400th execution in Texas

Non-Phish General
#1

Texas shrugs off critics on 400th execution

The US state of Texas brushed off critics Wednesday as it readied for the grim new milestone of its 400th execution since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976.

A handful of protesters were outside the prison here – some to assert their support for capital punishment, others against – while 32 year old African- American Johnny Ray Conner was being prepared for his late afternoon execution by lethal injection for shooting to death a store clerk during a 1998 hold-up.

There was little likelihood of an intervention to stop Conner’s death, after Texas Governor Rick Perry delivered a sharp riposte to a European Union call Tuesday for him to issue a stay.
“The European Union strongly urges Governor Rick Perry to exercise all powers vested in his office to halt all upcoming executions and to consider the introduction of a moratorium in the State of Texas,” the EU’s current Portuguese presidency said in a statement. Perry toughly rejected the appeal, suggesting it was out of place since the United States asserted its independence from Britain in the 18th century.

“While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas,” Perry’s spokesman, Robert Black, said in a statement. “Two hundred and 30 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes against our crimes.”

While numerous US states have put a moratorium on executions, citing faulty court trials and verdicts and persistent problems in the lethal injection method most common across the country, Texas continues to push ahead with almost weekly executions.

Since the 1976 reinstatement, the southern state has accounted for more than one-third of the total 1091 executions carried out country-wide. This year, with other states now reticent, it will account for nearly two-thirds. Ahead of Conner’s execution, it had carried out 20 of the 34 US judicial killings in 2007.
By comparison, 12 of the 50 states refused to restore capital punishment in 1976; four did but have not since executed anyone; and 14 have had five or fewer executions.

The Texas milestone, and the broader issue, gets relatively little attention inside the country.

But even in Texas, where currently there are 379 people on death row, the determination to execute serious criminals has eroded. In 1999 48 were sentenced to death in the state; in 2003, 29; and only 11 in 2006.

Richard Dieter of the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center says this is the result of the increasing evidence of erroneous convictions brought by DNA examinations since the 1990s.

Earlier this year the Dallas Morning News declared itself opposed to capital punishment. “This board has lost confidence that the state of Texas can guarantee that every inmate it executes is truly guilty of murder,” it said in an April editorial. “We do not believe that any legal system devised by inherently flawed human beings can determine with moral certainty the guilt of every defendant convicted of murder.”

#2

At heart, I like the “eye for an eye” concept.

Even though in college I gave a presentation weighing the facts against the death penalty.

So I hesitantly voted “for.”

#3

Can’t there be a depends on the situation option? I don’t think there are 400 people per year in the world that deserve that kind of punishment, let alone just in Texas. I am sure, however, there are a handful of people each year that really do something that evil and heinous that they deserve it. Bin Laden, kill him, I don’t care one way or the other who does it or how it’s done. Same goes for guys like Dahlmer, Ted Bundy, Cho or anyone who completely indiscriminately takes many other innocent people’s lives. There can’t be 400 people like that in Texas…I believe in this case the state are the ones who are indiscriminately taking lives. The legal system is just not that perfect that you can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that every one of those people was legitimately a murderer, and I’d rather have a hundred guilty murders spend the rest of their lives in prison then send one innocent man to their death. Some murderers are obviously guilty though and have done something that terrible that I feel the death penalty can be justified.

For the record, I’m not voting because this is not a black and white issue, it really depends on the situation.

#4

The title of the thread is misleading. This year, Texas will perform it’s 400th execution. Only 11 death penalties in Texas handed out last year.

#5

so dead

#6

I guess I could read stuff before I go off on my rants, but my point still stands.

#7

Everything else was relevant and on topic. My thoughts were the same until I read what was posted.

#8

There, happy now?

#9

::hugs and flowers::

#10

I’m against the death penalty only because I think it’s the easy way out. What is worse?..a quick, painless death or 50 years in the hole while being some dude’s butt buddy?

#11

I’m against the current implementation of the death penalty. I don’t believe it’s up to me to exact revenge on behalf of the person who was killed, or for that matter for his family or friends.

If the surviving relatives want this kind of punishment meted out for the murder of their loved one, then they should be the ones to perform the execution. The death penalty should be allowable if the next of kin is willing to step up to the convicted killer and shoot him point blank in the face, or thrust a knife into his heart. It must be personal, and it must be a face-to-face issue.

Let the karma of the act be upon the person who feels so strongly about restitution or justice or revenge for the crime, on an individual, case by case basis. Let them live with the memory of taking another person’s life for whatever righteousness they can rationalize for the act. It’s really not up to us to stop them from achieving that level of closure if that’s what they need, not is it up to me to take away the difficulty of that decision by allowing “society” to do it for them.

You want em dead, then you kill em with your bare hands. You believe in an eye for an eye, then stab em, shoot em, choke em, disembowel em, burn em, poison em, decaptitate em yourself. I won’t stand in your way, but I won’t help you either.

#12

^sounds good to me, eye for an eye but by the victom, sounds like a great reality tv show.

#13

I’ve always said that we need to have some sort of manhunt TV show where they take all these criminals and throw them in some sort of forest that is gated off from the outside world and give them prizes to kill each other. It’d be the most compelling show known to man. I mean if they’re gonna kill other people then at least they should provide the rest of us with some entertainment.

#14

#15

Well, looks like we’ll have to wait 12 years before that scenario plays out.

#16

i think that if someone has committed a heinous crime such as murder they don’t deserve the option of a quick painless death but rather 100 years in prison to rot and be locked from the free world…

its kinda nicer to kill someone with an injection than to kill someone by stripping them of freedom for their lives… so murderers and such deserve a more painful demise.

#17

LOL@Fone…yes, that’s exactly what I thought of when I typed that. That’s a classic movie.

#18

^^ I just don’t know if paying for them to live for the rest of their life isn’t more of a punishment for the rest of society than it is for the criminal who gets to live off of your tax dollars. They get three square meals a day, a bed to sleep in and all kinds of other benefits that innocent poverty stricken people are deprived of. Wouldn’t it kind of be better to just do away with the murders and give that money for food and shelter to good honest people who deserve it.