Many of you are aware of my aversion to the death penalty. I'm not squeamish on law and order, mind you, I just don't like irreversible penalties in imperfect systems. I'd love to see murderers rot in solitary with no weight rooms, TV's, or "recreation" while their minds simply decay.
So here we have the situation in which the state of Texas is getting ready to execute a guy who did not kill anyone (he was in the getaway car during a botched robbery). Putting aside for a moment the really bad rap Texas already has with respect to the death penalty, whatever state law it is that allows for the execution even of those who did not actually murder anyone seems a bit astray. According to the story, the Supremes have given conflicting guidance in cases like this one, so it seems destined to go to the Court.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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Reconsider, in context:
Jeff Wood: Robbery/murder and the law of parties
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
"After initially denying involvement in the robbery, (Jeff) Wood admitted in a statement to police that he knew Reneau was going to rob the gas station, that Reneau planned to bring a gun and might use it if (Kriss) Keeran didn't cooperate, according to court opinions." (1)
"Evidence showed the pair had planned the robbery for a couple of weeks and unsuccessfully tried recruiting Keeran (a "friend" of Wood and Reneau) and another employee to stage a phony robbery." (2)
In other words, both Wood and Reneau had planned to murder Keeran, long before the robbery. Keeran knew both Wood and Reneau. Their failure to recruit Keeran into the robbery meant that they would have to murder Keeran if they decided to go through with it. They did.
What does armed robbery mean? Normally, it means :"I've got a gun. If you don't do what I say, I'll kill you." In this case, it meant that Keeran would be murdered. Period.
"Lucy Wilke, the Kerr County assistant district attorney, who prosecuted Wood, described Wood after his 1998 trial as "not a dummy" and called the slaying "cold-blooded, premeditated."(2) "(She) called Wood "the mastermind of this senseless murder," noting that Wood told his brother, who was not implicated, to destroy the surveillance tape after watching it together, according to the San Antonio Express." (1)
Evidence showed Reneau entered the store before dawn on Jan. 2, 1996, and fatally shot Keeran once in the face with a .22-caliber pistol. Then joined by Wood, they robbed the store of more than $11,000 in cash and checks. Both were arrested within 24 hours. (2)
"According to court records, Wood was waiting outside the store and came in after Keeran was shot, then both fled with the store safe, a cash box and a video recorder containing a security tape showing the robbery and slaying. "(2)
"Wood's lawyers don't dispute he deserves punishment but argue he doesn't deserve to die for a murder that occurred while he was waiting in a car outside the store." (2)
He deserved punishment? Why? Because Wood planned and helped to carry out the robbery/murder, making him culpable for the robbery/murder and, thus, justly sentenced to death.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 to not recommend Gov. Rick Perry commute Wood's death sentence. (2) For good reasons.
For those that wrongly complain about the law of parties:
"What do you think is going to happen when a guy goes into a convenience store to rob it and he’s armed with a gun, and your job is to help him commit that crime?” said Mary Lou Leary, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. “It’s a very high-risk activity.”(3)
Put another way, don't commit an armed robbery when you know your going to have to murder the victim because he knows the two parties robbing him.
Better yet, don't commit armed robbery, at all. You might end up on death row.
There are many 'non-triggerman" murders that most, if not all, of us, would find equally as culpable, both legally and morally, as the triggerman, such as the person who hires a hit man to murder someone or a case such as Osama Bin Laden's, where he was thousands of miles away from the murder scenes, all over the world.
Texas Law of Parties: A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by
the conduct of another if acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense or if, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit
one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy. (4)
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.
(1) "Texas Panel Won't Halt Execution of Accomplice", by Scott Michels, ABC News, Aug. 20, 2008
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5617113&page=1
(2) "Death date nears for accomplice in Hill Country murder", by Michael Graczyk, By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, Aug. 19, 2008, 4:41PMhttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5953000.html
(3) Should murder accomplices face execution? By John Gramlich, Stateline.org, August 13, 2008
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=333117
(4) PENAL CODE, CHAPTER 7. CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONDUCT OF ANOTHER, SUBCHAPTER A. COMPLICITY
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/PE/content/htm/pe.002.00.000007.00.htm
copyright 2008 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.
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
Innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
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.
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.
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.
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 . . . (1) 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) 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
copyright 2007-2008, 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.
It appears as if I've been Dudleysharped....
And it appears as if Dudley and I are going to have to disagree.
