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.
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.
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:
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Murdered, escaped from
Prison to murder again, Jeffrey Landrigan
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| Kenneth McDuff |
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| Nazi War Criminals at the Nuremberg Trials. |
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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)
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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.
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Witness to Innocence exoneree members (from
left) Ray Krone, Albert Burrell, Kirk Bloodsworth, Gary Drinkard, Randy Steidl,
Ronald Keine, Delbert Tibbs and Derrick Jamison
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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."
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:
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.
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Joseph Green Brown
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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.
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Timothy B. Hennis
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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.
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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.
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:
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.
As the 26th
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.
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Teddy
Roosevelt
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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:
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.
