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Thread: Death Penalty Information Center Discussion

  1. #1
    Senior Member CnCP Addict maybeacomedian's Avatar
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    Death Penalty Information Center Discussion

    This will not be a long rant...


    I just wanted to take a moment to point out that the DPIC ( http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org ) is laced with inadequacy.

    Aside from the fact that they are nauseatingly biased, their "information" is inaccurate and out-dated.

    They currently have Olen Hutchinson (TN) listed on their table of "Upcoming Executions; Executions Scheduled for 2015" with a May 12th X-date. That dude has already been dead for like two months now!!! (He died on DR of natural causes, on-or-about 10/20/2014).


    Rant over.

    Opinions?
    Last edited by maybeacomedian; 12-17-2014 at 02:28 PM. Reason: re-phrasing & re-formatting

  2. #2
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    Feel free to write to them about this, that or the other : dpic@deathpenaltyinfo.org

  3. #3
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    I find the DPIC to be absolutely maddening for the very reason that they have been so astoundingly successful. They've manged to convince most of the mainstream media that their "exoneration" list is legitimate (see California Deputy Attorney General Ward Campbell's classic 2008 dismantling of the list). The DPIC's director, Richard Dieter, also gets quoted in a great many articles having to do with capital punishment under the guise of the DPIC's being non-partisan. He shrewdly never seems to volunteer the information that the DPIC is stridently opposed to the death penalty. This is obviously a cynical ploy to get the DPIC's propaganda disseminated under the veneer of being an impartial information clearinghouse. As far as I've seen, only the Associated Press consistently identifies the DPIC as being an anti-death-penalty organization.

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    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
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    I object to the name DPIC... I prefer DP"I"C, or Death Penalty "Information" Centre.

    Their "Executed but possibly innocent list" really grinds my gears. One of the people on their list (Larry Griffin) they even provide a post-execution case review by the St Louis DA explaining unambiguously how strong against him the case was, yet still list him as possibly innocent! I guess they're assuming their readership won't bother reading the document, but it gives a veneer of balance. But at the same time they won't mention how other cases they've previously listed have since produced clear evidence of guilt (Roger Keith Coleman).

    Plus their list of scheduled executions has no basis in reality, it's listed dates which haven't been legally set (like Michelle Byrom), and administrative dates. This gives an impression that people get dangerously close to execution before their appeals are heard, leading a less knowledgable reader, incorrectly but unsurprisingly, concluding that some of the executions which did take place may have needed further case review.

    Crime and Capital Punishment is far more of an information centre, far more impartial, and doesn't even pretend to be unbiased!

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Although I agree, this thread is in direct violation of Crime and Capital Punishment site rules. Therefore, this thread is closed.

    * While we are quite happy to have constructive comparative conversations about other pro/anti websites, we will not tolerate blatant references or the sort of "ooh look, what so and so said on such and such website". Also, we would appreciate it if you would refrain from blatant bashing of other websites.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #6
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Moh convinced me to reopen this thread. Keep your posts directed at specific issues with the DPIC.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #7
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    I am posting a an excerpt of a critique of the DPIC "Innocence List" with a link to the full article.

    CRITIQUE OF DPIC LIST (“INNOCENCE: FREED FROM DEATH ROW” )

    IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION


    The DPIC engaged in a “rush to judgment” to compile a list of allegedly innocent defendants released from Death Row. It is tragic whenever an innocent person is convicted and sentenced to death. Obviously, it is a very serious charge to claim that 102 innocent defendants have suffered such an unjust fate. While recent developments such as DNA have revealed “wrongful convictions,” the evidence does not support other claims of such miscarriages under our current capital punishment system.

    In compiling its List, the DPIC has too often relied on inexact standards such as acquittals on retrial, dismissals by the prosecution, and reversals for legal insufficiency of evidence to exonerate released death row inmates. However, there is a big difference between “reasonable doubt” and the kind of “wrong person mistake” that was the genesis of the original Stanford study. Moreover, the DPIC has used old cases in which the defendants did not receive the modern protections that “probably reduce the likelihood of executing the innocent.”

