26 May 2009

Connecticut governor chooses death over justice

Last Friday, the Connecticut State Senate voted 19-17 to abolish the death penalty in that state. This came after the state House of Representatives voted 90-56 earlier this month in favor of abolition.

But Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell will have none of it. Upon the news of the Senate's passage of the bill, Rell promised a veto, citing the "anguish and outrage" of the families of crime victims.

She apparently misses the point that killing a murder suspect will not bring the victim back to life.

She apparently misses the absurdity in killing a person in order to show that killing is wrong.

And she apparently misses the danger in using the death penalty in a state where two people have been exonerated in recent years based on DNA evidence. (While those two Connecticut exonerees were not on death row, they illustrate the fallibility of a system that all too often has wrongly convicted capital defendants in other states.)

It would be nice to see the Connecticut state legislature vote to overturn Governor Rell's veto.

But, given the narrow win in the Senate, I am not optimistic.

10 comments:

  1. Ms. Shaw:

    Who has ever stated that the intent of executions is to resurrect murdered loved ones?

    Answer: irrational and/or idiotic anti death penalty folks are the only folks who ever bring it up.

    Why is that?

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  2. Actually, dudleysharp, families of murder victims have said so themselves.

    See http://www.mvfr.org and http://murdervictimsfamilies.org

    Why is that?

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  3. Ms. Shaw:

    You repeat a standard, inanae anti death penalty ism:

    Killing equals Killing: The Amoral Confusion of death penalty opponents
    Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below

    There is a very common anti death penalty slogan:

    "Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?"

    We don't. Even with no sanction, most folks know that committing murder is wrong.

    We execute guilty murderers who have murdered innocent people.

    The difference between crime and punishment, guilty murderers and their innocent victims is very clear to most.

    The moral confusion exists when people blindly accept the amoral or immoral position that all killing is equal.

    The anti death penalty folks are looking at an act -- "killing" -- and saying all killings are the same. Only an amoral person would equate acts, without considering the purpose behind them.

    For those, like some anti death penalty folks, who believe all killing is morally equivalent, they would equate the slaughter of 6 million innocent Jews and 6-7 million additional innocents with the execution of those guilty murderers committing that slaughter. They would also equate the rape and murder of children with the execution of the rapist/murderer.

    This is what the anti death penalty folks do, morally equate killing (murder) with the punishment for that murder, another killing (execution).

    For such anti death penalty folks to be consistent, they must also equate holding people against their will (illegal kidnapping) with the sanction for it, the holding people against their will (legal incarceration) or the taking money away from people (illegal robbery) with a sanction for that, taking money away from people (legal restitution).

    Most folks understand the moral differences.

    Some anti death penalty folks are either incapable of knowing the moral differences between crime and punishment, guilty criminals and their innocent victims, or they are knowingly using a dishonest slogan by equating killing (murder) with killing (execution).


    copyright 2000-2009 Dudley Sharp:
    Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ms. Shaw,

    Sadly, anti death penalty folks, who are also murder victim survivors, repeat idiotic anti death penalty phrases.

    That's why.

    Sad, but true.

    Let's ask them which criminal sanctions have the goal of ressurrecting their murdered loved ones. OK?

    Hopefull, they would react with revulsion, as they should.

    Just typical anti death penalty nonsense.

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  5. Dudleysharp, you say: "We execute guilty murderers who have murdered innocent people." You fail to acknowledge the possibility of accidentally killing an innocent person. It has happened, by the way. http://tinyurl.com/2qlmyu

    ReplyDelete
  6. Innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.

    Enhanced Due Process -- 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.

    Enhanced Incapacitation -- To state the blatantly clear, living murderers, in prison, after release or escape, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.

    Although an obvious truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.

    Enhanced Deterrence -- 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.

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  7. sorry, e previous posts would not be accepted.

    I wrongly accused you of blocking, when it was just some sort of blog glip.

    My apologies.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The death penalty is not a deterrent. It appears to be the opposite, actually. See http://tinyurl.com/c9r7cc

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  9. I am familiarw with the 4 cases you linked to.

    Let's look at this one, first, then I will move on to the other four.

    Roger Keith Coleman

    Many of these cases look a lot like the Coleman case, whereby anti death penalty folks dishonestly pieced together a case for innocence, by only presenting defense strategy scenarios.

    The "innocence" scam for Coleman went on for many years and was a worldwide campaign. This was the holy grail of an "innocence" case for an executed inmate, for anti death penalty folks.

    DNA confirmed his guilt.

    Of course, the case facts did that , many years before. The antis just worked their way around the facts in order to create an "innocent" case.


    Cantu

    Pretty thorough rebuke of the innocence claims in the Cantu case.

    http://www.bexar.org/da2/body_pages/morenocantuinvestigation.pdf

    Griffin

    Can't find link to report, but . . .

    Chief Prosecutor Jennifer Joyce:

    "The information brought to me in 2005 was so compelling; I committed to investigating this case fully, meticulously and with a completely open mind," she wrote. But "after more than 1,000 man-hours of investigation ... my team and I are confident that the right person was convicted."

    de Luna

    Your link, as all of them, not surprisingly, only shows the defense case, which is much weaker than it seems. Very much like Joyce, above, stating how complelling the case was. PRIOR to her investigation.

    Need to wait for full evaluation of both sides.

    Willingham

    this case causes me great concern. There is still a case for his guilt, but the improper evaluation of the arson evidence should be troubling to anyone.

    Need to wait for full evaluation of both sides.

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  10. you misunderstand deterrence, as does that review:

    Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let's be clear
    by Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, 0309

    There is a constant within all jurisdictions -- negative consequences will always deter some - it is a truism. Therefore, the question is not "Can we prove that the death penalty acts to deter some?" Of course it does. The question is "Can death penalty opponents prove the death penalty does not deter some?" Of course they can't.

    Whether a jurisdiction has high murder rates or low ones, rather rising or lowering rates, the presence of the death penalty will produce fewer net murders, the absence of the death penalty will produce more net murders.

    It is just like smoking rates or the rates at which people speed in their cars, whether a jurisdiction has the highest such rates or the lowest of such rates, there will always be some, in all jurisdictions, who don't smoke because of the deterrence of fear of health problems and don't speed because of the deterrence of speeding violations, resulting in criminal prosecution and higher insurance costs.

    complete article

    http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=128&num=217819

    ReplyDelete