New Haven Independent

Rookie Makes History, Draws Lessons

by Paul Bass | June 12, 2009 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

Sympathetic old-timers told Gary Holder-Winfield his bill to abolish the death penalty would never pass. He proved them wrong — then ended up face to face with the governor at a crossroads in history.

Holder-Winfield (pictured) finished his first regular session as a New Haven state representative in a spot it takes many legislators years to reach.

He defied predictions, and death threats, by leading a successful charge to pass a controversial bill, only to fail in a last-minute private plea to dissuade Gov. M. Jodi Rell from vetoing the measure.

The experience left Holder-Winfield determined to do what he can to help somebody unseat Gov. Rell next year.

It also confirmed his conviction that “you just have to do what you think is right” at the state Capitol no matter what convention calls for. If he had “acted the way freshman are supposed to act,” he said, the death-penalty abolition movement in Connecticut “would still be saying, ‘Some day we’ll get it passed.’”

“Sometimes,” he said, “you have to say, ‘I see things different,’ and run with that.”

Baton Passed

Holder-Winfield reflected in an interview Thursday on the lessons for his remarkable roller coaster ride to legislative heights and back inside the surreal amusement park under the Capitol dome.

He seized the death penalty issue his first day in office this January.

He had just beaten the Democratic machine to fill a seat held for 32 years by his mentor, state Rep. Bill Dyson. Like Dyson, Holder-Winfield has been an activist for criminal-justice reform, convinced the state disproportionately jails African-Americans rather than offering them opportunities to lead productive lives. Like Dyson, Holder-Winfield opposes the death penalty. He says it disproportionately targets racial minorities. And he calls it unjust, on its own terms and in light of revelations of falsely accused people being executed.

“It’s not my job to put people to death,” he said. “Murder is wrong if it’s done by the state or an individual acting as an individual.”

So on his first day at the Capitol Holder-Winfield submitted his first bill. To abolish the death penalty.

He received the same message from sympathetic veteran legislators and sympathetic activists: That’s nice. But the bill’s going nowhere this year. We tried four years ago and failed. Now it’s too close to the Petit murder, the horrific rape/murder in Cheshire.

“You can’t be a failure unless you try,” Holder-Winfield responded.

He also checked in with his fellow first-term Democrats. They hadn’t been around in 2005 to vote on the death penalty. Nor had lawmakers serving a second-term. A clear majority of these colleagues were ready to vote to repeal.

Still, Ben Jones wasn’t convinced. And Jones leads the most visible group in the state pushing for repeal, the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Maybe, just maybe the state House might pass it, by a small margin, Jones recalled thinking. But his group had done a head count right after the election last November. Based on that, it concluded the bill could never pass the Senate.

“My reaction [to Holder-Winfield] was: This is a first-time legislator. He may be a little naive. I was worried about getting people’s hopes up,” Jones recalled Thursday.

Petit Shows Up

Prospects seemed even dimmer when a version of Holder-Winfield’s proposal, HB6578, came before the Judiciary Committee on Feb. 26. Even before the bill was heard, it had been changed to exempt people already on death row.

And Dr. William Petit — the man who watched his family being butchered before his eyes in Cheshire, then earned an entire state’s sympathy — showed up to the hearing to urge legislators to preserve the death penalty.

Holder-Winfield decided to press the practical argument, not the moral arguments about racial impact or state-sponsored murder. Holder-Winfield is black. So are many of his constituents. That’s not true for the vast majority of the legislators whose votes he needed, he recognized.

That’s why he didn’t press this argument: If someone black gets murdered brutally in Holder-Winfield’s neighborhood, the killer will almost certainly not get the death penalty. When it happened to someone white in Cheshire, everyone knew the death penalty awaited. He didn’t spend much time on emphasizing information in this Yale study revealing racial disparities in the handling of 4,600 Connecticut murders over 34 years. (The study reported that a black defendant is twice as likely to be charged with a capital felony if the victim is white. And that 69 percent of whites accused of committing a capital-eligible felony against a white victim actual get capital charges, compared to 90 percent of blacks in the same boat.)

Holder-Winfield instead pressed arguments about how he believes the death penalty doesn’t work. How it doesn’t deter crime. How it’s arbitrary — how someone is seven times more likely to be prosecuted for execution if he lives in Waterbury, because a zealous prosecutor is based there.

“I felt the moral. I pressed the practical,” Holder-Winfield said. “If I talk about poor blacks and Latinos, I might feel that. But it’s not going to play.”