I don't dispute that Mr. Wood was guilty of something. If the "law of parties" application results in that crime being called murder, well then that's ok too.
I'd like Mr. Wood to spend his life...yes, entire life...in prison. He would then be almost as statistically unlikely to commit murder as his partner, Mr. Reneau, who was executed.
The issue here for me isn't his guilt, it is his punishment. One man committed that murder, pulled the trigger, looked Keeran in the eye before shooting him in the face. One man went all the way up to the point where he could have chosen another path, then chose murder.
One man was in the car. That he may have discussed killing Keeran with Reneau (according to the law of parties) makes him guilty of the crime of murder, but it does not mean he must be executed as a result.
And to you Dudley Sharp. Thank you for the impassioned work you do on behalf of a cause in which you believe. But I promise you, if you spam me again with prescripted propaganda, you won't be on the site long. If you wish to engage ME and the readers of this site, well then fire away, in which case I would welcome the debate. But no more cut and paste postings that are sitting there in a can waiting for the opportunity to be posted.
Dear CW:
Thank you for your reply.
Please consider:
That both perps agreed that only one could go in first. Had they both gone in, together, Keeran would know they had decided to go through with the robbery and may have been able to fi=oil it or otherwise notify someone, prior to the robbery/murder.
That is very likely the scenario. And, of course only one person can pull the trigger at a time.
If both parties had fully agreed that Keeran would be murdered, prior to the robbery, would that change your mind.
What about my examples of the murder for hire or the Bin Laden example? Or the extermination of the Jews during WWII - du=id we wrongly hang the masterminds, when they didn't do the actual slaughters?
What about my innocents review?
I fully understand and respect you position on my pre edited pieces. It is the way I have chosen to fully respond to specific issues, without re-inventing the wheeel. You will note that both, specifically, responded to your issues and fully responded to them. That is why they were prepared.
That said, it is your site and I am grateful that you give me the opportunity to respond and I I ever respond as such, in the future, I will expect to be banned.
Sincerely, dudley sharp
I've always had a problem with the death penalty because of my Christian upbringing. The Bible may say an eye for an eye, but it also makes kind of a big deal about this part where the son of God gets martyred though a misapplication of the death penalty justified by political expediency.
Dudley, thank you for your considered reply.
Everything you write makes sense, as the saying goes, all the way from "B to Z". The problem you and I have is in the very first step...and that is in order for me to be convinced of the logic of your arguments, I have to buy that we should kill people for the crime of murder. I simply cannot take that step. And if I cannot take that step, I cannot apply that to people who help or conspire to kill people.
Your innocents review and your statistical analysis is impressive, but it still represents (even under the best of conditions) a possible level of error. Since the system CAN make mistakes, the system should not impose irreversible punishments.
Note that I say "CAN" make mistakes. I'm not one of these death penalty project types who bleeds openly for people they believe were "unjustly" executed. I have NO EVIDENCE to suggest that ANYONE has ever been wrongly executed.
What I do have is an understanding of math; 99.8% is not 100%. As long as a system is administered by fallible humans, failures will occur. You can bring up Osama and the Nazis till the cows come home, but those are the easy ones. What about the .2%? Who are they? What did they do or not do? If capturing Osama and subjecting him to hell for the rest of his natural life is the price of having a system in which an innocent person CAN be executed, well then that's a price I'm ok with paying.
Again, make the lives of those convicted of murder hellish and horrible. Use the cell to drive them out of their minds. I have no regard for such people.
Thank you for the personal reply, however. And I wish you continued luck in your endeavors.
CW, then your psosition is that you are morally oposed to the death penalty under all circumstances and all of the other issues don't really matter.
That is a strict moral position, which I understand.
My point in my innocents review is not that we will never execute an innocent - that is not a position I have ever taken. My point was that IF innocents are your concern, that innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
CW: "99.8% is not 100%. As long as a system is administered by fallible humans, failures will occur. What about the .2%? Who are they? What did they do or not do?"
Interesting position for a guy who spent a good deal of his life developing and managing systems designed to take human life, inclusive of both innocents and bad guys.
Why is 99.8% of the bad guys acceptable under one scenario but not the other?
Anonymous, I think you were responding to me.
the 0.3% are actual innocents convicted, not executed.
anonymous:
Jesus/God made His execution happen. It was ordained by God. The whole belief system is based upon an innocent Jesus being sacrificed for the sins of mankind. Was God wrong?
I have always found it disturbing than anti death penalty folks bring up the death of Jesus in the context of anti death penalty activism.
