Capital punishment is discussed so extensively and from so many angles, it deserves its own
page. But this is by no means a complete examination of the subject.
Opponents of
capital punishment have blood on their hands. Opponents of capital punishment give us
names of innocents who would have been killed by the state had their convictions stood and they been
actually executed, and a few executed convicts whom they believe might have been innocent. But
proponents can name men and women who really were — not might have been — murdered
by convicted murderers while in prison. The murdered include prison guards, fellow inmates,
and innocent men and women outside of prison.
The
Deaths That Save Lives. Critics of capital punishment argue that it does not act as a
deterrent. The facts speak for themselves: Over the past twenty-five years, the murder
rate in the U.S. has been cut almost in half.
Common
Sense on Capital Punishment: The reliable two-thirds of Americans who have always supported the
death penalty probably wouldn't be surprised to find out that study after study has shown that the death
penalty deters murders. … Most studies have concluded that some number of murders between three
and 18 are prevented for every application of capital punishment.
Another
Argument for Capital Punishment. The most common objection opponents offer against capital
punishment is that innocents may be executed. My answer has always been that this is so rare (I do not
know of a proved case of mistaken execution in America in the last 50 years) that society must be prepared
to pay that terrible price. Why? Among other reasons, because more innocents will be killed by
murderers who are not executed (in prison, or once released or if they escape) than will be killed by the
state in erroneous executions.
Why
Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part I). Once we comprehend this distinction
between murder and all other crimes (which can be restituted for), it should be clear that retribution
not only justifies execution, it requires it. Execution is the only correct penalty-in-kind
for murder, and retribution is the only value so far analyzed which justifies taking this most
precious of payments from someone.
Democide: When liberals in
the late 1950s decided to tackle crime, how did they go about it? Through the strange means of
decriminalizing criminals. Lowering prison sentences, emphasizing rehabilitation over punishment,
community action over policing. A series of Supreme Court decisions followed — Mapp, Escebedo,
Miranda — disrupting the criminal justice system and effectively evening the odds between criminals
and the public. And the result? Beginning in 1964 — the year of the Escebedo
decision — the murder rate shot up as if strapped to a rocket.
Debunking
Myths about Capital Punishment: There have been studies validating the efficacy of capital
punishment for more than thirty years, yet, if all you knew was what the mainstream media reported you would
think science had proven otherwise. The good news, though, is that despite the well-funded, anti-capital
punishment misinformation campaign, helped by a liberal media, the public still favors capital punishment.
Majority of Americans favor death
penalty: poll. The majority of Americans support the death penalty but nearly 40 percent
think their moral beliefs would disqualify them from serving on a jury in a capital trial, a poll showed on
Saturday. Conducted for the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that opposes capital punishment, the
poll showed 62 percent of those surveyed support executing convicted murderers.
The
death penalty's deterrence. Twelve studies authored by professors from a number of
renowned universities suggest that the death penalty saves lives by deterring criminals from
committing more homicides. Perhaps the Supreme Court should review these cases while
considering its de facto moratorium on executions, considering not only the state's role in
punishing criminals but also its role in protecting innocents.
The Peril of
Non-Executions. Opponents of capital punishment have succeeded in keeping the emphasis on the
possibility of executing an innocent person, instead of the lives that have already been taken by
those spared the death penalty.
Abu-Jamal's
conviction upheld, death sentence questioned. College kids march with his face on placards,
chanting a mantra that has been oft-repeated throughout the world: "Free Mumia!" … But others
insist that Mumia Abu-Jamal is not the martyr supporters have tried to make him. Instead, they say, he's
a manipulative, cold-blooded cop-killer who used his talents as a radio reporter and his resume as a black
activist to hoodwink his ill-informed backers into proclaiming his innocence.
Feeling Murderers' Pain:
The Supreme Court this week heard arguments that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. Euthanasia
advocates consider it a blessing for the deathly ill. Yet it's cruel for the just plain deadly. … Believers
in a "living Constitution" forget that at the time the Bill of Rights — and the Eighth
Amendment — was written, "cruel and unusual punishment" was probably considered by the Founding
Fathers to be things like drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, and crucifixion. Death by
hanging or firing squad was considered quite civilized.
Does
lethal injection amount to human experimentation? Currently 35 of the 36 states that allow
capital punishment carry out the sentence using lethal injection. Typically, each inmate receives a
dose of the anaesthetic sodium thiopental, a shot of potassium chloride to induce cardiac arrest, and
pancuronium bromide, a potent paralytic to cut off breathing. Each dose is supposed to be administered
in large enough quantities to be individually lethal, and inmates ideally should die from 2 to 8 minutes
after the procedure starts.
Lethal injection issue divides Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court appeared divided today over whether the drugs commonly injected to execute prisoners risk
causing excruciating pain in violation of the Constitution. Several justices indicated a willingness to
preserve the three-drug cocktail that is authorized by three dozen states that allow executions.
The Editor says...
Do murderers give any such consideration to the pain inflicted on their victims? Of course not.
Why then are they entitled to such consideration?
Update:
States'
death row injections get OK after high court ruling. Many states wasted little time trying to get
executions back on track following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the use of a three-drug lethal
cocktail. Almost immediately, Virginia lifted its death penalty moratorium. Mississippi and Oklahoma
said they would seek execution dates for convicted murderers, and other states were ready to follow.
A matter of life and death. I
like what Chief Justice Roberts said in his majority opinion: "Some risk of pain is inherent in any
method of execution — no matter how humane — if only from the prospect of error in
following the required procedure. ... It is clear, then, that the Constitution does not demand the avoidance
of all risk of pain in carrying out executions."
Court lifts stays of execution for 3 death
row inmates. The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for Alabama, Mississippi and Texas to set new execution
dates for three inmates who were granted last-minute reprieves by the justices last year.