After he spoke at the hearing, as well as on public radio and WTNH, Holder-Winfield received physical threats, including death threats.

He got one such anonymous threat on his cell phone; he gives out the number freely.

“We could get you,” the caller said.

“Well, I live in Newhallville if you want to come,” Holder-Winfield recalls replying.

He said the threats didn’t faze him: “If you’re doing things that are controversial, unfortunately you have to come to expect it.”

Dr. Petit didn’t faze him, either. Other pro-abolition legislators were hesitant to respond to Petit at the hearing, given his pull on public sympathy. Holder-Winfield decided that as the face of the abolition bill, he had to. He also shared in the sympathy for what Petit endured. “I said, ‘Victims are important to me.’” But he noted that plenty of victims who have had relatives murdered line up against the death penalty too. “We can’t make law because one or two people feel something,” he said.

Holder-Winfield and Petit shook hands after the hearing. The exchanges were civil. At that point, conventional wisdom held that Petit and death-penalty supporters had no need to worry. Holder-Winfield’s bill was going nowhere in 2009.

Other Victims Speak

The Judiciary Committee approved the bill and sent it to the state House. That wasn’t a surprise, given the pro-abolition leanings of its chairmen.

By the time the bill came before the full House in May, death-penalty supporters were growing a bit more nervous. Dr. Petit returned to the spotlight, ramping up emotional appeals to legislators to preserve the penalty in his daughters’ and wife’s memory.

But, unexpectedly, a different group of speakers made a different emotional appeal. Three state legislators spoke of how they had relatives brutally murdered. All three supported abolishing the death penalty. Killing their relatives’ killers, they said, wouldn’t bring their relatives back, or stop other people from killing. Click on the play arrow to watch the remarks from one of those legislators, New Haven State Rep. Juan Candelaria.

And click on the play arrow here to watch Holder-Winfield’s testimony.

Holder-Winfield needed 76 votes for the measure to pass. He counted on 82 going into the debate, more than legislative leaders were counting on. The time to vote arrived. The first- and second-term lawmakers lined up as Holder-Winfield expected. And the fence-straddlers were moved by the three legislators’ appeals. The abolition bill pulled a stunning 90 votes, with 56 no votes.

Holder-Winfield made a point of not celebrating. No grins, no fist pumps for the camera. In his view, it was a sober moment.

“It’s not about gaining a victory. It’s about doing what’s right for the people for the state,” he said. “Even though I was 100 percent sure that what we did was the right thing, I knew it was painful” for Dr. Petit. “I feel for the guy, and other people who agree with him.” (Click here to read an item Holder-Winfield blogged at the time.)

That propelled the measure to its supposed graveyard, the Senate. Meanwhile, New Mexico was abolishing the death penalty and that helped too. After a debate that lasted until 4:11 a.m., the Senate, too, shocked observers and passed the bill. However, it fell far short of the majority needed to override a veto by Republican Gov. Rell. And Rell was expected to issue that veto.

The Last Holdout

Before doing so, Rell made time to invite the face of House Bill 6578 to her office for a chat.

Holder-Winfield spent a half hour with the governor and her legislative aide, Chelsea Turner. Not even the gubernatorial gatekeeper, Rell Chief of Staff M. Lisa Moody, was present. (Turner declined Thursday to offer her version of the meeting.)

The discussion was cordial. Holder-Winfield didn’t expect to change the governor’s mind. He gave it his best shot by focusing on practical arguments: That the death penalty has never been shown to deter someone else from killing. That it’s broken in Connecticut, that it discriminates by race, by geography, by prosecutorial whim.

To his surprise, Holder-Winfield recalled, “almost on every point we agreed.”

“I knew that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to veto the bill. But I was very much waiting to see what her veto letter was going to say.”

When he saw Rell’s veto message, he was stunned. “It blew my mind.” Rell said the death penalty wasn’t broken. She said there’s “no doubt” it deters other murderers. She spoke of responding to the desire of victims like Petit — without mentioning victims who felt differently. She acknowledged a previous study finding that the death penalty has an adverse impact on racial minorities and called for reforms that never happened — then, in Holder-Winfield’s paraphrase, “went on the say it’s fine.” She wrote that she saw no need to seek changes in the law. She called law “effective” and “workable.”

Click here to read Rell’s veto message.