    No reasonable person would be so dishonest as to say that no actually innocent person has ever been convicted and sentenced to death. The system has always anticipated potential factual error and has provided remedies for wrongly convicted defendants–that is why there is a more elaborate post-Furman trial process, an appellate process, state and federal habeas corpus processes, and clemency. The development in DNA technology is now giving birth to new post-conviction procedures in many of the states designed to give inmates the opportunity to have DNA testing that was not available at the time of their trials. Moreover, our open society promotes ongoing inquiry and investigation into legitimate claims of injustice.

    However, it is irresponsible to misrepresent the extent and dimensions of this phenomenon. “It is important to preserve the distinction between acquittal and innocence, which is regularly obfuscated in news media headlines. When acquittal is interpreted as a finding of innocence, the public is led to believe that a guiltless person has been prosecuted for political or corrupt reasons." Schwartz, at 154-155. The DPIC’s gimmicky and superficial List falsely inflates the problem of wrongful convictions in order to skew the public’s opinion about capital punishment.

    The Cooley article includes the dramatic, but meaningless, statistical conclusion that “one death row inmate is released because of innocence for every five inmates executed.” Cooley, at 916. Of course, comparing an execution rate with a “sentenced to death” rate is mixing apples and oranges since there is no claim that any innocent defendants have actually been executed–being sentenced to death is not the same as then being executed. Yet, the recent book by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, Actual Innocence (2000), updated this hysterical ratio to assert that one innocent inmate is being released for every seven inmates executed. This contrived “statistic” has even made its way to the Senate floor. 148 Congressional Record S889-92 (2/15/02). The “wide use” of this dubious “new measure for evaluating the accuracy of the death penalty....” is cited as one of the events most responsible for “igniting the current capital punishment debate.” 33 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 527 (2002); 63 Ohio St. Law Journal 343 (2002).

    Of course, the valid comparison is between the total number of death sentences and the number of innocent Death Row inmates actually released from Death Row. The most recent available statistics reveal that 6,930 death sentences were imposed between 1973 and 2000.[12] Thus, even under the DPIC’s own questionable estimate that 102 innocent defendants have been sentenced to death--only 1.4% of the inmates sentenced to death were released because of innocence. Of course, given the analysis in this paper, the DPIC’s estimate of 102 innocent inmates is artificially inflated. If the 68 cases analyzed in this paper are removed from the DPIC List, then the most that can be said is that between 1973 and 2000, there were 34 wrongly convicted defendants, i.e. less than ½ of 1% or 0.4% of the inmates sentenced to death were actually innocent.

    The analysis of the federal court opinion in Quinones yields similar results. As noted, that decision held that 40 names on the DPIC List were released for reasons indicating “actual innocence.” This would mean that approximately ½ of 1% of the 6, 930 inmates sentenced to death between 1973 and 2000 were “actually innocent.” When the Quinones analysis and this critique are combined to remove all but 17 names from the List, the result is that 2/10 of 1% or 0.2% of the 6,930 prisoners were released on actual innocence grounds.

    The significance of these figures may be appreciated when contrasted with the aforementioned hyperbolic ratio used by the authors of the Cooley study and echoed in Actual Innocence and in the halls of Congress which fallaciously compares executions and exonerations. That 7:1 ratio is a nonsensical public relations statistic that creates the misimpression of an epidemic of wrongful convictions. The facts actually show that for every 6,930 death sentences imposed, 102 innocent defendants were sentenced to death or more likely it is that for every 6,930 death sentences imposed only 40 or 34 or 17 innocent defendants have been sentenced to death. In other words, the relative number of innocent defendants sentenced to death appears to be infinitesimal.

    The public may or may not take comfort from these estimates. The microscopic percentage of defendants who may have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death can be considered a testament to the accuracy and reliability of our modern capital punishment system in filtering out and punishing the actual perpetrators of our most heinous crimes. The United States Supreme Court continues to monitor and modify this system.

    However, if a person believes that the death penalty should be abolished if there is any risk at all that an innocent person could be sentenced to death, then that person is justified in advocating the abolition of capital punishment. No criminal justice system can promise that kind of foolproof perfection–although the minute number of cases in which an innocent person may have been sentenced to death in this country approaches that absolute standard.

