The Troy Davis Execution

I was going to write something about this execution, but John Hawkins of Right Wing News did it for me in his post at Huffington Post called, "Why Do Liberals Have Such a Soft Spot for Cop Killers Like Troy Davis?" Here are some of the key points.

We have a justice system that is already ridiculously slanted against the death penalty. It usually takes decades of appeals and retrials to put anyone to death, no matter how ironclad the evidence is against him. Despite farfetched claims that large numbers of innocent men have been put to death, there's actually no solid evidence that an innocent man has been executed in this country in the last fifty years. ... Liberals don't like the death penalty; so they are desperate to find proof that innocent men have been executed and there are people who are willing to make money providing that evidence, no matter how far they have to stretch to deliver it.

And the weight of evidence for Troy Davis' guilt is so great that despite all those years of appeals and efforts to overturn the verdict, or lessen the penalty, not a single court was willing to do so.

despite the incredibly slanted accounts you may have read, Troy Davis is not one of these mistakes. More than a dozen courts looked at the trial and came to that conclusion -- and no wonder. Davis shot a cop to death in public. There were 34 witnesses at the trial. Some of them were strangers. Some of them were friends of Davis. To this day, there are several people, some strangers and some former friends, who said they saw Davis shoot Officer Mark MacPhail and haven't recanted. How many eyewitnesses to a murder should you need to convict someone?

There's one other thing that Hawkins doesn't mention regarding the Supreme Court's refusal to stay the execution. There are outspoken liberals on that court, who have not been shy in expressing opposition to other executions.

In late June, for example, the court cleared the way for a Mexican national to be executed in Texas over the objections of the State Department, but the decision came on a 5-4 vote. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan disagreed.

No dissents were recorded in the Davis case. About 10:20 p.m., the court released a one-line order saying that the “application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the court is denied.”

Despite all the pro-Davis propaganda, it apparently didn't even convince the liberal members of the Supreme Court. The overwhelming weight of the evidence is that Troy Davis was a murderer and was justly executed.

UPDATE

For those who might think I'm a reflexive, ideological defender of the death penalty in every case, I should point out that back in 2009 I wrote a post arguing that the Troy Davis case was a bad use of the death penalty. But, that's because I was uninformed about many details. As is sometimes the case in blogging, I was offering a quick take based on my reading of one op-ed which presented a skewed picture. A commenter pointed that out, which eventually led to me reversing my opinion.

Justice Served

There has been a lot of recent whining about the death penalty, based on a couple cases. But today we saw the death penalty serve its primary purpose: justice. The state of Texas executed Lawrence Russell Brewer for the incredibly vicious torture and murder of James Byrd back in 1998. In case you've forgotten, here's an account of the crime.

On June 7, 1998, Byrd, age 49, accepted a ride from Shawn Berry (age 24), Lawrence Brewer (age 31), and John King (age 23). Berry, who was driving, was acquainted with Byrd from around town. Instead of taking Byrd home, the three men took Byrd to a remote county road out of town, beat him with anything they could find, urinated on his unconscious body, chained him by his ankles to their pickup truck dragging him for three miles. Brewer later claimed that Byrd's throat had been slashed by Berry before he was dragged. However, forensic evidence suggests that Byrd had been attempting to keep his head up while being dragged, and an autopsy suggested that Byrd was alive during much of the dragging. Byrd died after his right arm and head were severed after his body hit a culvert. His body had caught the culvert on the side of the road, resulting in Byrd's decapitation.

Berry, Brewer, and King dumped their victim's mutilated remains in front of an African-American cemetery on Huff Creek Road; the three men then went to a barbecue.

Death penalty opponents often call execution "barbaric." In my opinion it is barbaric to allow those who would commit such a crime to go on living. It took a ridiculously long 13 years to execute just one of the murderers, but better late than never.

Weak Argument Against the Death Penalty

One of the weaker arguments against the death penalty is that it is applied unfairly, therefore it should be abolished. This is the line taken in a New York Times editorial on the military version of the death penalty. Here's the crux of the argument.

Minority service members are more than twice as likely as whites — after accounting for the crimes’ circumstances and the victims’ race — to be sentenced to death, according to a forthcoming study co-written by David Baldus, an eminent death-penalty scholar, who died in June.

The analysis is so disturbing because the military has made sustained, often successful efforts to rid its ranks of discrimination. But even with this record, its failure to apply the death penalty fairly is more proof that capital punishment cannot be free of racism’s taint. It is capricious, barbaric and discriminatory, and should be abolished.

