Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 426 | Does America Still Believe in Capital Punishment? | Guest: David Dozier

Episode Date: July 25, 2020

Two federal inmates were executed last week spurring a new national debate about capital punishment - this time ahead of a pivotal election. Are executions still considered acceptable by the general populous in 2020? David Dozier, a professor at San Diego State University, recently commissioned a new study surveying a wide spread of U.S. adults on their beliefs about capital punishment. He is available for interviews and comments about all of the latest news and developments on this topic. If you are interested please reach out and I will be happy to connect you. About David Dozier David Dozier (www.daviddozierbooks.com), a professor emeritus in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University, is an internationally recognized expert in mass communication, public relations, and communication management. His new novel The California Killing Field explores the psyche of ordinary Americans and their mixed feelings about the death penalty. Dozier is a former reporter and public information officer who has lectured to audiences across the globe. This Week Sponsor: Get your life back with Relief Factor and its 3-Week Quick Start for only $19.95. If you are in pain, what have you got to lose? Go to https://www.relieffactor.com Subscribe on YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, as we head over into the break room, I need to have something ice cold to drink. And then we're going to talk a little bit about executions. Oh, my gosh. So good. So, as you know, recently we've had three federal executions back on. I mean, they have turned up the juice as far as federal executions. And it all started from a case where the guy actually was, took longer to die than they really wanted.

And so then we had to put everything on hold. Then we finally reached a point where, yep, you go ahead and put people on death row back to you. Thank you. Thank you. We're juicing back up. We're ready to go.

So David Dozier. Dozier, right? Dozier. Correct. It's French. Nobody gets it right. David, Dozier, I asked. He has done a new study, right?

He works for San Diego State University. and they commissioned a new study on adult beliefs about capital punishment. And I took your little test. David, thank you for coming on two in the fat. I appreciate it. Your test or your quiz to see. How many people did you have participate in your study to get your data information? 1600.

Okay. And most of the people, in the quiz were, well, first of all, how many, how many areas in the quiz could I become? Could I become a killer? And I'm all four executions. Am I the guy that hates it and everybody should just be life in prison or not go to prison?

How many areas are there for me to be a part of? Well, basically, I did ask opinions about capital punishment. It was part of the study. And it turns out that opinions tend to, to be mushy, depending on how you ask the question. If I ask you, are you in favor of the death penalty for murderers? 56% of Americans will say yes. But if you ask them, which do you favor more?

Do you favor the death penalty or life in prison without any, with absolutely no possibility of parole? And it drops down to 37% that favor the death penalty. So you get a 20% spread. So that's the mush argument. All of this got started when I wrote a novel, a mystery novel called The California Killingfield. And the basic theme is, can you generate enthusiasm for a politician? This one happens to be a Democrat by orchestrating a mass execution.

And so it's sort of science following art in a way, if you can call the book art, I'll let somebody else decide that. But what I wanted to do was to get people away from, oh, I'm in favor of this, I'm not in favor of that, and say, okay, let's talk about executions because it's not abstract. You know, it exists means killing somebody. And what I found was is that abolitionists were people who said there isn't any method of execution that I approve. Interestingly enough, about 17% of them still said as a matter of opinion, I favor the death. I support the death penalty as an opinion. I'm a lawyer.

Yeah, yeah. And so people have a hard time linking an opinion, which is sort of an abstraction to the specific act of killing something. So to answer your question, basically there were four major groups. Okay. Based on actions. And the first action was, what method of execution do you approve? And if you didn't improve of any, you got lumped in with the answer. the abolitionist. And that was about 26% of the folks in the study. So the other, you know, 74%

could be described as well pro-death penalty. But when you started looking at their actions, they became quite different. The first, what I called, ended up calling the soft abstract supporters were people they could sit on a death penalty jury because they qualify. They were willing to support at least one method of execution. The prosecutor would have allowed them on the jury, whereas abolitionists wouldn't be allowed to. No way. Right. So, they convict this guy. He wasn't a nice guy. He was a serial killer. He tortured and murdered a small child. I really wanted to, you know, make it really egregious. So it would be easy for somebody that had, you know, pro-death penalty to say, yeah, definitely this guy. Pound Square. We should be rocks at this guy.

