TWENTY YEARS LATER ... KIRK BLOODSWORTH, DON’T WASTE OUR TIME! (28 JUNE 1993)

Twenty years ago on this date, 28 June 1993, Kirk Bloodsworth was exonerated and released from Prison. While we, the VFFDP, respect his opposition to the death penalty and we strongly empathize and sympathize with his wrongful conviction, however, we STRONGLY DENOUNCE his abolitionist work of ending the death penalty. We have alternate answers for him and will back it up with statistics from America and also around the world. 

(SOURCE: http://delaware.newszap.com/csp/mediapool/public/dt.main.ce.Home.cls?name=bPostPage&bPostPageId=38129)

Kirk Bloodsworth served eight years, 10 months and 19 days in prison, including two years on death row, for the 1984 murder of a 9-year-old girl in Rosedale. DNA evidence exonerated him of the crime and Bloodsworth was released from prison in 1993.

We are thankful that you are alive and were not wrongfully executed or even wrongfully died in prison (we favor executing the guilty and we are against executing the innocent). We hope and DEFINITELY want that the justice system to learn their lesson when they study your case and learn not to do it to another person. In fact, they are putting massive safeguards to ensure that only the guilty go to death row.

However, you are being made use by abolitionists who want to frighten the public in order to manipulate people into believing that we can be snatched away from our daily freedom and be wrongfully sentenced to die. When we saw you in a debate with Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger, we have to mention that some of us (who are formerly abolitionists), have to admit that Scott Shellenberger is more convincing than you. Bear in mind, you were not executed but look at the thousands of innocent people being murdered in this country every year who will never have a chance to keep their lives anymore.

Here are some of your quotes that we have alternate answers to you.

1. "Honestly, after what happened to me, no one can say it can’t happen again..." Bloodsworth said. "We need to get rid of it."

Alternate answer: You were also behind bars, why don’t we get rid of prison too. “It can’t happen again…” Trials will now be fairer to ensure that we do not put an innocent man to death row. There are people being brutally murdered by repeat offenders who will happen again and again.

Without the death penalty, more innocent people will be killed, just look at what had happen to Illinois when they repealed it in on 11 March 2011. Connecticut is another great example, when the abolitionists claim that it will be a more civilized place with no death penalty, the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting proved all of them were wrong, they even kept silent about it.

Keep in mind, Kirk Bloodsworth, you are a law-abiding citizen (We are extremely grateful that you and those people from Witness to Innocence are alive and not wrongfully executed) but the following examples are criminals who are violent. They need to be put down to the grave for Justice and Protection of the state.

Here are many examples of different types of killers, which need to be terminated from society for good:

Serial Killers:

Pedophile Serial Killer, Westley Allan Dodd (http://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/poster-boy-for-hanging-paedophile.html)

Pedophiles: 

Pedophile, John Albert Taylor (http://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/utah-firing-squad-john-albert-taylor.html)

Prison Killers:

ROBERT GLEASON JR. MURDERED 1 OUTSIDE PRISON, KILLED ANOTHER IN PRISON AND KILLED ANOTHER IN ANOTHER PRISON (EXECUTED 16 JANUARY 2013) http://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/robert-gleason-jr-murdered-1-outside.html

Escapees:

Murdered, escaped from Prison to murder again, Jeffrey Landrigan

http://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/jeffrey-landrigan-escapee-recidivist.html

Recidivist Murderers:

Kenneth McDuff

Terrorists & Mass Murderers (See The Eight Executed Terrorists):

Timothy McVeigh (http://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/the-oklahoma-city-bomber-timothy.html)

AJMAL THE DEAD TERRORIST (http://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/ajmal-dead-terrorist-part-2-my-thoughts.html)

War Criminals:

Nazi War Criminals at the Nuremberg Trials.

Juvenile Killers:

  

AN American teenage gunman has mocked the grieving families of three students he killed in a school shooting, at a court hearing that saw him sentenced to life in prison. TJ Lane showed only contempt as he fidgeted in his seat wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word "killer" that he had smuggled in under a dress shirt, a courtroom video feed showed. The 18-year-old then taunted the grieving family members with a vulgar description of how much he still enjoys the memory of killing their sons and ended his brief statement by waving his middle finger at the court. (SOURCE: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/teen-gunman-tj-lane-mocks-victims-families-in-sentence-hearing/story-e6frg6so-1226601200479)

            We know that you are NOT AND NEVER one of them. You were wrongfully convicted of a crime you did not do and you are alive and now a free man. However, you are being used as an Anti-Death Penalty propaganda tool to end capital punishment in the country. You should also mention to the public how dangerous it is to let all these evildoers live and go free to murder again. If you truly care for the victims and their families, you should support killing the guilty for justice and protection. 