First of all, this type of study proves nothing. It is impossible to say with certainty that a white service member would not have gotten the death penalty in the cases where a minority received it, because a white person was not on trial. We are dealing with hypotheticals. Second, it is quite possible that there are factors more important than supposed racial bias that influenced the death sentences, and that they involve the individual circumstances of each case. And most importantly, even if minorities are more likely to get the death penalty because of racism, that doesn't mean we have to throw out the death penalty. Why not take measures to ensure that sentences are fair and not based on a defendant's race? In other words, why not fix the military death penalty rather than eliminate it?

If we have something that works or is beneficial but is tainted in its operation by racism, we don't just scrap it. We fix it. For example, if a corporation discriminates against minority workers we don't close it down. We bring lawsuits and legal judgments which force it to alter its practices. Now you can certainly argue that the death penalty doesn't work and isn't beneficial, but that's a different argument. Saying we should simply do away with the military death penalty because some statistics correlate with apparent racial bias is a weak argument, the kind made by those already biased against the penalty and looking for any plausible excuse to do away with it.

Nashiri Cole Bombing Trial

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri faces a military trial accused of bombing the U.S.S. Cole back in 2008. This case illustrates the difficulty inherent in trying to use normal legal rules -- even military court -- to deal with foreign terrorist enemies. Nashiri was waterboarded, held in a secret prison, and subjected to other harsh interrogation techniques, so naturally his lawyers say the case is "tainted." They know he isn't going free, but they argue to spare him the death penalty. Under normal legal rules the case is definitely tainted, as long as you forget that this man isn't an American citizen or a legal resident, but a foreign enemy that attacked a U.S. warship that wasn't even engaging in any warfare at the time. I give him credit for striking a military target instead of the usual preferred soft targets, but summary execution was still warranted for what he did.

Ideally Nashiri should have been quietly executed years ago, after we extracted all useful information, preferably by using rendition to send him someplace that would do it for us. But now, years later, putting him on trial is a farce.. After three years we are going to charge him with crimes and ask for the death penalty? There's no purpose to this trial. He's been sitting in jail since we captured him, and should continue to sit until he dies. The trial gives a veneer of legalism to our continued confinement of a dangerous Al Qaeda member. But it fools no one. People like me see it as unnecessary, and people who think Nashiri has rights are going to view it as a kangaroo court rubber-stamping a preordained outcome.

Execute Christian Longo Already

Eight years ago Christian Longo murdered his wife and three children. He's been sitting on death row for the past eight years, in a prime example of just how ridiculous the death penalty process is in the U.S. Longo admits his guilt and wants to end his appeals.

I have asked to end my remaining appeals, and then donate my organs after my execution to those who need them. But my request has been rejected by the prison authorities.

There are tens of thousands of people waiting for organ donations. Longo's article says 19 die every day. So why on earth would his request to die and donate be rejected?

There is no law barring inmates condemned to death in the United States from donating their organs, but I haven’t found any prisons that allow it. The main explanation is that Oregon and most other states use a sequence of three drugs for lethal injections that damages the organs.

Here's an idea, how about making an exception and using a method that preserves organs? I know, that's just too difficult for government bureaucrats to figure out. They'd rather just stick with their idiotic rules. Longo is a piece of human garbage who should have been executed years ago. But even he wants to do the one decent thing he has left to offer. Oregon should immediately grant his request.

Our Snail's Pace Criminal Justice System

According to ABC News, the case against the Jared Loughner will take years to process.

The man accused of carrying out the mass shooting in Tucson faces a court hearing Monday — an early step in a case against Jared Loughner that could take years to wend its way through the criminal justice system.

In my opinion this case could be wrapped up in a few months, let alone years. There's no question about Loughner's guilt. The procedural maneuvering detailed by ABC is a gigantic waste of time and money. The key question is whether or not Loughner is insane to the point where he isn't responsible for his own actions. I'm skeptical of this argument, since he was apparently able to function normally in society. But maybe he really is that crazy. If he is, then the death penalty shouldn't even be an option. He should be confined for life in a facility for the criminally insane.

If Loughner is not truly insane, then the case should be open and shut. There's no risk of sentencing an innocent man to death. Obviously he should be charged with the death penalty, convicted and executed. There's no good reason it should take years. But it probably will.

Prime Candidates for Execution

In a town in Georgia four men beat another man to death for absolutely no reason.

It began with a brawl outside a house party. A woman hit a man, and the man refused to strike back, saying he wouldn't hit a girl. Instead, he vowed to attack the next male who walked by, even if that person was a random stranger.