So the next question was, okay, you convicted this guy, you think he should be put to death. Since you're on the jury, we're going to invite you to his execution. Are you willing to come? And people who said, absolutely not. I'm willing to sit on a jury and vote for death, but I'm not willing to witness an execution. Those are what I call the soft abstract supporters. And that was about 23% of the sample. Then the other group of folks, and then there's just still a reasonable chunk of people,

would say, yeah, I was on the jury, and if invited, I might attend the execution. And so then the killer question was, okay, you're at the execution. If you were invited to push the button, what's the language I use, push the button to actually execute this serial killer, would you do it? And it turns out about 18% of the samples would say, yeah, I'd do that. Only 18%. Yeah, 32, 33% said I'd wish. witness it, but I certainly want to push the button. So that was what I discovered, which was kind of a theme in the novel, which was there's this schism between people that support the death penalty in the abstract, but the closer you get to actually killing somebody, the more difficult it becomes and the more folks sort of sluff off and become less willing. One thing you can say about the executioners, which was the label I put on the folks, because that's in essence what they were doing, is that the

they walked the top. You know, if you think somebody was, you know, committed a heinous crime and you think they ought to be put to death, these folks were willing to, you know, walk the dock and actually, you know, participate in the execution. I found it interesting that the one section, the hard abstract supporter would do everything up to killing them, right? Right. They were for everything, the hard abstract supporter, for everything but pushed the bus.

Right. But, you know, shove the needle in the guy's arm and however you want to, you know, or, you know, flick the switch for the electric chair. That's fascinating. And it does. It's a different kind of place. I mean, I understand the different kind of place. I've sat on a jury before. and you know and we you know i stayed to listen to what the what the final outcome was i didn't i wanted

to be a part of that i wanted to see what happened and uh it's a tough place to be though it's a tough place to be to be the guy to do it all right you can disassociate yourself right different areas of the process if you only have to do one of those areas right i only have to find somebody guilty of the death penalty? Yeah, you're guilty. Go ahead. Send him down the road. Bill will pull the plug. Don't worry. So when the, one of the things in your work,

what about the situation, and these were pretty, you know, the lines were pretty sharp and drawn. You know, there weren't any gray areas about it. Anybody talk about, you know, we always hear through the execution process. Well, there's so many that aren't guilty. We find them guilty and then we send them to the death row and then we find out they're not guilty.

There's so many of those. And I don't know the exact numbers, but I feel like there's not really a lot. Well, for every nine executions, there's one person exonerated. That's from the death penalty information center, which basically doesn't take a position on the death penalty. try to be a clearinghouse.

It's not that they don't raise criticism, but they don't, they're not an advocacy group. And that is troubling. I, many, many years ago, I had a seminar, and there was, I had a lieutenant command, Navy lieutenant commander later became a rear admiral. And back in 87, he was pretty much for the death penalty. And then a few years later, more than like a couple of decades later, he and I got back together and he says, you know, that class really bothered me. And he says, it was, and it's really the idea that we might kill somebody that didn't do the crime. He says, that bothers me. He says,

I don't have any moral hangups with the death penalty per se, but I really have a problem with executing somebody that was innocent. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a tough call. But you have to trust the process, right? I mean, in the long run, you have to trust the process that, Look, we went through all the procedural things that we were supposed to go through, and this is the outcome that was supposed to have happened, and it happened, right? And you have to kind of say that we have to believe in the process. Well, I think that reasonable people could take a hard look at the process. We do know that structurally African Americans are much more likely to be,

executed 13% of the U.S. population is African-American. 34% of those executed are African-American. And you can say, well, there might be a lot of mitigation to that, you know. There might, you know, more executions in the South, larger percentage of the population, the South is African-American. A larger percentage of that population committing the crimes. You know, those silly things. That could.

That could be. but when you start looking at how many people are convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances, and the minuscule number of people that are actually executed, it does come across as having elements of arbitrariness in it. And largely at the point where a prosecutor decides to go for the death penalty over life imprisonment. And a lot of that is the gamesmanship that prosecutors play. They want to have high conviction rates, and especially if it's a particularly odious crime, you know, involving juveniles, for instance. The victims are juveniles, you know, at historical points.