    However, the inherent risk of sentencing an innocent person to death and the still unrealized possibility that an innocent person may actually be executed cannot be considered in isolation. Counterbalancing the concern that even one innocent person may be executed is the question of whether the death penalty saves innocent lives by deterring potential murderers.[13] Now, for the first time, various academic and statistical reports have been published that examine the effect of capital punishment during this modern post-Furman period of death penalty jurisprudence. A recent study by the Emory University Department of Economics concludes that capital punishment as it is currently administered has a strong deterrent effect, saving 8-28 lives per execution. Another study conducted by School of Business & Public Adminstration at the University of Houston-Clear Lake and published in Applied Economics shows that homicides increase during periods when there are no executions and decrease during periods when executions are occurring. Economists with the University of Colorado at Denver studied the impact of capital punishment during the years 1977 through 1997. The preliminary results of the Colorado study indicate a deterrence effect of 5-6 fewer homicides per execution. Finally, statistical evidence has been cited to argue that the homicide rates have fallen more steadily and steeply in states that have conducted executions as opposed to states that do not conduct executions or do not have capital punishment. The Weekly Standard, 8/13/01. Inevitably (and properly), the debate over deterrence and the validity of these new studies will continue.[14]

    Deterrence, of course, involves more than numbers. As Senator Dianne Feinstein (D.-Cal.) explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1993:

    “In the 1960's, I was appointed to one of the term-setting and paroling authorities and sat on some 5,000 cases of women who were convicted of felonies in the State of California. I remember one woman who came before me because she was convicted of robbery in the first degree, and I noticed on what is called the granny sheet that she had a weapon, but it was unloaded. I asked her the question why was the gun unloaded and she said, so I wouldn’t panic, kill somebody and get the death penalty.

    “That case went by and I didn’t think too much of it at the time. I read a lot of books that said the death penalty was not a deterrent. Then in the 1970's, I walked into a mom-and-pop grocery store just after the proprietor, his wife and dog had been shot. People in real life don’t die the way they do on television. There was brain matter on the ceiling, on the canned goods. It was a terrible, terrible scene of carnage.

    “I came to remember that woman because by then California had done away with the death penalty. I came to remember the woman who said to me in the 1960's, the gun was unloaded so I wouldn’t panic and kill someone, and suddenly the death penalty came to have new meaning to me as a deterrent.”

    Statement of the Honorable Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, Hearing Before the Senate Judiciary Committee on S.221 (April 1, 1993). [15]

    Under any analysis, innocent lives are at stake. On the one hand, there is the remote prospect that an innocent person may be executed despite the most elaborate, protracted, and sympathetic legal review procedures in the world. On the other, there is the possibility of innocent people horribly and brutally murdered in the streets and in their homes with no legal review process at all. When weighing these choices, the public deserves information that places the innocence question in proper perspective. The DPIC List of allegedly innocent defendants released from Death Row fails to provide that legitimate perspective.

    http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/dpic.htm
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  8. #8
    Senior Member CnCP Addict maybeacomedian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    Moh convinced me to reopen this thread. Keep your posts directed at specific issues with the DPIC.
    Affirmative

  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
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    The Cooley article includes the dramatic, but meaningless, statistical conclusion that “one death row inmate is released because of innocence for every five inmates executed.” Cooley, at 916. Of course, comparing an execution rate with a “sentenced to death” rate is mixing apples and oranges since there is no claim that any innocent defendants have actually been executed–being sentenced to death is not the same as then being executed. Yet, the recent book by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, Actual Innocence (2000), updated this hysterical ratio to assert that one innocent inmate is being released for every seven inmates executed. This contrived “statistic” has even made its way to the Senate floor. 148 Congressional Record S889-92 (2/15/02). The “wide use” of this dubious “new measure for evaluating the accuracy of the death penalty....” is cited as one of the events most responsible for “igniting the current capital punishment debate.” 33 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 527 (2002); 63 Ohio St. Law Journal 343 (2002).
    This is a case of people misreading metrics, if the ratio 1 released to 5 executed is meant to be hysterical, and 1 to 7 is meant to be more hysterical. I think the ratio of executions to releases increasing is a good thing.

    What the person presenting this metric would like the reader to believe is that it's now less likely someone who is innocent will be released than previously, as there are more executions taking place per release. What is undisputedly happening is that the appeals process is less likely to release an inmate than to execute them, but this fact alone doesn't tell you the reason for that event happening.