Georgia executes killer; first in U.S. since
lethal injection upheld. Georgia has executed William Earl Lynd, the first inmate put to death since the U.S.
Supreme Court ended a seven-month moratorium with its ruling last month that lethal injection is constitutional. Lynd
was executed at 7:51 p.m. ET for kidnapping and killing Ginger Moore, his live-in girlfriend nearly 20 years
ago. She was 26 years old when Lynd shot her three times in the face and head on Dec. 23, 1988.
Man
executed who raped mother; killed daughters. A Florida man convicted of shooting two young
sisters in the head after raping and shooting their mother was executed Tuesday after a nearly two-hour
delay while authorities awaited final rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court. Richard "Ric Ric" Henyard,
34, was pronounced dead at 8:16 p.m. He had been condemned for the death of 7-year-old Jamilya
Lewis and her 3-year-old sister, Jasmine.
World Court: U.S. must delay
Mexican death sentences. The World Court ordered the United States on Wednesday to do all it
could to halt the imminent executions of five Mexicans until the court makes a final judgment in a dispute
over suspects' rights.
Texas
Turns Aside Pressure on Execution of 5 Mexicans. Despite pleas from the White House and the
State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five
Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday [7/17/2008]. The first of the
executions — that of José Ernesto Medellín, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder
of two teenage girls here — is scheduled for Aug. 5.
The Editor says...
Notice that the article in the New York Times includes a big picture of the murderer's
grandmother. I guess we're supposed to feel sorry for her, not the people her son murdered.
Medellin executed for rape, murder of
Houston teens. The state of Texas defied an international court and executed Jose Ernesto
Medellin late Tuesday [8/5/2008] after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for the killer
in the 1993 Houston gang rape-murders of two teenage girls.
Texas Defies World Court Executes
Condemned Mexican. Texas defied the World Court and executed a Mexican national by lethal
injection on Tuesday [8/5/2008] over the objections of the international judicial body and neighboring
Mexico.
Florida
holds 1st execution since botched method. Florida on Tuesday carried out its first execution
since a botched lethal injection procedure prompted a moratorium and state investigation. Gov. Charlie
Crist's office said Mark Dean Schwab was put to death by lethal injection at 6:15 p.m. Schwab was
convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing 11-year-old boy.
Killer
says he's too fat to safely execute. A death row inmate scheduled for execution in October says
he's so fat that Ohio executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish
the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.
The Editor says...
Bad news, chump. There are plenty of veins, if you know where to look. A good R.N. can find a
vein on anybody. And what is a "safe" execution, anyway? After what this guy did to his
victims, is he entitled to the "safety" of a painless execution?
Update:
Ohio
executes man who argued he was too fat to die. Ohio executed a 5-foot-7, 267-pound double
murderer Tuesday who argued his obesity made death by lethal injection inhumane. Richard Cooey, 41,
had argued in numerous legal challenges that his weight problem would make it difficult for prison staff to find
suitable veins to deliver the deadly chemicals, a problem that delayed previous executions in the state.
Illegal
immigrant executed for murder of Arlington store manager. An illegal immigrant from Honduras who
claimed his treaty rights were violated when he was arrested for a robbery-murder in Arlington was executed
Thursday evening. [8/7/2008] … The Supreme Court, ruling about 2½ hours before his scheduled
execution time, rejected his appeal without dissent.
Destruction
in black America is self-inflicted. Nearly all black homicide is intraracial — more
than nine out of 10 black murder victims in the United States are killed by black murderers. So applying
the death penalty in more cases where the victim is black would mean sending more black men to death row.
How ironic!
Oklahoma death penalty
foe commits suicide. Defense attorney Lisa McCalmont was well-known nationally as an outspoken
critic of lethal injection and amassed a trove of information about problems with the three-drug cocktail that
is at the very center of a case the U.S. Supreme Court will hear early next year. Colleagues say
McCalmont, 49, was looking forward to the Supreme Court case as a momentous event in her career. But
then, last week, she hanged herself at her home in Norman — a suicide that stunned and baffled some
of those who knew her.
Death
Penalty's Deadly Vacation. The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively halted U.S. executions via lethal
injection until it can rule on a challenge to the constitutionality of a particular execution "cocktail."
This is just the latest example of the whittling away of the death penalty — the courts have already
cut executions by over a third since 1999. But this latest suspension of executions is likely to
demonstrate yet again that the death penalty deters crime.
A judge drags his feet to avoid enforcing the death penalty.
Federal
judge in Ohio stripped of five death penalty cases. A chief federal judge took away five death
penalty cases from a colleague criticized by some prosecutors for taking as many as eight years to issue
appeals rulings. … U.S. District Judge Walter Rice … is based in Dayton and was appointed by
President Carter in 1980.
Judicial temperament? A
poster of Che Guevara hangs on the wall of a judge who found Ohio's death penalty law constitutionally lacking. But
his idol Che was not very respectful of the niceties of justice, and loved to watch firing squads at work.
Court gives nod to lethal
injection. Florida's Supreme Court ruled yesterday [11/02/2007] that the state's lethal injection
procedures are not cruel and unusual, which could clear the way for the first execution in the US since
September. Lethal injection procedures are under review by the US Supreme Court. The nation's
highest court has allowed only one execution since it agreed in September to hear a case from Kentucky that
raises a similar challenge.
Man gets life in
rape, death of 17-month-old. A three-judge panel decided against the death penalty for a man
convicted of smothering and killing a 17-month-old boy as he raped the child. The judges deliberated for
more than 3 hours and were split 2-1 in their decision to sentence John White, 28, to life in prison without
the possibility of parole.
The Editor says...
I guess the judges are saving the death penalty for someone who has committed a really serious crime.
Inmate
gets life, plus 301 years. A state prison inmate who shot a correctional officer in the head
while the officer pleaded for his life was sentenced to life without parole yesterday, to the displeasure of
the victim's family and co-workers who had hoped for a death sentence. "You are an evil man," Judge
Joseph P. Manck told defendant Brandon T. Morris, 22. But the judge said factors, including
Morris' emotional immaturity and his history of "staggering" childhood abuse, outweighed the state's arguments
for execution.
[Once again I ask, for whom are the judges reserving the death penalty?]
Child Rape
Tests Limits Of Death Penalty. Ever since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty more
than 30 years ago, justices have been finding ways to limit it. In the intervening years, they have
employed their interpretations of society's "evolving standards of decency" to remove juvenile and mentally
retarded killers from death row.
The Editor says...
Those "evolving standards of decency" are exactly what's wrong with this country. No
civilization can last very long without absolute standards of right and wrong.
Texas
to argue for right to execute child rapists at Supreme Court. The case before the court, Kennedy
vs. Louisiana, concerns a Louisiana law and the case of a Jefferson Parrish, La., man convicted of raping his
8-year-old stepdaughter. But striking down that law could call into question Texas' 2007 "Jessica's
Law," which allows the execution of certain repeat child sex offenders. The Supreme Court ruled
30 years ago that death was an excessive penalty for the aggravated rape of a 16 year-old girl.
Our States'
Right to Kill the Rapist: Our Founding Fathers would never have imagined the constitutionality of executing
rapists to be a serious question. Indeed my own state, North Carolina, considered rape — along with murder,
burglary, and arson — to be punishable by death for the better part of the 20th Century. None of this would
be controversial until some time after the [Supreme] Court — led by Chief Justice Earl Warren — announced
that it had somehow inherited a new standard for declaring statutes in violation of the Eighth Amendment's
ban on Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
Update:
High
court: Don't execute child rapists. The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of
people convicted of raping a child. … In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death
penalty to be imposed for raping a child violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Supreme
Court Rejects Death Penalty for Child Rape. The death penalty is unconstitutional as a punishment
for the rape of a child, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday [6/25/2008]. The 5-to-4 decision
overturned death penalty laws in Louisiana and five other states. The only two men in the country who
have been sentenced to death for the crime of child rape, both in Louisiana, will receive new sentences of
life without parole.
Texas and the
Death Penalty: Forty states have the death penalty on the books, but only 34 have carried out
executions since the Supreme Court permitted states to resume capital punishment in 1976. None come
close to Texas, which has carried out 405 executions over three decades. Virginia, with 98 executions,
is a distant second. What accounts for this Lone Star peculiarity, that some find horrifying?
Nebraska
Supreme Court rules electrocution unconstitutional. The Nebraska Supreme Court
ruled Friday [2/8/2008] that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment, outlawing the
electric chair in the only U.S. state that still used it as its sole means of execution. In
the landmark ruling, the court said the state Legislature may vote to have a death penalty,
just not one that offends rights under the state constitution.
Bush
Faces Off With Texas Over Execution. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International
Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights
to legal help as outlined in the 1963 Vienna Convention. That is the same court President Bush has since
said he plans to ignore if it makes similar decisions affecting state criminal laws.
Does Foreign Law Govern
US Courts? First, the US has deliberately not approved the treaty that would give the
International Court of Justice any jurisdiction over American courts and American law. Second, any
defendant can waive any rights that he has, by not raising them, and Medellin did not raise any objection
based on the Mexican consulate not being notified until years after his original conviction.
Update:
Supreme Court backs Texas in dispute with
Bush. Texas can ignore President Bush and an international court in refusing to reopen the case
of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday [3/25/2008]. The court
said Bush exceeded his authority when he tried to intervene on behalf of Jose Ernesto Medellin, facing the
death penalty for killing two teenagers nearly 15 years ago.
Canadian viewpoint:
Bring back the
death penalty. For the record, I support capital punishment. Society has the right to
permanently remove criminals for grievous offenses. The public is clearly on side as polls over recent
decades reveal large numbers of Canadians support capital punishment. The death penalty is actually one
of the most humane ways of dealing with the worst criminals. Their quick death does not provide true
justice for what many have done.
Studies say death penalty
deters crime. Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the past few years, with a
moratorium in Illinois, court disputes over lethal injection in more than a half-dozen states and progress
toward outright abolishment in New Jersey. … What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic
studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument — whether
the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes.
Texas Governor Goes
Wobbly. Texas Governor Rick Perry … commuted the sentence of a worthless hoodlum that had
already lived for eleven years too long as a guest of the state after being involved in a wild rampage that
took the life of a young man in 1996. Kenneth Foster was part of a gun-toting quartet of violent street
thugs who had spent the night robbing and pistol-whipping everyone they could find as they terrorized the
streets of San Antonio more than a decade ago.
Supreme Court blocks Mississippi execution.
The Supreme Court halted an execution in Mississippi on Tuesday [10/30/2007], less than an hour before a convicted
killer was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection. The last-minute reprieve for Earl Wesley
Berry is the third granted by the justices since they agreed late last month to decide a challenge to
Kentucky's lethal injection procedures.
Death penalty advocate studies Holton execution.
A documentary regarding the execution of convicted murderer Daryl Holton is being filmed in Shelbyville this week
by a New York School of Law professor who is a death penalty advocate. "The thing about the Holton case is
that most Americans worry about the death penalty is that an innocent person might be executed," writer-director
Ted Schillinger said between shots at the Shelbyville Times-Gazette newsroom on Monday. "In the Holton
case, the offender is absolutely guilty of a truly heinous crime."
Convicted
Child Killer Holton Executed. A man convicted of murdering four children with an assault rifle was
executed Wednesday, becoming the first Tennessee inmate put to death by electrocution since 1960. Daryl
Holton, 45, had confessed to shooting his three young sons and their half-sister in 1997 in the town of
Shelbyville, about 50 miles south of Nashville.
Capital punishment on decline in
county. On Tuesday night Harris County hit the century mark in executions, which places it
ahead of any other state — not county, but state — in the nation. Virginia is close
with 98, but the gap will only widen. Of the 380 Texas inmates awaiting execution,
Harris County can claim almost a third of them.
Executions down in U.S. but not in
Texas. The convicted killer of a 3-year-old boy is set to die this week, the first of five lethal
injections scheduled this month as Texas bucks a national trend and bolsters its standing as the most active in
carrying out capital punishment.
Lobbying intense on death penalty.
The Council of State, a panel of top elected leaders that will plunge into the death-penalty debate today
[2/6/2007], has been inundated with e-mail messages, letters and phone calls from people who want it to
ask the legislature to decide what role doctors should play in executions.
On Penalty Of Death: Will the execution of Saddam
Hussein have any impact on the fate of convicted cop killer Ronell Wilson? Jurors who on December 20
convicted Wilson of the deaths of undercover detectives Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin will be weighing the
death penalty as an option when the penalty phase of the trial begins January 10.
Lethal injection
blues: Opponents of the death penalty have been rummaging through their bag of tricks and
come up with the theory that lethal injection amounts to "cruel" punishment.
Appeals court
lifts stay on Missouri executions. A federal appeals court lifted a more than
year-old stay on executions in Missouri on Friday, refusing to block capital punishment while
a death-row inmate asks the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the state's form of lethal injection
to be an unconstitutionally cruel punishment.
Tennessee cop killer's execution back
on — for now. Lawyers for convicted cop killer Philip Workman and Tennessee
prosecutors were locked in a federal court battle Monday [5/7/2007] over Workman's execution, scheduled
for early Wednesday [5/9/2007]. … Workman, in an interview with CNN last month, said he feared what lethal
injection might do. "It almost makes me want to choose the electric chair," Workman said.
[You should have thought of that before pulling the trigger, Mr. Workman.]
Death
penalty decision a bad first step. The latest federal judge to rule against the constitutionality
of a state's death penalty is U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, who issued a ruling Friday [12/15/2006] that
found California's lethal injection protocol to be "intolerable under the Constitution." Chalk up the
ruling as a victory for Michael Morales, who was sentenced to death for raping and murdering 17-year-old
Terri Winchell of Lodi, Calif., in 1981.
Cruel and
Unusual Punishment? Before too much blood spills from "bleeding heart liberals," it might be
helpful to look at Mr. Diaz's criminal resume. According to court records, Diaz was convicted of
second-degree murder in his native Puerto Rico. He escaped from prison there and also from Connecticut's
Hartford Correctional Center in 1981. In Hartford, he held one guard at knifepoint while another was
beaten. Diaz was responsible for three other inmates escaping with him.
Assembly panel OKs doctor
ban at executions. An Assembly committee voted yesterday [4/17/2006] to bar physicians from
participating in executions after a frank debate that invoked abortion in a warning that doctors should be
careful when they ask lawmakers to draw their ethical boundaries.
Condemned can claim injection is
too painful. The Supreme Court opened the door today [6/12/2006] to new constitutional challenges
to lethal injection, the method used by most states and the federal government to execute death row inmates.
Lawyers say
executions are unconstitutional. First a sedative courses through a condemned inmate's
bloodstream, then a paralyzing agent and finally a heart-stopping drug. To witnesses viewing the
execution at San Quentin State Prison, it's like watching a man take a nap for about 10 minutes.
[In all the history of crime and punishment, the condemned criminal's absolute comfort
has never been a great concern, and certainly was not guaranteed. A prisoner on death row
must eventually pay a price for his or her crime, and when the time comes, it is
not painless. Let us remember the pain inflicted on the victims, to
whom no such courtesy was extended.]
The clay
feet of liberal saints. That Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty is no surprise to those
who've looked into the case. But that didn't stop the martyrdom campaign. Their execution
was used to galvanize everyone from establishment liberals to the very, very hard left. Josef
Stalin publicly lamented it. Protests erupted in the capitals of Europe and across the
U.S. A young Felix Frankfurter staked his reputation on their innocence.
Virginia
killer's sanity questioned as execution looms. It's a little late for the insanity
defense — His trial is over.
Amnesty condemns Saddam trial, death
sentences. Amnesty International has condemned the death sentences handed to Saddam
Hussein and two of his senior allies, describing their trial as a "shabby affair, marred by serious
flaws". The London-based human rights group — which opposes capital punishment — said the trial should
have helped the process of establishing justice and the rule of law in Iraq but was in
fact "deeply flawed and unfair".
[Are they trying to say that Saddam Hussein is without his flaws and is always perfectly fair?]
Fast-track
executions, Thomas says. Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas unveiled sweeping proposals that
he says will speed up death penalty cases, which take years to crawl through the legal system.
The wrong
way to restore the death penalty. The governor [of Massachusetts] is right
to support capital punishment. He is right as a matter of justice: Juries ought
to have the option of meting out the very worst punishment to the very worst offenders. And
he is right as a matter of democratic governance: Massachusetts voters have long backed the
death penalty — in 1982 they amended their Constitution to say so
explicitly — but their wishes have been thwarted by the state Legislature
and supreme court.
Death penalty moratorium
supporters try again to block executions. Death penalty moratorium supporters will try
again this week to put a hold on executions in California, the state with the largest death row in
the country.
Remorseless killer executed at
Lucasville. Remorseless to the end, Darrell Ferguson was executed today for the
Christmastime murders of three elderly, disabled Dayton residents in 2001. Ferguson, 28,
died by injection at the 10:21 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.
Spewing curses, killer is put to death.
Joseph Nichols, condemned for the murder of a 64-year-old Houston convenience store clerk, died in the state's
death house Wednesday with a curse on his lips. He was the eighth killer executed in Texas this year,
the second this week.
Reagan's common sense on
capital punishment, crime, and moral absolutes. A victory for state rights, justice, and a safer
America came last Monday [6/26/2006] when the Alito-led Supreme Court upheld a State of Kansas law that favors
capital punishment when the evidence for or against imposing death is equal.
No
race bias seen in death penalty demand. A study by the Rand Corp. think tank failed to find
racial bias among U.S. federal prosecutors seeking the death penalty in criminal cases. The study by the
Santa Monica, Calif.-based group examined the files of 652 defendants charged with capital offenses between
Jan. 1, 1995 and July 31, 2000. Rand said it was one of the most thorough examinations ever
of federal death penalty prosecutions.
The Pope, Richard Speck
and the death penalty: If Richard Speck isn't a textbook example of why capital punishment is
warranted, he'll do until a better one comes along. Slowly and methodically, he snuffed out the lives of
the young women. He strangled five of his victims and stabbed the other three. He raped one before
killing her.
Virginia brings back electric chair
for execution. A convicted murderer was executed in the electric chair in Virginia [7/20/2006],
becoming the first person in the United States to be put to death by electrocution in more than two years.
Time Magazine's Anti-Death Penalty Cover Boy Proven Guilty
By DNA Test. Way back in 1992 Roger Keith Coleman was Time magazine's cover boy against
the death penalty. Time ran the following over a photo of Coleman in chains: "This Man Might Be
Innocent, This Man Is Due To Die." Fast forward to 2006 and DNA tests have proved Coleman
was in fact rightfully convicted of raping and killing his 19-year-old sister-in-law.
DNA Tests Confirm Guilt of Executed
Man. New DNA tests confirmed the guilt of a man who went to his death in Virginia's
electric chair in 1992 proclaiming his innocence, the governor said Thursday [1/12/2006].
The Editor says...
Almost everyone in prison claims to be innocent. On the other hand, here is a
case where a guy on death row could very well be innocent:
Maybe, or maybe
not. A man's life hangs in the balance. Whose judgment do you trust, twelve duly appointed
jurors or one lone blogger? Normally, I'd say "the jury," but in the case of Cory Maye things may
not be what they seem.
Stay
of Execution Denied for Police Officer's Killer. A convicted killer who argued that the state's
use of lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment was put to death in Starke after the U.S. Supreme
Court denied him a stay. Clarence Hill, 48, was executed for the 1982 murder of a Pensacola police
officer in a savings and loan robbery.
The Editor says...
24 years on death row is at least 23 years too long. In this case, it was half a lifetime.
Outrage
over honor for cop-killer inmate. Cop-killer Leslie Ann Nelson, 48, a transsexual go-go
dancer whose name was Glenn Nelson before a sex-change operation at age 34, was convicted of killing
Camden County law enforcement officers John McLaughlin and John Norcross during a 1995 standoff in
Haddon Heights. She was removed from death row, but has an upcoming death-penalty trial in
which she wants to represent herself. Juries have twice decided she should die, and twice those
sentences were overturned by the state Supreme Court.
Judge says the 'Railroad Killer' Can Die Next
Week. A judge ruled Wednesday [6/21/2006] that serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, who gained
notoriety as the "Railroad Killer" linked to at least 15 murders across the country, is mentally competent to
be executed next week for the 1998 rape-slaying of a Texas doctor.
[Why wait until next week?]
Frail, blind convicted
killer executed in California. Clarence Allen was put to death by lethal injection early
Tuesday [1/17/2006] after failed efforts to convince Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the US Supreme
Court that he was in such poor health that killing him would be cruel.
[Who were the people putting up such resistance to this execution? Aren't they the
same people who are in favor of assisted suicide for sickly old people?]
Scott Peterson will probably die of
old age. California's chief justice, Ronald George, acknowledged that an appeals process that is
"in many ways dysfunctional" will keep Peterson alive for decades to come. "The leading cause of death on
[California's] death row is old age." But no chief justice should be glad that the judicial system he
presides over cannot do its job.
Scott Peterson transferred to San
Quentin. Since 1978 executions are just the third-leading cause of death for California's Death
Row inmates. The first is natural causes and the second is suicide. The earthquake state has
executed 11 people in the past 27 years — despite having 644 inmates on Death Row.
Editor's note: According to news reports I've
heard, Scott Peterson will be in a cell by himself, will eat meals by himself, and will exercise outside every
other day. He doesn't have to work, his meals, clothing and housing are provided at no cost (to him), and
he isn't bothered by telemarketers. What a great life! This kind of "punishment" is exactly the
reason that the death penalty isn't an effective deterrent. If he had been dragged out of the courtroom
and executed the day he was found guilty, (after a lengthy, fair and well-documented trial) the message to
future murderers would be loud and clear.
Capital Punishment: Justice & Deterrence: Crime
always demands a suitable punishment, and to fail to punish crime is to degrade
and disrespect the rights of every other citizen.
Inmate survives first
execution. A double murderer was put to death in Ohio but not until after one of his veins had
collapsed, causing the condemned man to sit up and tell his executioners, "It's not working", officials
said.
The Editor says...
Lethal injection was mandated by many states because it is supposed to be
completely painless. An execution, in my opinion, should be mercifully quick, even
if not pain-free.
Is "putting down" a murderer "cruel and
unusual"? Convicted cop killer Clarence Hill had his day in the U.S. Supreme Court this
week as the Justices heard arguments that executing him by lethal injection would violate
the 8th Amendment's prohibition against inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
The Stanley Williams subsection:
Credibility,
executed. Death penalty opponents — with the help of a sympathetic
media — hone their statistical legerdemain, suggesting that everyone who's gotten
off death row in recent years was innocent, when in fact many just had flawed trials. And,
of course, there's all the America bashing from a crowd that can cheer Yasser Arafat's Peace
Prize but also can call Schwarzenegger a murderer with a straight face.
He went to the penitentiary but showed
no penitence.
The "Redemption"
of Stanley 'Tookie' Williams. Williams claims redemption, but refuses to accept
responsibility for murdering four innocent people. Williams shot one victim, Albert Owens,
who worked at a 7-Eleven, twice in the back, after Owens pleaded for his life. Williams, 11 days
later, gunned down the owners of a small motel, a family of three.
Toot,
toot, tookie, goodbye. Although, intellectually, I can grasp the point of view of
those morally opposed to capital punishment, emotionally I am unable to fathom how they can
congregate outside prisons and hold candlelight vigils for mass murderers. Wouldn't their
time be better spent visiting the burial sites of the victims, and leaving flowers instead of
candle wax behind?
The legacy of
Tookie Williams. Convicted murderer of four and founder of the notorious Crips gang,
Tookie Williams, is gone, executed under the death penalty of the state of California. Now those
who protested his conviction, and worked for his clemency, want him to be remembered as a hero.
Martyrdom?
Martyrs die for a cause. Williams died for executing four unarmed people during two 1979 robberies,
shooting a woman in the face, and laughing uncontrollably at the gurgling sounds a male victim made as he
died in agony.
Death Penalty Double Standard: Tookie vs.
Allen. Countless articles were written bemoaning Tookie's loss and news anchors
spoke glowingly of his supposed contributions to ending gang violence. That Tookie himself
was the founder of the notorious "Crips" gang, responsible for so much murder and mayhem over the
years, didn't seem to enter into the equation. Neither did the four people he murdered in
cold blood.
This is what "swift and sure" means...
Prosecutor says Guilty Saddam would
hang quickly. The Iraqi High Tribunal's chief prosecutor says Saddam Hussein will hang
immediately if he is found guilty on charges relating to deaths of 148 Shiites. … "If the court
passes a death sentence on any of the defendants in the Dujail case, the law is clear, the sentence
must be carried out within 30 days following the appeal," Mr Mussawi said.
Execution
uncertain in grenade murders. Relatives of the two servicemen killed in Sergeant Hasan Akbar's
grenade and rifle attack said yesterday [4/29/1005] that he deserved the death sentence given to him by a
military jury. But specialists in military law say it is hardly a certainty the execution will ever
happen. The military has not executed one of its own since 1961, while states have put scores of
civilian killers to their deaths.
Iraq hangs 27 on terrorism
charges. Iraqi authorities hanged 27 convicted "terrorists" today, an interior ministry spokesman
announced. "Twenty-seven terrorists were hanged today in Baghdad. Most of them were Iraqis," said
interior ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf. He said they were convicted for attacks on Iraqi civilians
and sentenced to death, in an execution order signed by an Iraqi vice president.
The crime, not his race,
put Baker on death row. Another Maryland death row inmate is scheduled to take the lethal
injection needle. And, again, anti-death penalty activists have yanked out their ever-handy race card.
The "Let Scott Peterson Live" Campaign at CBS.
As if we needed any more evidence of liberal media bias on the part of CBS, the senior political editor for CBS
News, Dotty Lynch, has written a column arguing that convicted killer Scott Peterson should be allowed to live
the rest of his life at taxpayer expense in a California prison because he may not really be guilty of
murdering his wife and unborn son.
Judge not. Here they
go again. On March 1, the Supreme Court — by its now familiar 5–4 margin —
issued a ruling that bans states from executing anyone who was younger than 18 at the time of his crime.
You may believe that this ruling gives teens a license to kill, or you may consider it to be a sensible
protection for our innocent children. Either opinion is defendable, and immaterial. The important
thing — and the frightening thing — about the ruling is that it continues the court's
march toward a "living Constitution" and away from original intent.
Those poor,
poor perverts. I can nearly, but not quite, understand why some people object to capital
punishment. … What I can't begin to fathom are the people who seem to have the same tender feelings
for sexual predators that the rest of us have for our pets. Unfortunately, these aren't the same
mushy-headed simpletons holding candlelight vigils outside San Quentin. Instead, they're judges
and legislators.
Evolving
Standards of Decency. William Kristol sarcastically thanks the US Supreme Court for
its recent decision saving the life of Christopher Simmons, the youthful sadist who murdered
Shirley Crook for the fun of it in 1993. In seven paragraphs of well-tempered fury,
Kristol contrasts the judicial sensitivity to "evolving standards of decency" that spared
Simmons from the death penalty because of his age with the absence of any such sensitivity
when it came to Terri Schiavo.
Scalia
Slams Juvenile Death Penalty Ruling. Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the Supreme Court's recent
decision to strike down the juvenile death penalty, calling it the latest example of politics on the court that
has made judicial nominations an increasingly bitter process.
Judicial
supremacists and the despotic branch. Justice Antonin Scalia, a dependable
constitutional constructionist, protested on behalf of the dissenters that capital
punishment should, rightly in accordance with constitutional federalism, be determined
by individual states. … "To invoke alien law when it agrees with one's own
thinking, and ignore it otherwise, is not reasoned decision-making, but sophistry."
Forgetting
Facts While Making Law. In our system of limited government, with its separation of
powers, we depend upon our unelected lifetime-tenured judges to restrain themselves from implementing
their own moral, social and political values when they are unsupported by a plain understanding
of the Constitution and at odds with the choices we make through the democratic process.
On
the Supreme Court's definition of cruelty: In this case, a majority of the court
ruled that the execution of someone who was 17 at the time of the crime violates
the 8th Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments." It reached
this conclusion just 16 years after deciding that the execution of a 17-year-old did not
violate the 8th Amendment. What changed was not the 8th Amendment, which reads
exactly as it did then. What changed, in the court's opinion, were the "evolving
standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."
U.S.
Constitution: Made in Jamaica? In Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme
Court reached out and gave America a good old-fashioned smack-upside-the-head when it abolished
capital punishment for juvenile offenders. … The Court declared that the death penalty
was now unconstitutional for minors due to a supposed "emerging national consensus" that the
death penalty was wrong. The last time we checked, the Supreme Court was supposed to use
the Constitution as its guide. If anyone's to take notice of an "emerging national
consensus," it's the legislature.
The
new age Supreme Court. In its 5-4 decision on March 1, the
Court decreed that "Juveniles are less mature than adults and, no matter how heinous their
crimes, they are not among 'the worst offenders' who deserve to die." While I certainly
respect that opinion, I strongly object to the United States Supreme Court presuming to
impose it on our entire society as if it is the final arbiter not just of the law, but
our moral standards.
The Supreme
Court's vexing elitism. In my last column, I discussed the Supreme Court's
abominable decision outlawing the death penalty for murderers under the age of 18. I have
a few more complaints. First, much of the Court's analytical emphasis considers the
plight of the offenders. Conspicuously lost in the equation are concerns for the victims
and society at large, for whom the Court demonstrates a stunning disregard.
The Editor's Opinion:
(1) I've never even seen the inside of a law school, but even I can tell you that the Tenth
Amendment says this is an issue which should be decided by each of the 50 states for
themselves, not by the Supreme Court.
(2) In the Jewish culture, a 13-year-old boy has a bar mitzvah ceremony, in which he
declares, "Today, I am a Man," and is then considered an adult.
(3) If you are a drug dealer and a murderer and a recalcitrant felon, you should get the electric chair
if you are at least 13 years of age.
Debating
the death penalty: With conservative ideas sinking new roots across
American culture, conservatives have new reason to test their own thinking.
California
to Execute Inmate in 1981 Slayings. It would be the first execution in California
since January 2002 and only the 11th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1977. More
than 600 men are on the state's death row. … The last execution in California came on Jan. 29,
2002, when Stephen Wayne Anderson was put to death for shooting an 81-year-old woman in 1980.
More
innocents die when we don't have capital punishment: Murderers who are
not executed have murdered innocent people — usually fellow prisoners. And the very real
possibility of escape from prison means that murderers threaten far more innocent lives than
capital punishment does.
Vermont Has its First Capital Trial in
50 Years. A man convicted of helping to fatally beat a grandmother as she prayed for her life was
formally sentenced to death Friday [6/16/2006], Vermont's first death sentence in almost half a century.
Executing "children," and other
death-penalty myths: The age issue is a red herring. No state allows the death sentence
for anyone younger than 16, and no one younger than 23 has been executed in modern times. The truth is
that capital punishment in America is the most accurate and carefully administered criminal sanction in the
world, and the public has good reason to support it.
Controversial
Study Says Executions Save Lives: Three
economists at Emory University are stirring the pot with a new study that
concludes an average of 18 lives are saved each time a criminal is executed.
Murdering
the bell curve: After hearing the (overwhelming) evidence against him,
a jury sentenced Atkins to death. Last week, the Supreme Court overturned that
sentence. The court ruled that the Constitution makes Atkins ineligible for
the death penalty if he can prove he is "retarded." In other words, Atkins
avoids his capital sentence if he is at least smart enough to know how to
fail an IQ test.
Accountable, Yet Not Accountable: A
"Retarded" Supreme Court Decision: The Supreme court recently released its decision in
Atkins v. Virginia, regarding the propriety of executing the mentally retarded.
Retardation
and capital punishment: The Supreme Court, in its
decision, said that persons deemed retarded -- with an IQ of 70 or
less (why not 71?)-- and judged guilty of a capital crime, cannot be
executed. In so ruling, the court majority moved from the intention of
the Founders, which was to make execution more humane, to focusing on the
status of the guilty, which appears not to have entered the Founders' minds
while crafting the Eighth Amendment.
Execution
of the mentally retarded: What next for HB 236 opponents after Supreme
Court's ruling?
Deal keeps Penry imprisoned for life.
The long saga of convicted murderer Johnny Paul Penry, whose case helped push mental retardation into the national
debate over capital punishment, ended Friday [2/15/2008] with a plea agreement to a life sentence. Penry,
one of Texas' best-known death row inmates, agreed to three life sentences and to a stipulation that he was
not mentally retarded, in spite of what his lawyers have asserted for almost three decades.
How would the court fare on an IQ
test? In Atkins vs. Virginia, handed down last week, the Unites States Supreme Court substituted
the judgment of six justices for that of 20 state legislatures.
Will the death penalty meet its maker?
(Numerous links to death penalty articles.)
News and timely commentary about crime and punishment in general:
Sometimes
Life in Prison Really Means Life. The United States is now housing a large and
permanent population of prisoners who will die of old age behind bars.
The Costs of Crime: For
more than two centuries, the political left has been preoccupied with the fate of criminals, often while ignoring or
downplaying the fate of the victims of those criminals. … Britain has gone much further down the road that
the New York Times is urging us to follow. In the process, Britain has gone from being one of the most
law-abiding nations on earth to overtaking the United States in most categories of crime.
1
in every 136 U.S. residents is behind bars. Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a
year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.
The Editor says...
The article above, since it was written by an Associated Press writer, is apparently based on the liberal
perspective that too many people are incarcerated in the U.S., and most of them don't deserve to be there, and
they're only in jail because they're not white, etc. Of course this is nonsense. So many people are
in jail because this country is full of criminals! Many more have been or should be in prison.
Releasing
Inmates Early Has a Costly Human Toll. A shortage of jail beds puts career criminals back on
the streets, where they often commit new offenses.
Skewed views of crime:
It does no good to point out that soaring crime rates in the United States began to turn down only after the
declining rate of imprisonment was halted and reversed, leading to a rising prison population much deplored by
liberals. It does no good to point out Singapore's imprisonment rate is more than double that of
Canada — and its crime rate less than one-tenth the Canadian crime rate.
Crime and
Rhetoric: Having declined for decades on end, the murder rate suddenly doubled between 1961 and
1974. The rate at which citizens became victims of violent crimes in general tripled. Such trends
began at different times in different countries but the patterns remained very similar. As the rates of
imprisonment declined, crime rates soared — whether in England, Australia, New Zealand, or the
United States.
New
High In U.S. Prison Numbers. More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail
or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the
federal government $5 billion more, according to a report released yesterday [2/28/2008].
The Editor says...
That's money well spent. As long as there is plenty of extra prison space, criminals
will think twice about the consequences of their actions.
'Laxachusetts': Where
criminals get coddled. Does it come as a surprise to anyone that Leeland Eisenberg — the
disturbed man who allegedly strapped road flares to his chest and took five people hostage at Hillary Clinton's
campaign headquarters Friday [11/30/2007] in New Hampshire — is a convicted rapist released from a
Massachusetts prison?
Headbutting Police
Dogs – A 'PC' Step Too Far. You really couldn't make it up... a Welsh police force is
training its dogs to headbutt criminals rather than bite them, because politically correct –
'PC' – bosses are afraid that allowing the dogs to bite criminals will infringe their human rights!
When good people fight
back: A guy came in with a knife, a threat and a demand for money. … But this time someone
fought back. Someone who didn't get the memo or pay attention in the training class. Someone up on
the mezzanine saw the guy and the knife — and saw a chair, up on the mezzanine. A big
chair. And this somebody picked up the chair and heaved it down. It clocked the wannabe robber and
knocked him down. He stood up, demonstrated that he knew several ways to use the f-word, and ran out the
door with his tail between his legs.
A Land Fit for Criminals, Part I. The
general mindset of the political left is similar from country to country and even from century to century.
The softness toward dangerous criminals found in such 18th century writers as William Godwin and Condorcet has
its echo today among those who hold protest vigils at the executions of murderers and who complain that we are
not being nice enough to the cutthroats imprisoned at Guantanamo.
A Land Fit for Criminals, Part II. Where
the dominance of the left is greatest — in the media and in academia, for example — facts
to the contrary are seldom heard. The futility of imprisonment, for example, is a dogma on the
left. … It does no good to point out that Singapore's imprisonment rate is more than double that
of Canada — and its crime rate less than one-tenth the Canadian crime rate.
In Canada...
Criminals
have all the rights. Researching a column last week … I came across a revealing
government document. … You only have to read a few pages to realize how, over the decades, our
ruling class' obsession with the "rights" of criminals has reduced their victims to afterthoughts.
Not only have we scrapped capital punishment, gutted the meaning of "life" imprisonment and allowed
violent criminals to apply for unescorted day passes from prison after serving one-sixth of their
sentence and full parole after one-third. Today, the very language of government when it
speaks of prisoners' rights is reverential.
Inmates asking court to decide if
nutraloaf is meal or punishment. When shooting suspect Christopher Williams acted up in prison, he was
given nutraloaf — a mixture of cubed whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins,
beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes. Prison officials call it a
complete meal. Inmates say it's so awful they'd rather go hungry.
Alabama sheriffs feed
inmates on $1.75 a day. Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs
$1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over.
More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day
allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.
Prison Staff Forced to Address Every Inmate
as 'Mister'. A British prison is forcing its staff to prove they treat inmates decently as part
of the Prison Service's national "decency agenda," which includes addressing all inmates, including sex
offenders and violent criminals, as "Mr.," the Telegraph reported Wednesday [10/1/2008].
Notes on Michigan criminal procedure:
Michigan sentences may not exceed two-thirds of the maximum. A crime that is on the books as 12 years,
for example, means a maximum sentence of 8-12 years with eight years being the effective maximum. How
much of that will be served? The judges say that defendants usually get out after serving about
80 percent of the minimum. In this case, that would be a little less than six and a half years.
Much of that time would not be served in prison, but in halfway houses.
Do the time, lower the crime.
In the last 10 years, the effect of prison on crime rates has been studied by many scholars. The Pew report
doesn't mention any of them. … A high risk of punishment reduces crime. Deterrence works. But so does
putting people in prison. The typical criminal commits from 12 to 16 crimes a year (not counting drug
offenses). Locking him up spares society those crimes. Several scholars have separately estimated that the
increase in the size of our prison population has driven down crime rates by 25%.
Who freed the
cop-killers? The only thing that would've prevented this homicide was the one thing politicians,
judges, prison officials in Philadelphia don't want to address. Warner, Cain and Floyd should have been
behind bars at the time they were committing the robbery.
He's been held in 44 offenses — and he's 17.
Since age 10, Travis Hylton has been in and out of the Pima County juvenile court system, having been arrested
on 44 criminal offenses in seven years. All but six of those charges have been dismissed based on the fact
that doctors deemed Hylton — now 17 — incompetent to stand trial and unable to assist in his
defense. Now Hylton sits in jail on three counts of attempted murder.
States May Free Inmates
to Save Millions. Lawmakers from California to Kentucky are trying to save money with a drastic
and potentially dangerous budget-cutting proposal: releasing tens of thousands of convicts from prison,
including drug addicts, thieves and even violent criminals.
More Prisoners, Less
Crime. Last July, Obama said that "more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and
universities." Actually, there are more than twice as many black men ages 18 to 24 in college as there are
in jail. Last September he said, "We have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, nonviolent offenders
for the better part of their lives." But Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, writing in the institute's
City Journal, notes that from 1999 to 2004, violent offenders accounted for all of the increase in the prison population.
Back to the Home page
|
|