That's when 18-year-old Bobby Tillman happened to approach a group of four partygoers , who swiftly stomped, kicked and punched him to death while dozens of bystanders watched. "He had nothing to do with anything," said Tommy Wheeler of Douglas county sheriff 's department . "They just decided he's the one. And they killed him."

If this story is accurate, the four individuals who did this are human garbage that should be swiftly executed. There is no good reason to permit them to live any longer than the time needed for a trial. If clearly guilty, there is no good reason for lengthy appeals, or any of the other nonsense that makes the death penalty so difficult to carry out. Those who commit such senseless acts of murder should be quickly executed. They won't be of course, but they should be.

It's About Time

Texas executed Peter Anthony Cantu tonight for two murders committed back in 1993. He, along with fellow gang members, raped, tortured and murdered 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year old Jennifer Ertman. Here's a brief description,

In what police later would describe as a sadistic frenzy, the girls were gang-raped for more than an hour. They were forced to perform oral sex. They were kicked, teeth knocked out and hair pulled out and ribs broken. A red nylon belt, with an attacker tugging at each end, was pulled so tightly around Ertman's neck the belt snapped. Shoelaces were used to strangle Pena. Evidence showed Cantu kicked one of the girls in the face with his steel-toed boot.

He should have been executed years ago. But better late than never. Good riddance.

Stay of Execution?

Anyone reading this blog for any length of time knows that I'm a strong supporter of the death penalty. Executions should be carried out faster, and there should be more of them. On the other hand, I think the death penalty should be reserved only for those who are clearly & unmistakably guilty. If there is any significant doubt about guilt, we should err on the side of allowing the criminal to live. Consider the following case featured on CBS News.  

Jeffrey David Matthews was convicted 16 years ago of murdering his uncle during a break-in. His aunt survived to testify against him, and he got the death penalty. He's on YouTube asking for a stay of execution.  According to the article, here is the evidence against him. 

• accomplice said he pulled the trigger
• stolen medicine from his aunt's home was found at his home
• clothing matching his aunt's description of the murderer's outfit found at his home
• he told others he was thinking of robbing his relatives
• and most importantly, the murder weapon, which someone loaned him, was found at his home.

That's some pretty damning circumstantial evidence. But there are other factors that create doubt.

• the accomplice recanted and now says another unnamed person was the murderer
• the police officer who arrested him thinks he isn't guilty and didn't get a fair trial
• there is no DNA or fingerprint evidence connecting him to the murder
• he has two witnesses giving him an alibi that weren't called during trial

Even for as big a death penalty supporter as I, that's just too much doubt for me to sign off on his execution. In my opinion, if this article is substantially correct, the governor of Oklahoma should stay the execution. Jeffrey David Matthews may be a criminal low-life who deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. And it's certainly possible he really is the murderer. But the evidence of his guilt is just not clear enough to warrant taking his life, and possibly making an irreversible mistake.

Saudi Arabia Does Something Right

Saudi Arabia is infamous for imposing vicious punishments on people for such horrific crimes as being a rape victim. But today it actually executed people for real crimes, instead of ones based on religion and misogyny.

Saudi Arabia executed two murderers including a Yemeni whose body was nailed to a cross after he was convicted of killing a fellow countryman and his daughter

Both were beheaded. No doubt the Saudis will get quite a bit of criticism from those calling these executions barbaric, especially since one included the desecration of a body after death. But here's what that individual did.

Shaaban al-Nasheri was beheaded for shooting dead Dhayeh al-Manbahi after barging into his family home ... Nasheri was also found guilty of raping and killing Manbahi's daughter before shooting and wounding her sister.

This guy invaded someone's home, killed a man, raped and killed his daughter, and shot another girl. Cutting his head off and nailing his headless body to a cross sounds like just punishment to me.

It's About Time

Murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed last night by firing squad. The execution was punishment for crimes committed in 1985. That's right, it only took a mere 25 years to carry out his sentence. The execution attracted attention because it's the first time the firing squad method has been used in fourteen years.

The executioners were all police officers who volunteered for the task and remain anonymous. They stood about 25 feet from Gardner, behind a wall cut with a gunport, and were armed with a matching set of .30-caliber Winchester rifles. One was loaded with a blank so no one knows who fired the fatal shot. Sandbags stacked behind Gardner's chair kept the bullets from ricocheting around the cinderblock room.

That's one murderer who won't be able to kill anyone else. It took way too long to get him executed, but better late than never. On a side note, Gardner's last meal was "steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream and 7UP."