I find no correlation. If you think God/Jesus was wrong in in ordaining His own execution, please, I await your reasoning.
The strength of the biblical, theological and traditional support for the death penalty is, partially, revealed, below.
Some references:
(1)"The Death Penalty", Chapter XXVI, 187. The death penalty, from the book Iota Unum, by Romano Amerio,
Thoughtful deconstruction of current Roman Catholic teaching on capital punishment by a faithful Catholic Vatican insider and expert theologian.
http://www.domid.blogspot.com/2007/05/amerio-on-capital-punishment.html
titled "Amerio on capital punishment "Friday, May 25, 2007
(2) "Catholic and other Christian References: Support for the Death Penalty", at http://www.homicidesurvivors.com/2006/10/12/catholic-and-other-christian-references-support-for-the-death-penalty.aspx
(3) "Capital Punishment: A Catholic Perspective", by Emmanuel Valenza (Br. Augustine) at
http://www.sspx.org/against_the_sound_bites/capital_punishment.htm
(4) "The Purpose of Punishment (in the Catholic tradition)", by R. Michael Dunningan, J.D., J.C.L., CHRISTIFIDELIS, Vol.21,No.4, sept 14, 200
http://www.st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2003/21-4
(5) "MOST CATHOLICS OPPOSE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?", KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers, March 2, 2004
http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040302.asp
(6) "THOUGHTS ON THE BISHOPS' MEETING: NOWADAYS, VOTERS IGNORE BISHOPS" , KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER, Catholic Answers,, Nov. 22, 2005
http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_051122.asp
(7) "God’s Justice and Ours" by Antonin Scalia, First Things, 5/2002
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2022
(8) "A Seamless Garment In a Sinful World" by John R. Connery, S. J., America, 7/14/84, p 5-8).
(9) "The Death Penalty", by Solange Strong Hertz at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/HOMEPAGES/REMNANT/death2.htm
(10) "Capital Punishment: What the Bible Says", Dr. Lloyd R. Bailey, Abingdon Press, 1987. The definitive biblical review of the death penalty.
---------------------
70% of Catholics supported the death penalty as of May, 2oo5, Gallup Poll, Moral Values and Beliefs. The May 2-5, 2005 poll also found that 74% of Americans favor the death penalty for murderers, while 23% oppose.
dudleysharp - although I share CW's concern for the innocents in a less than perfect system, I also find the death penalty an important deterrent. and people who say it isn't a deterrent have never been married. seriously, i find your commitment to this issue to be intriguing. not that there aren't a lot of people with very strong opinions on both sides of this, but your commitment to this seems greatly to exceed holding a strong opinion. you put what appears to be significant passion and effort into what amounts to a crusade to maintain the states' ability to execute fellow citizens who violate our most serious laws. Again, I lose no sleep when one of these citizens, tried and sentenced under one of the fairest, but admittedly imperfect, legal systems in the world, breathes his final breath. None at all. But I remain curious about the depth of your involvement here. Thanks for sharing if you choose to do so.
Mudge, short story, long winded explanation. CW would ban me for sure.
email me. sharjfa@aol.com
If it really matters.
Mudge, I don't see how the death penalty is an important deterrent and how being married has anything to do with it. Do you really think that a murderer stops and considers the penalty before he/she acts? Most cases, absolutely not. It's an insain act committed by insain people who aren't thinking down the road and how their actions will play out.
samshapiro - the married part was a feeble and obviously ineffective attempt at a joke...along the lines of "what is the secret to staying married 50 years? not owning a gun." as for the serious part of it, i do own guns and i have been in a situation where i might have been justified in drawing a gun to stop a crime in progress (car being broken into). that crime did not, i believe, warrant the use of deadly force and i therefore did not draw the weapon but rather called the police. i did that upon a quick reflection that a logical consequence of me drawing my weapon might be an adrenline charged escalation of the situation that could result in me shooting the criminal in question. it was the fear of possible incarceration (no, i really didn't think about the morality of taking that criminal's life at the time)that deterred me from even drawing the weapon in the first place. because of the circumstances, i was pretty sure capital punishement would not be an issue but if it had, i not only would not have drawn the weapon, i would have taken it inside and locked it up. i do believe it deters a lot of people. but we have no statistics for those it deters because it never results in a reportable incident. i know of nothing that is a 100% effective deterrent, but just because there is a small percentage of our population who is not deterred 100% of the time throughout their lives, doesn't mean that it has no deterrent effect on the rest of us.
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