Religions > Atheism > Re: Woman in So-Called Vegetative State Responds to Commands, Stuns
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"TwistyCreek" |
| Date: |
11 Sep 2006 03:34:36 AM |
| Object: |
Re: Woman in So-Called Vegetative State Responds to Commands, Stuns |
osprey wrote:
Isn't it odd that the right can't wait to kill em on death row. Yet if
they are on in the womb, or when
they are like this person they carry
signs and scream their heads off. They truly are a
bunch of sick twisted seditious freaks.
Isn't it odd that the left can't ever get it right, in regards to
viewpoints on death row.
I could remind you that in many states that has the death penalty, the
primary ruling party is "Democrat". Delaware for example, the state
with the highest death row population "per capita".
Being on death row is being on death row.
They were sentenced to death, but that dosen't reflect on our government
actually going through with 'the ultimate penalty.'
Bush was tough on criminalls with the death peanlty. I guess.
---
YMMV
Published on Saturday, June 17, 2000 in the New York Times
Texas Executions:
GW Bush Has Defined Himself, Unforgettably, As Shallow And Callous
by Anthony Lewis
BOSTON-There have been questions all along about the depth and seriousness
of George W. Bush. They have been brought into sharp focus now by a
surprising issue: the way the death penalty is administered in Texas. In
his comments on that subject Governor Bush has defined himself,
unforgettably, as shallow and callous.
In his five years as governor of Texas, the state has executed 131
prisoners -- far more than any other state. Mr. Bush has lately granted a
stay of execution for the first time, for a DNA test.
In answer to questions about that record, Governor Bush has repeatedly
said that he has no qualms. "I'm confident," he said last February, "that
every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been
guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts."
That defense of the record ignores many notorious examples of unfairness
in Texas death penalty cases. Lawyers have been under the influence of
cocaine during the trial, or been drunk or asleep. One court dismissed a
complaint about a lawyer who slept through a trial with the comment that
courts are not "obligated to either constantly monitor trial counsel's
wakefulness or endeavor to wake counsel should he fall asleep."
This past week The Chicago Tribune published a compelling report on an
investigation of all 131 death cases in Governor Bush's time. It made
chilling reading.
In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented
the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later
disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no
evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.
In 29 cases, the prosecution used testimony from a psychiatrist who --
based on a hypothetical question about the defendant's past -- predicted
he would commit future violence. Most of those psychiatrists testified
without having examined the defendant: a practice condemned professionally
as unethical.
Other witnesses included one who was temporarily released from a
psychiatric ward to testify, a pathologist who had admitted faking
autopsies and a judge who had been reprimanded for lying about his
credentials.
Asked about the Tribune study, Governor Bush said, "We've adequately
answered innocence or guilt" in every case. The defendants, he said, "had
full access to a fair trial."
There are two ways of understanding that comment. Either Governor Bush was
contemptuous of the facts or, on a matter of life and death, he did not care.
At the heart of the problem is the Texas way of providing lawyers for
defendants too poor to hire their own, as most are in death cases. There
is no state system. Judges assign lawyers -- often lawyers who have
contributed to their election campaigns.
"The State of Texas is a national embarrassment in the area of indigent
legal services," a committee of the State Bar of Texas says in a report
just approved. Again, Governor Bush has shown no concern about this
reality. He vetoed a bill, passed by the legislature, that would have let
Texas counties set up a limited public defender program for the poor.
Capital punishment, long favored by a majority of Americans, has become a
national issue again because of concern about the fairness of its
administration. Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, a Republican, imposed a
moratorium on executions in that state after 13 men on death row were
shown to be innocent. Pat Robertson and other conservatives have called
for a national moratorium.
The most complete study ever done of the death penalty process, by Prof.
James S. Liebman and others at Columbia University, was published the
other day. It showed that two-thirds of death convictions or sentences
were upset on appeal for such reasons as incompetent defense lawyers or
prosecutors who bent the rules.
To all this George Bush is seemingly indifferent. Or perhaps not entirely.
If he were not running for president, it is doubtful that he would just
now have granted his first stay of execution. Next week Gary Graham,
convicted of murder on the testimony of a single witness who said she saw
him at night from 30 to 40 feet away, is due to be executed. Will Governor
Bush care?
.
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