Kill em’ fast so you look tough on crime, then decide if they were guilty.
Gonzales could get say in states’ executions
The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts.
The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year’s reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges.
Under the rules now being prepared, if a state requested it and Gonzales agreed, prosecutors could use “fast track” procedures that could shave years off the time that a death row inmate has to appeal to the federal courts after conviction in a state court.
The move to shorten the appeals process and effectively speed up executions comes at a time of growing national concern about the fairness of the death penalty, underscored by the use of DNA testing to establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates in recent years.
In other execution news…
Gonzie must really like what Texas is about to do that we recently reported on: execute someone who didn’t even know his partner was committing a murder. From now on, if I should go to Texas, you know that before I let someone step into my car I’m going to ask them if they just killed someone.
Apparently, Texas is the execution capital of the country because God told them to do it. Isn’t that the same excuse some murderers use?
hey when people start questioning your integrity — go kill some people!
no really, it works like a charm, it keeps liberals going crazy for weeks freaking out so badly about the death penalty that they forget all about warrantless wiretaps
heckuva job bertie
I’m so old I remember when conservatives pushed for state rights and more state control. God I’m old!
Any regulation that would give ‘berto “mportant new sway” over ANYTHING (except maybe peeling bananas) is so brain-dead from the get-go it could only come from the Court of Little King Dumbya.
Jeez. That this guy even still has a job is an embarrassment to the very concept of “justice”.
There is the case of Stephen Avery here in Wi.He was convicted of rape-murder and spent 18 years in jail then freed due to DNA evidence.He then “supposedly” raped and murdered a woman who came to his familys junk yard to photograph a car.He has been convicted of this crime.Did he do it because he spent 18 years in a predatory enviroment? Was he framed because he was sueing the county that convicted him?This is a real mess and killing people faster won’t make it go away.BTW Wi. has never had a death penalty but we have had at least 1 lynching.
#2 – I’m so old I remember when conservatives pushed for state rights and more state control. God I’m old!
Thankfully, those days are over…
Look, there’s still no doubt whatsoever of the guilt and the irredeemable evil of the vast majority on Texas’ Death Row. That said, this is one of those cases that does nothing but undermine the righteousness of the DP in those case where it’s richly deserved.
Said it before, I’ll say it yet again. No one should be executed without tangible physical evidence linking him to the crime. Circumstantial evidence and this recent vengeful horseshit of executing another participant in the crime who didn’t actually pull the trigger (or whatever). Only the bad actor himself and only with solid evidence. That should dispose of many people’s objections to the DP, when we can be sure that the only ones executed really are the guilty parties.
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#4 – Billabong
I studied the Avery case extensively – and there is not one subatomic particle of doubt that that filthy subhuman piece of shit deliberately slaughtered that poor girl.
I would personally pull the switch, or push the button, on him and with pleasure and satisfaction, knowing that removing him permanently from existence is a cosmically positive act.
The desire for revenge is strong, and most men of conscience rightly feel that those guilty of heinous crimes should be punished.
However, I must say that listening to most pro-death penalty advocates, the one thing they don’t want to hear about is due process, they seem to have a blood-lust.
They are so thoroughly convinced that those who impose the death penalty are infallible, even though daily many, many people are freed from the prison system after wrongly being put there.
If you were wrongly accused, you would want every chance afforded to you to prove your innocence, wouldn’t you?
#7 – You are right… The death penalty is about revenge and not justice, and, it doesn’t fucking work. It just plain doesn’t.
The death penalty removes dangerous individuals from the planet. They will do no harm again. And I agree 100% with Lauren, “No one should be executed without tangible physical evidence linking him to the crime.”
Sad fact. When not executed, killers can, and HAVE, been a)released on technicalities; b)released by accident; c) escaped.
And the net number of innocent persons killed who would not’ve been had their killers’ executions gone through, is orders of magnitude greater than the number of factually innocent persons who either have been executed or are currently at risk of being executed.
This may sound cold-blooded – but I’m not suggesting it, I’m using it to emphasize my point – but if we carried out the executions of everyone currently on Death Row tomorrow, just cleaned house – or instead commuted every death sentence in America to life without parole – the latter would result in the deaths of far more innocents.