And it's easier to get convictions if you've got an all-white jury and the person charged with the person charged with. the crime is a person of color, prosecutors have found it easier to get convictions. You know, it's fascinating in Los Angeles County. I think about 24 people have been sent to death row and by a black district attorney. And all 24 are people of color. So it's not saying that there's any particular animus

on the part of prosecutors. It's just they're looking at, what can I win here? And I think that that's where we get into the systemic difficulties with the death penalty. Well, I mean, California, for example, I mean, we're talking about, you know, death row in California, but they're not even, you know, they're, I'm surprised, they have death row still they can say there's a death row, but they've stopped any of it altogether as it is, right? Yeah, the current governor, Newsom has basically put a moratorium on it.

Right. We are still a death penalty state, and so since we don't execute anybody, but we've got district attorneys, you know, scoring points by sending people to death row because it's good politics. Right. What we end up with is a really crowded death row. And I think we've got something like 720, 730 people on death. We have the biggest death row. We've got Texas beat. That's because, well, Texas, we've got running through. You know. You guys are right behind China and Saudi Arabia and Iran in terms of the number of people you execute. I know. We may be behind them, but I don't know about right behind.

No, no, no. There's a way. China is over a thousand that we know of. Yeah, there's quite a ways. They're way over there. We're back here. Hey, guys. Yeah.

And the number of executions in Texas have dropped off pretty dramatically. for the last decade. Yes, they have. As they have in other states as well. So in your study about capital punishment, were there any surprises that

came out of it that you thought, oh, I didn't plan on that? The thing that surprised me, and I guess it shouldn't have, you know, it's like, we call it in the social science a duh finding, which like, duh,

should have seen that one coming. The biggest group of people, 33% are the people that would, you know, vote for the death penalty and attend the execution, but not serve as executioners. And I just hadn't really factored that in, and it's not in my novel, because I just had them divided into abstract supporters and executioners. And there was just real schism there because one of the measures in the study is sadism, two kinds of sadism. One of them is you want to do something sadistic to somebody. And then there's a thing called vicarious sadism, which is you don't want to do anything, but you want to watch somebody else do it.

So I asked a whole bunch of questions about public executions before large crowds, televising it. And there was a real... Yeah, what did you get out of that? I mean, that's bringing back town square. I mean, I feel like sometimes that that's needed. Well, that's... See, originally that was the idea behind the death penalty was to terrorize citizens into following what the leader told you to do.

And on the website, I don't know how far you got into it, but the last public hanging in Kentucky back in 1936, so as a black man hung for raping a white woman, it had a crowd of like 10 to 20,000 white people show up at 5 a.m. And that's that schism because the abstract supporters, the soft abstract supporters, were more horrified by that than the abolitionist even. They were just absolutely, I won't go to a, I'll vote for the death penalty on a jury, but I absolutely wouldn't go to an execution. And I think it would just bring out the worst in people if you had public executions. Well, I mean, back in the day, it was a great.

Right. I mean, but, you know, back of the day, even before. that prior to the last hanging. I mean, it was a picnic. It was an afternoon for the execution or executions, plural, that were going on. So, I mean, it was definitely a different place. And I don't necessarily know how that, you know, what got us to move to that different place. Maybe we were tired of seeing it, you know, the majority. Well, I think that it offended a portion of the population that, you know, sort of believed in the death penalty, but wanted it out of sight and out of mind. You know, Michigan was the first... Just move it to our prisons. Pardon? Just move it to our prisons.

Yeah, yeah. And that's out of sight and out of mind, you know. It's just, you know, a short item in the newspaper. Yeah. You find out that we had hot dogs for his last meal and the victim's family say we finally got closure. And by the way, speaking of that, I'm innocent or I'm sorry. I love knowing what they what they've eaten for their last meal. And the Oklahoma, uh, prison, head of the prisons wasn't going to release with these last

executions ate. And I'm a little angry at him for that. Well, yeah. See, well, that's, that's part of, uh, that's part of the, uh, vicariousatism. It's sort of like, I'm really interested. It's it's bunched together with an item that says, I'm really interested in stories about executions, last meals, last words, and any glitches. And, you know, it's like going to the stock car races because you like to see the crashes. It's slowing down a freeway wreck because you just want to have a peak.