Click on the play arrow to watch Holder-WInfield’s remarks at a press conference called to react to the veto. And click here to read a letter Holder-Winfield sent to Rell Wednesday about the message.

5 Lessons

The veto message, not the veto itself, convinced him more than ever that Connecticut needs a new governor, Holder-Winfield said.

“Half the people in my district are ‘those people’” whose lives Rell discounted, Holder-Winfield said Thursday. “I am one of ‘those people.’ She just told all of us: ‘Too bad for you. My ideology is more important than your life.’ I don’t think a person should be governor who puts ideology over people’s lives.”

The freshman cited four other lessons from the abolition episode:

• Sometimes a legislative newcomer has to defy the conventional wisdom about what bills to push and what not to push.

• Talk to everybody on all sides of an issue. He just kept talking up the death penalty bill throughout the session, including to legislators who switched their votes after hearing the debate, he said. In his view, that helped.

• Abolitionists need to “chip away” at the poll numbers showing that 61 percent of the state favored preserving the death penalty. Close to a quarter of that group believes it costs more money to keep a person in prison for life than to pursue the death penalty, Holder-Winfield said. That’s wrong, and his side can change minds by driving the point home, he argued. The same with the 8 to 15 percent of that group believing that the death penalty deters crime.

• “We need to reclaim ‘justice.’ We have advocated that term.” His side can reframe the issue in the process, Holder-Winfield argued.

Count on him to continue trying.

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Comments

Posted by: robn | June 12, 2009 12:37 PM

Congratulations Rep Holder-Winfield. Fairness is what lawmaking is all about.

Posted by: jahad | June 12, 2009 12:46 PM

Great job Gary. A politician with conviction and integrity...keep up the great uncompromised work!

Posted by: Been Called Worse | June 12, 2009 1:03 PM

Great article. This type of reporting makes NHI a daily read for me.

"You can't be a failure unless you try" - Gary Holder-Winfield.

I'm really digging that right there.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | June 12, 2009 2:29 PM

We knew he was going to be for the people!! BRAVO Gary great work!...What I also love is if you have him on Twiter of facebook we would get up dates on his work through out the day!! He made us all part of the process!!

Posted by: Paul Wessel | June 12, 2009 2:37 PM

Nice piece. Nice campaign. Good for you, Gary.

Posted by: Ignoranceisbliss | June 12, 2009 2:37 PM

Paul's latest African-American legislator crush? Whatever happened to Jason Bartlett? Oh right... he got exposed as a sleazy landlord.

Dyson served for 32 years and then his handpicked successor was elected....that sure is some impressive "machine" they fought.

Posted by: Bill | June 12, 2009 2:41 PM

Justice is represented by a scale which means the penalty has to equal the crime otherwise it's not justice.

Posted by: Norton Street | June 12, 2009 4:08 PM

Bill, for certain crimes, like torture, murder, rape and others the penalty should be worse because of the damage done to victims, society at large, surrounding area, culture and people's perceptions on safety. Rotting in a cell for life is a much worse penalty than the death penalty. Death would be the easy way out for a heinous criminal. I'm not against killing criminals, not because its immoral or hypocritical but because it isn't good enough.

Posted by: City Hall Watch | June 12, 2009 4:12 PM

"It's about doing what's right for the people for the state," said Holder-Winfield.

What does that statement mean? Who determines what's right for the state? The same people who bring us taxes we can't pay; hardly a state department without crippling and mind numbing ineptitude, corruption or both? People who can't find a spending cut with two hands and a mirror or pass a budget on time, one that's respectful and empathetic to the people who fund it? We're supposed to respect their judgement? What's right for the state? We've spoken. We like the death penalty especially for people who choose through their own free will to torture, rape, pillage and kill. The problem is we don't bring them to justice fast enough.

As for minorities being disproportionately represented on death row? That may be true. The real question is did they do the crime? Does the punishment fit the crime? If they did and you abolish the death penalty, then will you come back and say there are too many minorities in prison, just because they happen to be african-americans?

Posted by: New Haven One | June 12, 2009 4:13 PM

Ignoranceisbliss

Yes quite a victory. He fought a democratic establishment which included a mayor, town committee chair, alders, co-chairs, and mayors staff. All who worked day in and day out in what was a close election decided by one ward.

Gary ran a good grassroots campaign with the support of an unpopular city hall state rep at the time bill dyson. We all have seen first hand how the democratic "machine" can win elections just look at the board of aldermen.

Good work Gary. As state rep you should help unseat some of your local alders who did not support you in your district who happen to be loyal to the mayor.

Posted by: Jimmy | June 12, 2009 4:30 PM

Not bad for a loyal union employee. The background that got the speaker of the house his position. Gary knows that every death row inmate in Connecticut admits they are guilty. Gary you read the Governor, not! State employees pay your salary so keep on fighting to liberalize everything.

Posted by: Ilovethiscountry | June 12, 2009 6:43 PM

Que Viva Gary Holder-Winfield.

"A man who stands for nothing will for anything."

Malcom X

Thanks Gary for Standing UP for whats right.

Posted by: Sharon Bass | June 12, 2009 7:03 PM

Rell, like many pols -- especially hard-right wingers -- doesn't care about facts. Her statement that the death penalty deters crime is based solely on her "opinion" and to appease the majority of Connecticut voters to help her win re-election. FACT is, the DP does not deter crime one iota. Look at the DP capital of the country: Texas. Under Bush's regime more people were executed than in any other state. Yet, murders and other violent crimes in Texas never fell. But that's just a fact. Not a re-election gimmick.

Posted by: Ilovethiscountry | June 12, 2009 7:15 PM

"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

Malcom X

Posted by: Tessa Marquis | June 12, 2009 7:38 PM

This Bill made me proud to have distributed leaflets for Holder-Winfield during his campaign. I had no idea that he would be this much of a champion. It was excellent work and I greatly appreciate this article, also excellent, which explains all the pivots and dodges he went through. A real insiders view.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 12, 2009 7:46 PM

Part 2: Rep. Holder-Winfield was wrong on all points and Governor Rell knew it.

There is zero evidence, in Ct, that the death penalty is enforced in a biased manner against minority racial or ethnic groups. The Representative must be aware of this.

Nationally, there is pretty solid evidence that the death penalty is not enforced in a racist manner.

Rep. Holder-Windfield needs to consult with more than the very inaccurate anti death penalty sites and those behind them.

Consult here: http://homicidesurvivors.com/2006/03/25/race-a-death-penalty-primer.aspx

The only thing that is wrong with the death penalty in Ct is that a bunch of legislators are 1) doing all they can to make sure that it is not imposed, 2) that is takes forever to get through appeals 3) that it costs Ct citizens as much as possible and 4) that the will of the jury, to impose the just and appropriate sanction of execution, is thwarted.

Rep. Holder-Windfield, would you like to improve justice in Ct. Try looking at the Virginia model:

Virginia executes in 5-7 years. 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed. Only 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned. The national averages are 11 years, 14% and 36%, respectively.

With the high costs of long term imprisonment, a true life sentence will be more expensive than such a death penalty protocol.

Posted by: FairHavenRes | June 12, 2009 10:35 PM

Gary, stay true to yourself and to your constituents. Do not allow yourself to be corrupted by the political hacks running the democratic party.

Thank you for running.

Thanks to your wife and family who must share you with us all. We appreciate the gift you have given us all.

Posted by: fedupwithliberals | June 13, 2009 5:52 AM

So, instead of finding ways to cut spending and taxes to alleviate our collective burdens, you wasted a lot of time and the people's money crafting a bill that you knew the governor was going to veto, and played the race card in the process. Great job! Thats hope and change.

Posted by: proofreader | June 13, 2009 1:26 PM

The word "fall" was omitted in LOVETHISCOUNTRY'S quote:

Malcolm X: (via WikiQuote):

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

Yeah Gary! You tried and prevailed - the Governor's veto is her failure alone.

Posted by: kevin | June 13, 2009 2:01 PM

check out the Hartford Independent Media Center interview with Rep. Holder-Winfield on RadioActive here:
http://hartfordimc.org/2009/06/08/radioactive-death-penalty-in-ct/

Posted by: Rev. Samuel T. Ross-Lee | June 13, 2009 8:25 PM

I applaud you Senator Holder-Winfield for your moral conviction and intelligent approach to this issue.

In politics winning and losing is too often defined by who got the most votes on any particular issue. But it should be defined by who tried to do the right thing, whether they were fighting a "losing" battle or not.

Stick to your conviction on this one, for sometimes the winners lose and the loser wins.

Posted by: myhood | June 14, 2009 12:11 AM

Senator, while your moral argument may have
some merit, your practical argument is short sighted. Bottom line, some people need to die. The men who killed the family of Dr. Petit, if found guilty, need to die. No excuses. one swipe, clean wipe.

