sitting on Death Row is there because he wanted to kill someone, which is what makes it murder. The same can not be said about the mistakes of health care professionals.
You also note what a tiny percentage of Death Row inmates have been more or less exonerated by DNA evidence, but somehow failed to notice that it's four human beings that the state won't kill. Would ten innocent lives saved be enough to convince you? 100? 1,000? Perhaps you really need those percentages, so 1, 5, 10%? What percent of innocent human life lost would convince you that it's just not worth the risk?
- Old Rogue
September 3, 2008 4:19PM
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Removing Doubt
I'm all for the death penalty. I don't think we use it enough.
That said I think we need to use all of the technology available to make sure we are executing the correct person. If there is DNA available it should be automatically tested. If someone else admits to the crime after the the fact. It needs to be seriously investigated. If witnesses recant after the trial we need to know why and their claims need to be taken seriously. If its discovered that the prosecutor or law enforcement withheld evidence there should be severe punishment. We're talking about a persons life.
I've frequently heard the statement "Twelve men and women found him/her guilty". Those twelve had to make the decision based on the facts at hand and when the "facts" change the decision may change.
Yes - we will inevitably execute someone who is innocent but we should do everything we can to eliminate that possibility.
- Aegiltheugly
September 23, 2008 2:12PM
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Removing Doubt???????
You just made the good case for abolishment of the death penalty , look at what you wrote. How to make sure we are excuting the right person(s), hello the only way to be sure is to not murder them. There are some evil people in this world who do some some awful ugly things, however we are not God, we do not have the right to decide who lives or who dies in the name of justice.
That being said the death penalty is nothing more than legal murder powered by revenge, not justice. It does not deter anything, it is not cost effective, it cost millions in appeals process, and keeps the survivers of the victims wounds open and exposed. There is no such thing as closure for the families, even if the person who killed their loved dies, the pain of losing their loved one does not go away because someone stuck a needle in the killers arm.
I think keeping the inmates alive serves a dual purpose, first they could be innocent, and second prison is no kiddie park, life if one could call it life is having to remember what they did to be where they are at. No closure for them either, actually it is more punishing than death, because once they are gone they are gone, don't have to deal with their behavior any more. If you ask me death is too good for the killers who are guilty on death row.
Do you know or have you ever been in a prison, not the crap we watch on tv, a real prison? If you had you might think differently about how great the inmates don't have it. There are times when death would be better than life to some of the inmates. They have no future period, and that is good enough for me. If they seek redemption they will have to admit their crimes as well as participate in seeking forgiveness. Life means life is a sentence I can live with, no parole ever.
On the flip side of that coin is what about the people who have been excuted and were not guilty. I wonder if you had to administer the drugs to kill another person, then found out they were innocent of the crime they were put on death row for, how would you deal? Would you say "Yes we will inevitably execute someone who is innocent (but) we should do everyting we can to eliminate that possibility." Therefore that one person life was taken, now we find out he was innocent, but that's the breaks you win some you lose some. What if that person who was being executed was you, and all you can say is I'm innocent, and no body is listening because your the convicted killer who is about to die.
- lfschrawyer1 May 29, 2009 6:27PM
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nonsense?
The fact that there are over 200 innocent people nationwide exhonerated and a prison system that has only 3 million people in it, not tens of millions, is alarming. Is there always DNA evidence for the innocent? Do all innocent people get a decent appeal? According to many the TRUE number is closer to 10 percent of ALL people convicted are wrongfully convicted. Why are capital cases any different??? There is a real case to be made that if you are a minority your chance of receiving the death penalty for a crime increases DRAMATICALLY. until we are able to understand and repair these inequities, isn't the death penalty at least a BIT suspect? We should stop taking lives at least until there is evidence that it saves lives and there is TRULY equal justice for all.
- gavcoo July 28, 2009 3:11AM
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