MISSOURI FORUM
By Rep. Bill Deeken
For the past several years I have sponsored legislation that would impose a moratorium on executions in Missouri while a commission does a complete study of the death penalty system in our state. This may seem a strange action for a person who, in principle, supports the death penalty. But I believe that this legislation is absolutely necessary in Missouri.
Since 1989, Missouri has executed 66 people, the fourth most of any state. Legislation returning the death penalty to Missouri law was enacted over 30 years ago. Since then, Missouri has not had a comprehensive official review of the state’s death penalty system. With a punishment as final as death—it’s long past time state officials take a pause to thoroughly examine our system of taking a life.
A death penalty moratorium is important because there is a fear that an innocent person could be executed. While there is much to be proud of in our criminal justice system, it is still a human system. Mistakes can and have been made when it comes to the death penalty. Nationally, 129 people who were convicted and sentenced to death since 1973 have been exonerated. This includes three men in Missouri—Clarence Dexter, Eric Clemmons and Joe Amrine—who had their death sentences removed when evidence of their innocence came to light.
Legitimate concerns have been raised with our state’s application of the death penalty. A Columbia Law School study in 2000 revealed that one-third of Missouri’s death sentences were later reversed because of errors. A few individuals currently living under a death sentence in Missouri have raised credible claims of innocence. While I don’t know if their claims are valid, the execution of even one innocent person destroys the integrity of the system.
How do innocent persons get sentenced to death? An examination of wrongful convictions reveals common threads: mistaken eyewitness identification, forced confessions, jailhouse snitches, poor legal representation, faulty evidence and misconduct by police and prosecutors. Many of these problems existed in the Illinois criminal justice system when Governor Ryan halted executions in 2000 after 13 death row exonerations.
A commission examined their death penalty system and recommended numerous reforms to prevent wrongful convictions. Some of these recommendations were adopted into law.
Surely, we in Missouri also deserve to have the best possible criminal justice system we can create.
If we instituted a moratorium, a similar commission would examine all aspects of the death penalty as administered in the state: including the evidence used to obtain a homicide conviction, the experience level of attorneys, resources available to counsel, characteristics of those who receive a death sentence, the cost of the death penalty, criteria used by prosecutors in seeking the death penalty and the interests of the victims’ families. The commission would report its findings and make recommendations to the General Assembly and the governor.
Regardless of one’s position on the death penalty, all people want a fair and just criminal justice system. Missourians are no different. While surveys indicate majority support in principle for capital punishment, 60 percent of Missourians support a three-year moratorium and study of the state’s death penalty (Center for Social Sciences and Public Policy Research, Missouri State University, 2004). In addition, 300 Missouri church groups, businesses and civic organizations have signed resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions while a study takes place. The 2008 moratorium legislation had bi-partisan support with 58 co-sponsors (14 Republicans, 44 Democrats). Hopefully, we’ll have more co-sponsors in the 2009 session.
Our state currently requires cars to be inspected for safety every two years. And just as we wouldn’t inspect our cars while driving them on the highway, we shouldn’t examine our death penalty while executions continue. Missouri should take a pause in executions and do a thorough examination of how we use capital punishment. Justice demands no less.
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Deeken is a state representative (R-District 114).
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the Missouri Forum. 2/09
For the past several years I have sponsored legislation that would impose a moratorium on executions in Missouri while a commission does a complete study of the death penalty system in our state. This may seem a strange action for a person who, in principle, supports the death penalty. But I believe that this legislation is absolutely necessary in Missouri.
Since 1989, Missouri has executed 66 people, the fourth most of any state. Legislation returning the death penalty to Missouri law was enacted over 30 years ago. Since then, Missouri has not had a comprehensive official review of the state’s death penalty system. With a punishment as final as death—it’s long past time state officials take a pause to thoroughly examine our system of taking a life.
A death penalty moratorium is important because there is a fear that an innocent person could be executed. While there is much to be proud of in our criminal justice system, it is still a human system. Mistakes can and have been made when it comes to the death penalty. Nationally, 129 people who were convicted and sentenced to death since 1973 have been exonerated. This includes three men in Missouri—Clarence Dexter, Eric Clemmons and Joe Amrine—who had their death sentences removed when evidence of their innocence came to light.
Legitimate concerns have been raised with our state’s application of the death penalty. A Columbia Law School study in 2000 revealed that one-third of Missouri’s death sentences were later reversed because of errors. A few individuals currently living under a death sentence in Missouri have raised credible claims of innocence. While I don’t know if their claims are valid, the execution of even one innocent person destroys the integrity of the system.
How do innocent persons get sentenced to death? An examination of wrongful convictions reveals common threads: mistaken eyewitness identification, forced confessions, jailhouse snitches, poor legal representation, faulty evidence and misconduct by police and prosecutors. Many of these problems existed in the Illinois criminal justice system when Governor Ryan halted executions in 2000 after 13 death row exonerations.
A commission examined their death penalty system and recommended numerous reforms to prevent wrongful convictions. Some of these recommendations were adopted into law.
Surely, we in Missouri also deserve to have the best possible criminal justice system we can create.
If we instituted a moratorium, a similar commission would examine all aspects of the death penalty as administered in the state: including the evidence used to obtain a homicide conviction, the experience level of attorneys, resources available to counsel, characteristics of those who receive a death sentence, the cost of the death penalty, criteria used by prosecutors in seeking the death penalty and the interests of the victims’ families. The commission would report its findings and make recommendations to the General Assembly and the governor.
Regardless of one’s position on the death penalty, all people want a fair and just criminal justice system. Missourians are no different. While surveys indicate majority support in principle for capital punishment, 60 percent of Missourians support a three-year moratorium and study of the state’s death penalty (Center for Social Sciences and Public Policy Research, Missouri State University, 2004). In addition, 300 Missouri church groups, businesses and civic organizations have signed resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions while a study takes place. The 2008 moratorium legislation had bi-partisan support with 58 co-sponsors (14 Republicans, 44 Democrats). Hopefully, we’ll have more co-sponsors in the 2009 session.
Our state currently requires cars to be inspected for safety every two years. And just as we wouldn’t inspect our cars while driving them on the highway, we shouldn’t examine our death penalty while executions continue. Missouri should take a pause in executions and do a thorough examination of how we use capital punishment. Justice demands no less.
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Deeken is a state representative (R-District 114).
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the Missouri Forum. 2/09
3 comments:
Rep. Deeken:
the 129 innocents is a complete scam, easily uncoverable with fact checking.
Start here:
Re: fact checking issues, on innocence and the death penalty.
It is very important to take note that the 130 exonerated from death row is a blatant scam, easily uncovered by fact checking.
The Death Penalty Information Center has been responsible for some of the most serious deceptions by the anti death penalty side, includsive of this 130 exonerated and innocence scam.
Dieter 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.
Richard Dieter, head of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC): defining 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.
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, 102 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.
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.
The Death Penalty Provides 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 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.
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, reasonably, 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 2007-2009, 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.
Pro death penalty sites
http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www.dpinfo.comwww.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/archives.html
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden) www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
Rep. Deeken:
Maybe you would like to look at\ that Columbia Law School study, too.
Fact checking is very important.
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