In finding the death penalty unconstitutional, Judge Fine could hardy be less judicious or more irresponsible.

Preliminarily, it appears Judge Fine based his unconstitutional finding upon executing innocents. It also appears that he just accepted defense attorney claims without fact checking them.

The 200 released number used by Judge Fine appears to be an inaccurate counting of DNA freed cases, as per the Innocence Project, for the entire prison population, not just death row. I suspect the judge received that inaccurate number from defense counsel.

The decision appears similarly based to the one made by New York Federal District Court Judge Jed Rakoff in the Quinones case, whereby Rakoff found the federal death penalty statute unconstitutional. I stated, then, that it was an obviously idiotic decision which would quickly be overturned. It was. At least Rakoff fact checked.

There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.

In the modern death penalty era, possibly, 25 inmates have been released from death row based upon actual innocence.

That is about 0.3% of those sentenced to death since 1973.

Likely, there is not a more accurate sanction when it comes to convicting the actually guilty and freeing the actually innocent.

In addition, innocents are more protected with the death penalty than with the lesser sanction of life without parole.

“The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents”
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx

The 130 (now 139) death row “innocents” scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx

“The Innocent Executed: Deception & Death Penalty Opponents”
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/10/08/the-innocent-executed-deception–death-penalty-opponents–draft.aspx

Sincerely, Dudley Sharp
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.

Locally we’re seeing a lot of privately run charter schools competing with the “teachers union” schools and that should also increase the quality of education iof the long run.