    The DP"I"C and those who cite the metric in this manner would like you to think that the appeals process is insufficient, and that innocent people have a serious risk execution as the courts are very unlikely to overturn their convictions. This model assumes that the likelihood of execution vs release is the same for each inmate. Of course, if you named a random inmate and gave no details about them and someone were to bet on the outcome of their capital appeals then it would be smart to bet on execution over release. But the fact is the likelihood of different outcomes varies considerably between inmates. A mentally ill inmate has a higher chance of having their sentence commuted, an older inmate has a higher chance of dying of natural causes on death row, people who've been convicted on weak evidence are more likely to have their convictions overturned than those convicted on strong evidence.

    Another way of reading the 1 to 5 and 1 to 7 metrics is that the original trials that sentenced those people to death work quite well, and are improving. If anything the ideal would be every death sentence resulting in an execution, as that would show that the trial courts do not make mistakes in either fact or law, and that the sentences they apply are appropriate.

    To be fair on the DP"I"C their website is pretty good for metrics on the death penalty, although to be honest, I think we could do better here.

  10. #10
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Exoneration Inflation

    Posted by Kent Scheidegger

    Of all the propaganda efforts of the anti-death-penalty movement, the most successful has been the notorious "innocence list," which can be found on the website of the Death Penalty Information Center. Six years ago, Ward Campbell published in the IACJ Journal (Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice) an article titled Exoneration Inflation noting the various ways that people have been included on the list even though they had not been determined to be actually innocent or if their cases were simply irrelevant to the debate over the present system because they were sentenced under a different, since-abandoned system.

    Surprisingly, three of the latter made it on to the notorious list just this year. Three men convicted in Ohio for a 1975 killing and removed from death row just a couple of years later when the statutes were struck down have now been released altogether. It is indeed regrettable that they spent so much time unjustly in prison, but the cases have nothing to do with the current death penalty debate. They were not sent to death row under a law anything like any law now in effect in the United States or that has been in effect for 36 years.

    In a report to be released tomorrow the DPIC will crow about a "record" number of "exonerations" of "former death row inmates," but the fact that these three were briefly on death row under a long-ago abandoned system has no relevance to our current capital sentencing system.

    After the U.S. Supreme Court's opaque 1972 ruling in Furman v. Georgia striking down the then-existing death penalty statutes, state legislatures and Congress did not know what would be required to enact a constitutional death penalty law. Congress, California, New York, and others interpreted Furman to require a mandatory sentencing system and enacted such laws. Ohio enacted a law that was essentially mandatory in most cases, allowing an otherwise eligible defendant to escape the death penalty only on grounds of (1) the victim inducing his own killing, (2) duress, coercion, or strong provocation, or (3) mental illness. In all other cases, death was mandatory upon rendition of the verdict.

    In its 1976 decision in Woodson v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court held, without apologizing, that what it previously implied was required was actually forbidden. Mandatory capital sentencing was declared unconstitutional. The Court left open the singular case of murders by life-sentenced inmates (which it closed 11 years later), but otherwise mitigation had to be considered.

    In 1978, the Supreme Court decided in Lockett v. Ohio that Ohio's statute was essentially a mandatory one under Woodson. That holding was unremarkable. Unfortunately, the Court went much further than it needed to on another aspect of the case, but that's another story.

    The reason that discretion matters in the calculation of risk of executing an innocent person is that residual doubt about guilt is a powerful reason not to impose the death penalty, even in cases where it is otherwise warranted. The positive effect that the relatively rare cases of actual exoneration have had is to make people more sensitive to the possibility.

    The probability of an innocent person being sentenced to death today is far lower than it was four decades ago for a number of reasons. One of them is that the people involved in the decision have more discretion, know they have it, and are more aware of the possibility of a mistake. The possibility of an innocent person being sentenced death today and then actually executed is microscopic.

    As for Ricky Jackson, Wiley Bridgeman, and Ronnie Bridgeman (Kwame Ajamu), why were they in prison so long after their death sentences were set aside? Probably because we provide less in resources and review for life prisoners with claims of actual innocence than we do for unquestionably guilty murderers challenging their sentences. Their case was investigated by a magazine, AP reports.

    Why do we allocate our resources in that way? How about if life prisoners and death-sentenced inmates get the same resources and review, but after the first appeal we only fund claims related to the actual determination of who did it? Wouldn't that make more sense?

    http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/...inue.html#more

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