The Death Penalty should only be used in the most extreme cases. I would prefer we not have it, but if we must, then apply it fairly across the board.
At the same time, anyone: police, prosecutor, snitch, etc, even the Judge, that has purposely lied, forged evidence, with held evidence, tampered with evidence, or misled a court or jury in order to convict someone should be made to serve at least half the sentence the original accused was sentenced to. If the the accused is found not guilty, then half the sentence they would have received under the sentencing guidelines. Up to a maximum of 25 years. There would be no statute of limitations
All interrogations and interviews must be videotaped. This includes whether or not the interrogated is to be charged or not or used in evidence or not. The police talk to you, they record it.
Any time it has been found that evidence has been with held, forged, tampered with, was not submitted in a timely manner, or any statements or testimony is perjured or misleading, the onus will be on the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt why there should not be a new trial.
Any time there has been a police / prosecutor misdeed then the State will pay for the defense in any new trial as well as the old trial. When there has been a misdeed and the prosecutor declines to prosecute, or does not prosecute an honest case, the accused person may assume the prosecution.
These new “regulations” would make it a little less appealing to falsely convict someone.
That’s a nice list of reform proposals there, Fusion, and no, I’m not being snide.
Problem is, the current system is so entrenched that both sides resist changing anything substantive. And I don’t use the term ‘never’ that often, but actually adopting measures with real teeth that would make judges – or prosecutors, for a’that – accountable? NEV-ER.
as a Texan I say mind your own business. capital punishment FTW!
i don’t give a damn what happens in other states based on their state law. if you care so much move to Texas and make your vote count.
That’s one of the purposes of a Federal gov’t – to rein in the excesses of out-of-control states. However, most of the criticism of Texas and the DP is misplaced. Texas DOES have a lot of ppl on Death Row. And every one that I can think of offhand is absolutely 100% guilty and deserves richly to be eradicated from civilized society. Some of you miss the point that Texas puts so many on Death Row because Texas features no small number of some of the sorriest, stupidest, vilest, most subhuman scumbags you’d ever see. This state is Dirtbag City; if you don’t believe it, just watch the Houston or DFW news for a few days. I guarantee the place you live in now will start looking much nicer than you thought it was…
>>Texas features no small number of some of the sorriest,
>>stupidest, vilest, most subhuman scumbags you’d ever see.
Based on the Texans who have Shanghied American government in the new millenium, I’d have to say you’re 100% spot-on there, FishMeister.
Shit, Houston, Republican owned and operated, is home to the Bushes for good reason. Dumbya practiced the fucked policies he’s been inflicting on the country on Texas first…
Which is why the country is becoming a septic tank of corrupt plutocrat morans aided and abetted by masses of deluded blue-collar Bible-thumping mouth-breathers who know that God has given them the right to tell everyone else how to live. Then you add your neglected and disintegrating black and Mexican “cultures” whose “leaders” live like kings on the money the Repugs toss ’em to keep “their people” docile. The “middle class” runs around in cars they can’t afford, scurrying to fuck everyone they can out of their money in order to meet the debt service on their 32 maxed-out credit cards – play-acting at being knee-jerk social liberals while adopting the greed and self-serving dishonesty of fiscal conservatism… Nasty little yuppie dweebs all rigidly conforming and kissing Repug ass all week and then headed out to the Strip over the weekend to frequent shitty overpriced clubs, get shitfaced and barf all over the parking lot, and do their part to make sure everyone between 16 and 60 contracts some form of venereal disease.
That’s Houston in a nutshell, and also what America’s becoming. Coïncidence? My hairy yellow ass, it is.
#14, Lauren, just watch the Houston or DFW news for a few days.
No thanks, I try to ignore it. Like old Zig Zigler says, “Avoid that stuff, garbage in, garbage out.”
When I get the opportunity to go to Austin, my opinion of Texas improves immeasurably, as long as I avoid the yuppie strongholds…
Hopefully these measures to speed up executions will be in force for Cheney and his puppets when they get sentenced to death for war crimes.