When a society loses the mental fortitude necessary to discipline itself, everybody suffers. Gov. Rell appears to understand that.

As for minorities being treated unfairly in the Judicial system, what else is new? You commit murder, and now you want equality? The comments on this article alone will tell you that our majority friends don't think that way.

introduce some legislation to help your neighbors
in newhallville live better, the predators will have to look out for themselves.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 14, 2009 9:43 AM

Part 3: Rep. Holder-Winfield was wrong on all points and Governor Rell knew it.

Rep. Holder-Winfield writes: "Murder is wrong if it's done by the state or an individual acting as an individual."

REPLY: In no way and under no circumstances should anyone equate the unjust murder of the innocent with the just sanction of execution for committing that murder.

There is a huge moral difference between the murder of an innocent rape/murder victim and the just execution of the guilty rapist/murderer who committed that crime. (See Petit rape/murders)

Please do not confuse the innocent and the guilty, the victim and the perpetrator, the crime and the just sanction.

Be as opposed to the death penalty as you wish, just don't equate murder and execution. It is an amoral or an immoral equation.

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 just 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).

Either way, it's time to stop it. It is just too grotesque a tool.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 14, 2009 10:14 AM

Part 4: Rep. Holder-Winfield was wrong on all points and Governor Rell knew it.

Rep. Holder-Winfiled writes: "Victims are important to me.'" But he noted that plenty of victims who have had relatives murdered line up against the death penalty too. "We can't make law because one or two people feel something,".

REPLY: "One or two people"!? His quote could, hardly, less reflect reality.

70-83% of Ct voters support the execution of the rapist/murderers in the Petit case and supported the "voluntary" execution of serial murderer/rapist Michael Ross, respectively.

Yes, there was/is a very organized effort by organizations that have murder victim survivors who oppose the death penalty. These organizations/individuals are active in coordinated efforts throughout the country.

First, Rep. Holden-Winfield. do not make the mistake of extrapolating the number of those folks, active in anti death penalty efforts, to the general population. The 70-83% execution support in Ct, obviously, contradicts any such proposition.

Secondly, if we could, somehow, conduct a scientific poll only asking parents, whose children had been raped and murdered, if they supported the death penalty, it is fairly safe to say, based upon current polling responses, that support would be well over 90%.

Thirdly, sadly, these anti death penalty groups do the, morally, inconceivable, they equate innocent murder victims and executed guilty murderers.

The anti death penalty groups which have murder victims survivors against the death penalty include the parents, loved ones and friends of the executed murderer as "murder victim survivors".

While I think we should all have sympathy for such folks, this type of amoral or immoral equation should be condemned.

Posted by: Rep. Pat Dillon | June 14, 2009 1:36 PM

Great article and an important debate.
The death penalty is larger than any one of us, though in Hartford it was associated with Rep. Richard Tulisano, Rep. Irving Stolberg and Rep. Dyson.
On the day of the vote, people who worked with Bill Dyson over the years - both opponents and supporters of the death penalty - came to the chamber and the gallery to watch the debate. When Bill Dyson strode in, many mentored by Bill over the years watched through tears as Rep Candelaria and Rep. Holder-Winfield spoke.
There was a similar moment two years ago when Rep. Doug McCrory, speaking on criminal justice, paid tribute to Dyson by saying "Brother Dyson , you were on your own for a long time. You're not now."

New Haven One, you described Bill Dyson this way
"an unpopular city hall state rep at the time bill dyson. " Do you mean unpopular "with" City Hall? If so it demonstrates a disconnect between local insider politics and Bill Dyson's legacy. Unpopularity or popularity downtown is not the same as hard won respect.

The forcing of this issue, and this debate, showed what legislators can do when they take their work seriously and without fear.

Posted by: Tim | June 15, 2009 7:26 AM

While I dont agree with Rep Holder-Winfield, I give him tons of credit for doing what he thinks is right. Not too many politicians out can say that.

Posted by: nfjanette | June 15, 2009 11:17 AM

And he calls it unjust, on its own terms and in light of revelations of falsely accused people being executed.