Witness to Innocence exoneree members (from left) Ray Krone, Albert Burrell, Kirk Bloodsworth, Gary Drinkard, Randy Steidl, Ronald Keine, Delbert Tibbs and Derrick Jamison

(SOURCE: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/10/173852138/once-on-death-row-he-now-fights-to-defeat-the-death-penalty)

2a. Bloodsworth counters that the justice system is far from perfect. He stated that 140 death row inmates have been wrongly convicted in the United States and 280 people have been cleared of crimes through DNA, including 17 on death row.

Bloodsworth also cited the work of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment which recommended in 2008 that the state should repeal the death penalty for fear of executing an innocent person along with concerns over racial and geographic disparities.

Bloodsworth added that that requiring someone to spend the rest of their life in prison is a far worse punishment than having that person executed.

"The crime that I was accused of, and ultimately went to death row for and was later exonerated, the real perpetrator after the fact was never given the death penalty," Bloodsworth said. "I think that it's a better punishment for people because they have to sit in this place for the rest of their lives knowing what they did."

2b. 10 March 2013 (INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/10/173852138/once-on-death-row-he-now-fights-to-defeat-the-death-penalty)

Bloodsworth gives a very different kind of argument. Human beings are not perfect, he says.

"The prosecutor in my case was very smart. The judges in both trials were very smart," he said. The homicide detectives were smart and the jurors were concerned citizens, he argued. "But in the end, every single person involved in the State of Maryland v. Kirk Noble Bloodsworth was dead wrong," he testified.

A system run by human beings cannot be foolproof, Bloodsworth says, and even the most well-intentioned can make mistakes. And a mistake is an unjustified death.

"I want to kill the thing that almost killed me," he says. "Me and 141 other people."

Alternate answer: Only a fraction of those 140 death row are factually innocent. If the justice system is flawed, fix it, do not use it as an excuse to end it.

"I think that it's a better punishment for people because they have to sit in this place for the rest of their lives knowing what they did." -  Some people argue that prisons should be in Spartan conditions and solitary confinements like in the olden days where they were given bread and water and never be released from prison (dying behind bars). I accept that decision but prisons are also as fallible as time passes, the law might change. 

Many abolitionists will also argue that Spartan prisons and solitary confinements are ‘cruel and unusual’, they will have it outlaw for sure. They will ensure that prisons will become a Five Star Hotel – meaning that criminals will have books, TV, play stations, internet, gyms and swimming pools. In addition, criminals will get free clothing, free food and free medical treatment for the rest of their lives. Is that justice or a miscarriage of justice? 

            Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks. In a sequential bombing and mass shooting on 22 July 2011, he bombed government buildings in Oslo, resulting in eight deaths, then carried out a mass shooting at a camp of the Workers' Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers. He was convicted of mass murder, causing a fatal explosion, and terrorism in August 2012. If you would to take a look at what Five Star Hotel Prison he is going to, do you think it is a better punishment for him? Do you think he is going to regret what he did or to enjoy life behind bars?

 

“The most conclusive evidence that criminals fear the death penalty more than life without parole is provided by convicted capital murderers and their attorneys. 99.9% of all convicted capital murderers and their attorneys argue for life, not death, in the punishment phase of their trial. When the death penalty becomes real, murderers fear it the most.” – Dudley Sharp

            Please bear in mind, that Life without parole is not always honest, the ACLU and some criminal rights organization will get rid of it after the death penalty has been eliminated. If you look at the case of Umar Patek, he was obviously happy that he was given a prison sentence instead of facing the firing squad.

"I want to kill the thing that almost killed me," he says. "Me and 141 other people." – Exactly, we agree that you are only ‘half-right’, it is a great argument to reform the system just like the United Arab Emirates are doing. Kirk should ask any homicide survivor of their near experience facing death, they will be most definitely saying that the thing (murderer) that almost kill them should be killed too. 

            There are people who died behind bars through prison homicide, suicide or illness. Assuming if any of those who died in prison are innocent of their crimes, we cannot bring them back too. Timothy Cole and Bobby Joe Clark were perfect examples. The fact the capital cases are given close scrutiny at every level means that an innocent person is more likely to get off Death Row than die behind bars.

"Me and 141 other people." – The Death Penalty Information Center is not honest to mention that only a fraction of the 141 people on their innocence list are factually innocent, the rest got off Death Row because they were only legally innocent.

Here are some sources to rebut the DPIC Innocence lists:

1. http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/innocence.htm

2. http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/the-innocent-exonerated-and-death-row_19.html

3. http://old.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru100102.asp

4. http://www.cjlf.org/files/CampbellExonerationInflation2008.pdf

Here are two cases of exonerated people who are now great embarrassments to the DPIC and all Death Penalty opponents:  

Exonerated 27: Joseph Green Brown murdered his wife on 14 September 2012. To learn more, please read this blog post. 

Joseph Green Brown

Exonerated 39 to 40: On April 8, 2010, former death row inmate Timothy B. Hennis, once exonerated in 1989, was reconvicted of a triple murder, thereby dropping him from the list of those exonerated. Sentenced to death by military court-martial 15 April 2010. See more here.

Timothy B. Hennis

Kirk Bloodsworth was the first person in the U.S. to be exonerated by DNA evidence after receiving the death sentence. Convicted in 1985 of the rape and murder of a young girl, he was released in 1993.

(SOURCE: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/10/173852138/once-on-death-row-he-now-fights-to-defeat-the-death-penalty)

14 April 2013 (INTERNET SOURCE: http://cjonline.com/news/2013-04-14/exonerated-dna-advocate-seeks-demise-capital-punishment)

3a. Bloodsworth, invited to speak by the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty during an event at St. David's Episcopal Church in Topeka, said states should stop applying an uncorrectable sanction.

"I honestly believe the governor of Kansas — Republican and conservative — can't be for possibly killing an innocent person," he said. "There are just too many of us now to deny it. We cannot walk over the innocent man to get to the guilty one. We can convict people, punish them and sentence them to life without parole."

Alternate answer: We, the VFFDP, NEVER want the justice system to walk over an innocent man to get to the guilty. We want the system to be EXTREMELY CAREFUL to prevent an innocent person from being wrongfully convicted. However, we the VFFDP, do not want the truly guilty to keep their lives. Countries like the U.A.E and Singapore are reforming the death penalty to prevent miscarriages of justice.

            Please see this quote from Thomas Sowell. 

         If the crime is guilty beyond any doubt like a public shooting or a murder caught on CCTV, there is NO WAY anybody can call them innocent. The killer must pay with his or her life or there is no justice and protection.

            Please hear from Immanuel Kant. 

3b. Kirk Bloodsworth’s T-shirt wrote: "I was innocent and survived death row. Ask me about it."

Alternate answer: The murder victims’ family members should have worn T-shirts with words on it: “My family member was murdered. Ask me about it.”

            If you see the two photos below:

             You need to understand that there are many victims’ families who want justice for their loved ones. In this case, We are happy that Proposition 34 was defeated in November 2012, we do not want to see the killer of Michael Lyons and those on California’s Death Row be left unpunished.

These are more important things to care about. You are alive and released from prison but the murdered victims are dead and gone, by playing that anti-death penalty manipulation message, you are taking away justice for those victims’ families who want their loved ones’ killers to be executed. Rather than spare the lives of the guilty, ask the justice system to be more careful next time.

Teddy Roosevelt - Official White House portrait by John Singer Sargent Click on painting for the story behind the portrait.

As the 26^th President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt said in The Strenuous Life at a Speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, April 10, 1899:

We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that we cannot possibly solve it aright.

4. "What do you do with your life after spending almost a decade in prison and two years on death row? What do you do with the trauma?"

Alternate answer: Charles Fain, Aleksandr Biryukov and Rolando Cruz still supports the death penalty and wants the system fixed. We rather you tell the system to learn from their mistakes and protect the public from dangerous people and serve justice to the grieving families of the victims. In fact, it is also better for you to join the Pro-Life movement in speaking out against abortion where millions of innocent unborn had been killed. As mention before, you are alive and not dead. You were not even brought into the execution chamber. 

Teddy Roosevelt

In regards to a wrongful conviction, Teddy Roosevelt was also quoted in one of his article, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910):  

Nevertheless, the fact that there are dangers in following a given course merely means that we should follow it with a cautious realization of these dangers, and not that we should abandon it, if on the whole it is the right course.

            The First Chief Justice of Singapore, Wee Chong Jin also wanted judges to be fair and impartial to strike down any injustice.

5. "I'm against the death penalty for obvious reasons," he said. "You could kill an innocent man or woman."

Alternate answer: We agree that an innocent person might be executed, so trials must have massive safeguards and scrutinized at every level. However, We are all aware that those abolitionists do not oppose executions for fear of executing the innocent, they only oppose executing the guilty. PERIOD!

            Your wish has been granted. Maryland had abolished the death penalty on 2 May 2013, it is surprisingly on the same date that two evils had been put down in history:

1. Germany surrendered on 2 May 1945, ending WWII in Europe.

2. Osama Bin Laden was assassinated by the Seal Team Six.

            However, you and the abolitionists in Maryland now have blood on your hands. Rami King was found dead on 10 June 2013, too bad, there is no justice and protection here, the killer would not be paying with his life.

            Kirk Bloodsworth, you are a free man but our advice to you is not to call for abolishing the death penalty but call for massive safeguards to protect the defendants. Do not allow yourself to be use by the abolitionists for their anti-death penalty (criminal rights) propaganda, many murdered victims’ families want to see their loved ones’ killers put to death, they want justice and not revenge. The more you give that testimony of yours, the more you grieve the victims’ families. Stop wasting our time.

           The date, 28 June 1993, you were exonerated from prison was coincidentally the birthday of J. J. Rousseau who has a Pro-Death Penalty Quote for executing the guilty.