Republican Leader: If Racial Justice Act passes, ‘blood thirsty criminals’ win
Minority House Leader Paul Stam (R-Wake) was silent during yesterday’s floor debate leading up the House’s 61-54 vote to approve the Racial Justice Act, which would prevent the execution of defendants who can prove race was an underlying factor in the decision to seek, or impose, the death penalty at the time of their trial.
But today, Stam fired off a press release (PDF, 142 KB) saying, essentially, that the blood of future murder victims is on the hands of the 61 Democrats who voted for the bill.
Note that’s future victims–meaning they do not actually exist. Nevertheless, Stam said these hypothetical victims, which he estimates to be “150+,” are “primarily African American.”
Stam’s figure arrived, through several permutations, from a University of Houston study that claims to be able to calculate the number of likely murders that occurred as a direct result of Texas’ temporary moratorium. The study’s principal argument is based on the claim–in dispute among criminologists and social scientists–that the death penalty acts as a deterrent on crime. Stam prorated the study’s finding of moratorium-induced deaths–90–for North Carolina’s population and the comparative length of its ongoing moratorium, in place due to legal challenges since August 2006.
In a May 2009 press release (PDF, 146 KB) co-authored by Sens. Phil Berger and Eddie Goodall, Stam claimed that each year North Carolina has had a de facto moratorium, 25 additional murders have resulted, totaling 75 murders. Yet in today’s press release–which carried only Stam’s name–that figure doubled, to 50 murders per year, as a “conservative estimate.” Without any factual basis, Stam then estimated that the Racial Justice Act would extend the state’s de facto moratorium by “3 to 4 additional years,” directly leading to more than 150 additional victims.
“We do not know their names, yet, and may never know their names because this is only the excess number of homicides caused by this moratorium,” Stam said. “But they are real people whose families will grieve over their deaths.”
Multiple studies have shown no correlation between a death penalty and a deterrent to homicide. According to FBI statistics over the past 20 years, states without a death penalty have had consistently lower murder rates than states that do—although this data does not necessarily prove or disprove any correlation.
In addition, Stam greatly exaggerated the estimated financial impact of the Racial Justice Act. In a fiscal note attached to the bill, the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) predicted additional costs would total between $2.4 million and $6.2 million within the first year, consisting mostly of defendants already on death row, who have one year to file a claim. The N.C. Department of Justice estimated the additional costs for the 163 defendants on death row to be $4 million. By contrast, Stam claimed the bill would cost “tens of millions of dollars,” due to additional hearings expenses for these defendants alone.
In its fiscal analysis, AOC noted that “to the extent a pretrial hearing resulted in a ruling that causes a case to proceed non-capitally, where it might otherwise have proceeded capitally, the subsequent costs for that case would be considerably less.” N.C. Indigent Defense Services estimated that the bill would ultimately save the state money on capital trial costs.
“There are few winners by this legislation,” Stam said in the release. “The 163 blood thirsty criminals convicted of first degree murder now on death row are the principal beneficiaries.”
Accompanying the release are e-mails and letters from District Attorneys who oppose the bill. In response to the Racial Justice Act’s fiscal note, Forsyth County DA Thomas Keith wrote about how difficult it would be for his office to locate files (PDF, 89 KB) on defendants sentenced to death, which he said in some cases were “dumped unceremoniously in boxes since we never can get enough notebooks and had to recycle all the notebooks after the trial was over.”
Keith added that his prosecutors are not “math whizzes,” have “no institutional experience on statistics,” and would have trouble cross-examining a statistician presenting a Racial Justice Act claim.
“We can’t do any more than we are doing now unless you want us to give away the courthouse or hire more staff,” he wrote. “When would I hear 11 RJA motions?”
5 Comments
Mr. Saldana:
You make a common and severe error.
Please review:
“Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let’s be clear”
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/03/death-penalty-deterrence-murder-rates.html
In addition, there have been 16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, finding for deterrence.
Here’s a rebuttal to one of the critics.
Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A Reply to Radelet and Lacock
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/02/deterrence-and-the-death-penalty-a-reply-to-radelet-and-lacock.aspx
It’s entirely possible that Rep. Stam underestimated the negative effects of the RJA
“The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents”
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx
— Dudley Sharp 16 July 2009
Dudley,
It’s not in dispute that states with the death penalty have consistently higher murder rates than states without it. As I make clear in my article, however, “this data does not necessarily prove or disprove any correlation.” One of your links chalks this disparity up to states like Texas being a “traditionally high-homicide state with capital punishment.” I’d say a statement like that doesn’t disprove a correlation any more than the FBI data proves one.
As for the deterrent effect of capital punishment, your “Reply to Radelet and Lacock” is misleading. The study, published in Northwestern University School of Law’s Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, found the overwhelming majority of leading criminologists believe the death penalty has no deterrent effect on homicide.
You write: “Within this Survey, the response to question 12 finds that 100% (or 77) of the criminologists agree that the death penalty may deter some.”
That’s because the available responses to question 12–”Do you feel that executing people who commit murders deters others from committing murder, or do you think such executions don’t have much effect?”–were:
“deters others” (3%)
“not much effect” (90%)
“not sure” (8%)
When the same respondents were asked directly whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent, 88 percent said that it does not, while 5 percent said that it does.
— Matt Saldaña 17 July 2009
Mr. Saldana:
My response was accurate.
Although you wrongly say I was misleading, you left out the import second half of the first question.
Here it is:
1. Do you feel that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment
to murder—that it lowers the murder rate, or not?
I left it out, because it is worthless, as opposed the the 12th question, which was not.
The first question is pathetic. Why? Because the death penalty can deter and not lower murder rates.
I was specific in my response to the first three questions of the Radelet/Lacock study, as
The first three Survey questions are specific to murder rates and deterrence. Both reason and social science have known, for a very long time, that murder rates are not how deterrence is established.
For example, look at crime rates. Some jurisdictions have high crime rates, some low - from year to year crime rates go up, down or stay, roughly, the same. In all of those circumstances, we know that some potential criminals are deterred from committing crimes by fear of sanction.
It is the same with all which deters, inclusive of the death penalty. Whether murder rates go up or down, whether they are high or low, there will be fewer net murders with the death penalty and more net murders without it.
I was not misleading. I was specific and included the first question.
As I made very clear, there is a reason the criminologists never say “The death penalty deters no one.” They can’t. It would be dishonest.
As I further stated “Of course the death penalty deters.” But there will never be an agreement as to how much it deters.
If folks read my entire response, they will find I am not misleading, at all.
You were.
— Dudley Sharp 17 July 2009
It’s easy to decide one question is “pathetic” and “worthless,” and another valid, but no matter how the question is phrased, the study’s authors found, “the consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment.”
You’ve chosen to interpret the study’s findings differently, in part by interpreting responses like “not much effect” and “don’t know” to mean some calculable number of otherwise preventable murders. That’s a matter of semantics, which the study’s authors attempted to clarify by asking variations of the same question. The results were fairly consistent: “Only a small minority of top criminologists–10% or less, depending on how the question is phrased–believes that the weight of empirical research studies supports the deterrence justification for the death penalty.”
Yes, there are some criminologists and social scientists–and folks like you–who believe in the deterrence hypothesis. As such, I’ve left the matter open-ended in my article: “The study’s principal argument is based on the claim–in dispute among criminologists and social scientists–that the death penalty acts as a deterrent on crime.”
— Matt Saldaña 18 July 2009
Words matter and that matter very much in how a question is asked or a statement is made in apoll.
I suspect you may be unaware of the long
discussed issue of murder rates and deterrence.However,I appreciate the way you handled it with your - not necessarily prove or disprove correlation.
Your recognition of that should be an indicator as to how worthless aquestion or statment is, when a social scientist is trying,quite hard,to prove a correlation,which is not there.
It is truly worthless,as your own response acknowledged.
I hope the readers look at my essay and review my discussion of “crime rates”in this same context.
If the death penalty doesn’t deter,then it would be the only negative outcome/consequence that did not.
— Dudley Sharp 18 July 2009