That is the point that should bypass all of the arguments about effectiveness and/or appropriateness of the death penalty. We know it has occurred, and that should be enough reason to avoid the use of execution in most cases. In a small number of cases with clear video and eye witness confirmation of the crimes, that might return the debate back into the realm of ethics and effectivity. That doesn't mean, BTW, I think criminals with life sentences should have a work-free existence on the backs of tax payers; I'm all for making them work for survival like regular citizens.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 15, 2009 11:46 AM

The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/06/rookie_makes_hi.php

Part 1: Rep. Holder-Winfield was wrong on all points and Governor Rell knew it.

Rep. Holder Winfiled writes: "in light of revelations of falsely accused people being executed."

REPLY: There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900. The evidence is that innocents are more protected with the death penalty.

The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp

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.

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.

Enhanced Fear - 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.

What of that more rational group, the potential murderers who choose not to murder, is it likely that they, like most of us, fear death more than life?

Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.

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.

Posted by: Mister Jones | June 15, 2009 5:43 PM

The death penalty is ultimately a moral issue. Supporters and opponents muster various logical arguments for and against--deterrence, cost, risk of execution of innocents--but in the end, it comes down to whether you believe the government should have the power to kill someone as punishment for certain crimes. Many do. I don't.

Some folks have changed their minds over the years, but I think for most, their minds are made up, based on their moral, religious, philosophical and political makeup.

Posted by: William Kurtz | June 16, 2009 8:47 AM

Mr. Sharp,

The mark of a mature thinker is the ability to hold two, possibly contradictory ideas in one's head at the same time and resist the kinds of false dichotomies that characterize much of your frequently incoherent argument. In other words, the ability to think 'this and that' and not only, 'this or that.'

In comedian Bill Maher's example, "O.J. killed his wife and the cops are corrupt."

Your continued insistence that anyone opposed to the death penalty is equating capital punishment with child murder and so forth is repellent and intellectually dishonest.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 19, 2009 2:22 AM

Mr. Kurtz:

It is you that is being intellectually dishonest.

It is fairly common for anti death penalty folks to equate executions and murders, killing (murder) equals killing (execution), murder (of innocents) equals murder (state executions of murderers), etc.

The moral equivalence statements have been heard around the world.

Are you unaware of that? I guess it is possible.

I find the moral equaivalence statements to be truly foul and folks should realy consider what they are saying and stop it.

It is so grotesque that I think the anti death penalty folks may finally realize it is time to stop using that particular tactic.

I hope that will be soon.

Just because you pretend to not see the obvious
doesn't mean that we should all be so blind.

I don't think there should even be a hint of a moral equivalence between, say the Petit rape/murders and the executions of the two rapist/murderers, if that should ever occur.

No, not all killings equal all other killings. Murder is not execution. Executions are not murder.

Far from it.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 20, 2009 10:41 AM

Mr. Kurts:

To show how intellectuall or non intelctually dishonest you are, this is what you wrote:

"Your continued insistence that anyone opposed to the death penalty is equating capital punishment with child murder and so forth is repellent and intellectually dishonest"

I have never stated, implied nor thought thast "anyone" opposed to the death penalty equates capital punishment with (any type of) murder.

Some anti death penalty folks and organizations us that grotesque tactic.

I suspect most anti death penalty folks are too smart, too morally clear or too honorable to make such a moral error or to use such a grotesque tactic.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 21, 2009 10:29 AM

Bill writes "Justice is represented by a scale which means the penalty has to equal the crime otherwise it's not justice."

I understand what you are saying, but disagree with how you say it.

The penalty can never "equal" the crime.

The crime is an undeserved violation of the innocent victim.

The penalty is the deserved sanction against the criminal.

There is no equivalence.

What we hope for is a punishment, which somehow, represents a proportionate response to the crime committed.

In civil cases or economic crimes I think that is a reasonable expectation.

With violent crimes, I am not dure it ever is.

I have never thought the death penalty could be a proportionate response to the horresnoud crimes for which it is given.The seriousness of the crimes, for which we give the death penalty, are just so overwhelming, that the death penalty can never be a proportional response, because the enormity of the crimes are just too great.

For many violent crimes, all we can hope for is the loosley definded just and appropriate sanction for the crime, because a proportionate response can not truly be achieved - the crimes are just too horrendous.

Posted by: Dudley Sharp | June 21, 2009 10:33 AM

Norton Street writes: "Rotting in a cell for life is a much worse penalty than the death penalty. Death would be the easy way out for a heinous criminal."

About 99% of criminals, who face the death penalty, disagree with you.

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.

What of that more rational group, the potential murderers who choose not to murder, is it likely that they, like most of us, fear death more than life?

Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.

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