And, you know, human beings have that in us, you know. It's our lower self. And that's, I think, part of being human. But some people find that repugnant, and others sort of revel in it. And I think that's an interesting schism among people who, in the abstract, support the death penalty. David Dozier, join us on Chewing the Fat. David Dozierbooks.com is the place to go for more information about David. And you can read his latest book, The California Killing Field, and find out more about the new study on Executure.

For now, we still have some executions around the country happening here and there. Yeah. Especially, specifically, the federal executions are back on. And they seem to be pushing those through hot and heavy and get them over with because we've been waiting for four or five years to get them back up and running again. And apparently our attorney general and president wanted to make that happen faster than before. Right, right. Well, one of the interesting things I found in the study, I did ask. You know, it was February, March.

And so I didn't have a Democrat to compare it to, but I just asked people, you're going to vote for President Trump. And among the people who said, yes, I'm definitely voting for Trump, 62% are in favor of the death penalty. And the people who aren't voting for Trump only 40%. So I definitely think that it definitely appeals to the president's base. Right. But, I mean, that's still a pretty high number for people. who are not going to vote for President Trump to be for the death penalty. Yeah, well, you see, it's real tricky.

Yeah. This idea of having an opinion about something you don't, most people don't have any, it doesn't impact their lives. They don't know anybody on death row. They don't know any murder victims. And so for them, it's kind of an abstraction. But it was interesting to put them in a real situation and find out how they're different And how the sadism goes up as you move from soft abstract to hard abstract to executioner.

Yeah. Wanting painful deaths and you had nothing wrong if it's painful, you know, that kind of stuff. And, you know, some people, I definitely feel that way, and other people are horrified. So, and again, on the death penalty. Right. It is strange that you would be for the death penalty. and care if that person had pain while you were going through with the execution. To me, it seems like a strange place to be.

I'm sure I want you dead, but I don't want to hurt you while I'm doing it. Well, part of it is that the other side of that is I definitely do want you to hurt. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's an important part of the execution that you should suffer while you're dying. And there are people that say, yeah, I support the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. But boy, you know, torturing people, you know, long, drawn out deaths because of botched executions. About 7% of lethal injections end up, you know, botched in the sense that it's very, very long, drawn out death. Right.

And that's the thing that held up the federal executions, right? the guy out of Oklahoma, it took an hour or something after he took the shot to end up passing away, right? Yeah, it was another one in Arizona where it was a couple of hours. In fact, while the guy was dying, they were talking to

the Arizona Supreme Court. And so there's those things that just, you know, if you're squeamish, and that's how I describe that, that group of folks that support the death penalty, that they're squeamish about it. They kind of believe it in principle, but you start talking about

you know, watched executions or painful executions or showing them on television or having them in front of a large crowd. They really don't like that. Right. David Dozier, joining us on Two in the Fat. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I see, as I'm looking at your notes here, reading down to the fine print, I see where it talks about you being an expert in mass communication, public relations and communication management. You know, I apologize. I apologize for putting you through this chewing the fat.

Interview with someone who is, you know, me. Oh, no, this is great, you know. So for me to actually go out and do it instead of talking about it, you know, that old joke about those who can do and those who can't teach, those who can't teach physical education. I was just, Matt. David Dozier, thank you, man. I'll let you go.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. I've kept you way too long. I appreciate you coming on today. Thank you. Bye, bye. Thank you for listening to a special little break room interview with David Dozier. Fascinating.

Yeah, you know, I wouldn't mind talking to David even more and delving more into those numbers for the studies. But, I mean, there's only so much time I can hang out of the break room before somebody comes in and says, hey, get out. So while we're getting out of the break room, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to the podcast? podcast. Okay. Subscribe to chewing the fat. Make your life better by subscribing to chewing and that fact that's the new that's our new that's our new moniker at least for today. Make your life better by subscribing to chewing the fat. Duh. Okay. And while you're at it, you might as well, you know, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Go ahead and follow me on Twitter at Jeffrey JFR. Facebook and Instagram, Jeff Fisher Radio. You can go ahead and

parlay me over there at Parley. at Jeff Fisher Radio, Jeffey. So just do it all. And just do it today. What else do you got to do? But most importantly, subscribe. Okay? Okay.

You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story. Until now. People assume that I'm like this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed. And in my new podcast, I talked to Allison

to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel? feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma to other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison After Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify.