AboutDudley Sharp Expertise Any question specific to the death penalty.
Experience Partial CV of Dudley Sharp
Re: For the death penalty
not updated for a while
This CV goes through a list of the three websites of Justice For All. If it doesn't all come through, please let me know.
Mr. Sharp, a former opponent of capital punishment, has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Partial List:
--- "Rethinking the Death Penalty", Nightline, ABCNews, 6/22/00. with former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Kogan. Go to:
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/nightline/transcripts/nl000522_trans.html
---- "The Death Penalty", This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts,
ABC News, 6/4/00 Appearance with Illinois Governor George Ryan, discussing
moratoriums and innocence issues.
--- "Death Penalty Update", The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, 7/30/00 PBS. A
review of death penalty issues.
--- "The Death Penalty", Speaker, Annual meeting of the American
Corrections Association, San Antonio, Texas, 1997. Debate between myself and Richard Burr, a well known death penalty defense attorney and an anti death penalty activist.
--- "Death Penalty Debate", between Eric Zorn, an anti-death penalty
columnist with the Chicago Tribune, and Dudley Sharp. April-June, 2000.
Visits many of today's major death penalty issues in an in-depth format.
http://www.ericzorn.com/rhubarb/death/
--- "Capital punishment is an effective way to protect innocent people", May 27, 2000 - St. Louis Post Dispatch. Many more innocents will be put at risk by not executing. Scroll down about halfway to reach the letter at www.prodeathpenalty.com/news.htm
--- "Death on Hold?", Fort Worth Star Telegram, 2/5/00. Why a moratorium on executions is unwarranted.
www.startelegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:VIEWPOINT2/1:VIEWPOINT20205100.html
--- "Innocence and the Death Penalty", 4/16/00, Pro Death Penalty.com. An in
depth look at the concern for the innocence issue.
www.prodeathpenalty.com/Innocence.htm
--- "Bias on the death penalty", Richmond Times Dispatch, 4/23/01, deals with the racial issues. At www.timesdispatch.com/MGB5AB8IVLC.html
--- "Washington Journal", C-SPAN, 4/19/01. Death penalty moratorium issues, with Jane Henderson of the Quixote Center in Maryland, coordinator of the Equal Justice Project.
--- ABCNews.com, Taking Sides, essay "Exoneration Hype Exaggerated", 5/10/00. A brief essay regarding the absence of journalistic standards when dealing with issues of innocence and the death penalty. It is the second article down.
www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/TakingSides/takingsides7.html
--- "The Wrong Man, Letters to the Editor", 12/4/99. A response to aarticle on innocence and the death penalty (The Wrong Man", 11/99). Go to: www.prodeathpenalty.com/Wrong_Man.htm
--- "ABA's Proposed Moratorium Relies on Flimsy Facts", The Texas Lawyer,
March 16, 1997. An article addressing the inaccuracies of the American Bar Association in their call for a moratorium on executions.
--- Guest Lecturer, Senior Seminar, National Foreign Affairs Training Center,
US Department of State, March 30, 1999
---- "Innocence Defined", THE RECORD (Bergan County, New Jersey), 11/19/99. An op/ed addressing the lack of defined standards in the "innocence" discussion regarding the death penalty.
--- Testimony before the Pennsylvania State Senate Judiciary Committee,
February 2000. Death Penalty Moratorium legislation.
--- Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee, Death Penalty Testimony, July 1997.
Testimony regarding referendum on the death penalty and other death penalty
issues
--- Texas Legislature, testimony in both House and Senate regarding death
penalty issues and bills.
--- "Guilty as Charged", Wall Street Journal, A22, 6/28/00. Co-authored
with Dianne Clements, an article about the highly publicized case of executed
Texas murderer Gary Graham.
--- Reply to "Executioner's Swan Song" by Michael Kroll. Salon.com, 2/11/00.
Michael Kroll is a journalist and founder of The Death Penalty Information
Center, the leading information source of those opposed to capital
punishment. This is a published Letter reply to Kroll's 2/8/00 article.
www.salon.com/letters/2000/02/11/sat/index2.html
---"Proffitt argument is 'folly' ", North Carolina State University's The
Technician, 11/29/00. A letter reply. http://technicianonline.com/read/tol/opinion/001967.html
--- "Sen. Pat Leahy Dead Wrong On Death Penalty", aka "A different look at
the death penalty", 11/11/00, Saint Michael's College (Vermont)The MAGAZINE
A reply to Sen. Leahy. ("Dying an innocent death?", 11/9/00)
www.smcvt.edu/magazine/Campus/feedback.htm
--- :"DEATH PENALTY AND SENTENCING INFORMATION In the United States",
10/1/97. Pro Death Com Penalty .at http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html
This is a long report on many aspects of the death penalty. Although a bit out of date, it explores most of the false allegations against the death penalty. Much of the material has been significantly updated. Please inquire.
--- "Death Penalty in Black and White", IntellectualCapital.com, 6/24/99.
Visits various racial issues from the death penalty debate. at
http://speakout.com/activism/opinions/4010-1.html
---"Society Should See Difference Between Criminal, Punitive Acts", The
Daily Oklahoman, 06/28/1997. The title is self explanatory.
Chapters in Books
"Innocent People Have Not Been Executed", from Problems of Death, Opposing Viewpoints Series, Greenhaven Press, 2000
"The Death Penalty Should Be Retained", from Capital Punishment, Current Controversies, Greenhaven Press, 2000
Death Penalty Debates
-- American University, U. sponsored, Washington, DC, 10/30/00
---Louisiana Minority Correctional Workers Assn., Baton Rouge, La., 10/16/00
---South Texas College of Law, Black Law Students Assn., Houston, Texas, 10/25/00
---University of Texas Law School, sponsored jointly by The Federalist Society and The National Lawyers Guild, Austin, Texas, 4/9/01
and many others
For more, enter "dudley sharp" "death penalty" at www.google.com/search
Position: Mr. Sharp was Vice President, Political Director and member of the Board of Directors of JFA from July 1993, when JFA was founded, through January 2000. He opposed capital punishment until December 1995. He is now Resource Director for JFA.
JUSTICE FOR ALL is a criminal justice reform organization. Our focus is solely on violent crime issues and what we can do, within the criminal justice and legislative systems, to lessen injury to the innocent and to prosecute the guilty. To accomplish that goal, we are actively involved in community education, elections, legislation, victim's rights issues, including our involvement in many individual cases.
Mr. Sharp's e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com phone 713-623-6070
Question Before I write a persuasive essay, I have got to find which side I am on. After extensive research I have found many, many negatives, but pretty much no positives. You have been an opponent of capital punishment for so long, you must know some of the weapons that your opponents have used. Could you name some of the pros, so I can make an honest descision?
Answer I am not against the death penalty. I am for it. All anti death penalty positions can be defeated. Here is a very brief review. I can give thorugh details on any given topic within the death penalty issues. This is just a brief synopsis of a few important issues.
The REAL Death Penalty in the US: A Review
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
NOTE: Detailed review of any of the below topics, or others, is available upon request
In this brief format, the reality of the death penalty in the United States, is presented, with the hope that the media, public policy makers and others will make a more responsible effort to present a balanced view on this sanction.
Innocence Issues
Death Penalty opponents have proclaimed that 102 (now 111) inmates have been "released from death row with evidence of their innocence", in the US, since the modern death penalty era began, post Furman v Georgia (1972).
That number is a fraud.
Those opponents have intentionally included both the factually innocent (the "I truly had nothing to do with the murder" cases) and the legally innocent (the "I got off because of legal errors" cases), thereby fraudulently raising the "innocent" numbers.
Death penalty opponents claim that 24 such innocence cases are in Florida. The Florida Commission on Capital Cases found that 4 of those 24 MIGHT be innocent -- an 84% error rate in death penalty opponents claims. If that error rate is consistent, nationally, that would indicate that 17 of the alleged 102 innocents MIGHT be actually innocent -- a 0.2% actual guilt error rate for the over 7300 sentenced to death since 1973. None were executed.
It is often claimed that 23 innocents have been executed in the US since 1900. Nonsense. Even the authors of that "23 innocents executed" study proclaimed "We agree with our critics, we never proved those (23) executed to be innocent; we never claimed that we had." While no one would claim that an innocent has never been executed, there is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.
No one disputes that innocents are found guilty, within all countries. However, when scrutinizing death penalty opponents claims, we find that when reviewing the accuracy of verdicts and the post conviction thoroughness of discovering those actually innocent incarcerated, that the US death penalty process may be the most accurate criminal justice sanction in the world. Under every real world scenario, not executing murderers will always put many more innocents at risk, than will ever be put at risk of execution.
One study, specifically, found that moratoriums on the death penalty sacrificed innocent lives. All of the other studies confirm that conclusion.
All the studies which have not found a deterrent effect of the death penalty have refused to say that it does not deter some. The studies finding for deterrence state such. Confusion arises when people think that a simple comparison of murder rates and executions, or the lack thereof, can tell the tale of deterrence. It cannot.
Both high and low murder rates are found within death penalty and non death penalty jurisdictions, be it Singapore, South Africa, Sweden or Japan, or the US states of Michigan and Delaware. Many factors are involved in such evaluations. Reason and common sense tell us that it would be remarkable to find that the most severe criminal sanction -- execution -- deterred none. No one is foolish enough to suggest that the potential for negative consequences does not deter the behavior of some. Therefore, regardless of jurisdiction, having the death penalty will always be an added deterrent to murders, over and above any lesser punishments.
Racial issues
White murderers are twice as likely to be executed in the US as are black murderers and are executed, on average, 12 months more quickly than are black death row inmates.
It is often stated that it is the race of the victim which decides who is prosecuted in death penalty cases. Although blacks and whites make up about an equal number of murder victims, capital cases are 6 times more likely to involve white victim murders than black victim murders. This, so the logic goes, is proof that the US only cares about white victims.
Hardly. Only capital murders, not all murders, are subject to a capital indictment. Generally, a capital murder is limited to murders plus secondary aggravating factors, such as murders involving burglary, carjacking, rape, and additional murders, such as police murders, serial and multiple murders. White victims are, overwhelmingly, the victims under those circumstances, in ratios nearly identical to the cases found on death row.
Any other racial combinations of defendants and/or their victims in death penalty cases, is a reflection of the crimes committed and not any racial bias within the system, as confirmed by studies from the Rand Corporation (1991), Smith College (1994), U of Maryland (2002), New Jersey Supreme Court (2003) and by a view of criminal justice statistics, within a framework of the secondary aggravating factors necessary for capital indictments.
Class issues
No one disputes that wealthier defendants can hire better lawyers and, therefore, should have a legal advantage over their poorer counterparts. The US has executed about 0.15% of all murderers since new death penalty statutes were enacted in 1973. There is no evidence that wealthier capital murderers are less likely to be executed than their poorer ilk, based upon the proportion of capital murders committed by wealthier criminals.
Arbitrary and capricious
About 10% of all murders within the US might qualify for a death penalty eligible trial. That would be about 55,000 murders since 1973. We have sentenced 7,300 murderers to death since then, or 14% of those eligible. I doubt that there is any other crime which receives a higher percentage of maximum sentences, when mandatory sentences are not available. Based upon that, as well as pre trial, trial, appellate and clemency/commutation realities, the US death penalty is likely the least arbitrary and capricious criminal sanctions in the world.
Christianity and the death penalty
The two most authoritative New Testament scholars, Saints Augustine and Aquinas, provide substantial biblical and theological support for the death penalty. Even the most well known anti death penalty personality in the US, Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, states that "It is abundantly clear that the Bible depicts murder as a capital crime for which death is considered the appropriate punishment, and one is hard pressed to find a biblical 'proof text' in either the Hebrew Testament or the New Testament which unequivocally refutes this. Even Jesus' admonition 'Let him without sin cast the first stone,' when He was asked the appropriate punishment for an adulteress (John 8:7) -- the Mosaic Law prescribed death -- should be read in its proper context. This passage is an 'entrapment' story, which sought to show Jesus' wisdom in besting His adversaries. It is not an ethical pronouncement about capital punishment." A thorough review of Pope John Paul II's current position, reflects a reasoning that should be recommending more executions.
Cost Issues
All studies finding the death penalty to be more expensive than life without parole exclude important factors, such as (1) geriatric care costs, recently found to be $69,0000/yr/inmate, (2) the death penalty cost benefit of providing for plea bargains to a maximum life sentence, a huge cost savings to the state, (3) the death penalty cost benefit of both enhanced deterrence and enhanced incapacitation, at $5 million per innocent life spared, and, furthermore, (4) many of the alleged cost comparison studies are highly deceptive.
Polling data
74% of Americans support the death penalty, nearly half of those do not think the death penalty is used enough. This support rate is nearly within the margin of error of the all time high for general support. (Gallup 5/03). Five months later it was 64% (Gallup 10/03). 81% of the American people supported the execution of Timothy McVeigh, with only 16% opposed. (June 2001).
Whatever your feelings are toward the death penalty, a fair accounting of how it is applied should be demanded.
My focus has been on violent crime issues and what can be done, within the criminal justice and legislative systems, to lessen injury to the innocent and to prosecute the guilty. To accomplish that goal, involvement in community education, elections, legislation, victim's rights issues, including assistance in individual cases are all important.