Killer Gets Life. It Should Have Been Death.

Scott Roeder, who murdered late-term abortion specialist Dr. George Tiller was sentenced to life in prison. Here's a guy who deliberately stalks his victim and plans a killing, walks into a church full of people and shoots his target -- putting other lives at risk as well. He's not only completely unrepentant, he takes proud ownership of the murder. In my opinion there is no good reason to keep such a person alive and in prison. He should get a speedy execution instead -- and by speedy I don't mean ten years from now.

Good Riddance

Murderer and rapist Paul Warner Powell was executed today in Virginia, in a well-deserved use of the electric chair. He was convicted way back in 2000 for murdering a sixteen year old girl, and for raping and attempting to murder her fourteen year old sister. There was no question of his guilt. After his first conviction was overturned,

Powell wrote a taunting letter to prosecutors detailing the crime. He was convicted again in 2003.

He should have been executed years ago, but bettter late than never. 

An Irony of History

China executed a British citizen today for heroin smuggling, despite strenuous protests from the British government, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown. China responded as follows,

Beijing called the British criticism groundless interference in its judicial sovereignty. ... "Nobody has the right to speak ill of China's judicial sovereignty," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. "We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition over the groundless British accusations."

It's a measure of just how far Britain has fallen in the world, that China can execute a British citizen and just brush off criticism -- and not just brush it off, but actually condemn the UK for daring to offer any criticism at all.

In the mid-19th century, the British actually fought two wars with China, the Opium Wars, in order to force the Chinese to allow the opium trade -- which was against Chinese law -- and to protect British smugglers. They succeeded. Now in the 21st century, they are powerless to protect a single smuggler from execution. It's yet another measure of how far Britain has fallen, and how far China has risen.

New Execution Method

A murderer in Ohio was executed today using a new type of lethal injection. Most states, including previously Ohio, use a combination of drugs for execution.

Of the 36 states, and the federal government, that use lethal injection, most use the same method that Ohio has now abandoned: a three-drug combination of sodium pentathol, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The latter two drugs serve to paralyze the inmate and then stop his heart.

Ohio had problems with the standard method, failing to execute a prisoner "after 18 puncture attempts," so they went with the simpler option of a single lethal dose of an anesthetic.

In my opinion lethal injection is an unnecessarily complicated method of execution. There have been a number of problems with it, not just in Ohio, partially because doctors can't be involved in the actual execution. You have people that aren't well-trained attempting to find suitable injection sites, and sometimes botching it. With the minimal number of people actually executed in the U.S., there is just no need for complicated, inefficient and expensive methods of execution. A rope attached to a gallows is a quick, cheap and effective method of eliminating the few criminals who actually manage to make it all the way to an execution date. It was used throughout much of U.S. history and there was really no good reason to look for other methods. And there are other simple types of execution, such as death by firing squad. There is no need for things like electric chairs, gas chambers, or lethal injections. Let's bring back the gallows.

Leftist Idiocy of the Day

Jeralyn Merritt at Talk Left is appalled that poor Major Hasan might get the death sentence.

How barbaric that the military will seek to kill a man with no sensation in his body from the chest down. He might prefer it (I certainly would) but it's inexusable [sic] behavior for a civilized society and way beyond the pale of decency.

Hasan of course was paralyzed in the course of his murderous rampage. Had he not been shot and paralyzed, he might have killed or wounded even more people. But somehow those who want him executed for his vicious crimes are "barbaric." 

What's "inexcusable" and "beyond the pale of decency" is that anyone should take seriously the ravings of a fool like Merritt. There is of course nothing the slightest bit indecent or barbaric about executing a murderer like Hasan. His paralysis is completely irrelevant. Death is more than justified for someone who carried out the premeditated murder of thirteen people, and attempted to kill many more. If sympathizing with terrorists & killers is the mark of a "civilized" society, we'd be better off with quite a bit less of that type of civilization. We'd certainly be better off without imbecilic leftist lawyers who always put the interests of the criminal first.

Another Ridiculous Argument Against the Death Penalty

It's too expensive. Only the government could make executing criminals more expensive than keeping them in prison for life. It's a prime example of government efficiency in action.

The number of death sentences handed down in the United States has dropped from roughly 300 a year in the 1990s to 115 a year more recently. Executions are falling off at the same rate, the report says. 

In the meantime, some 3,300 inmates remain on death row.

The reason the death penalty is so expensive is because we don't actually execute people, except in tiny numbers, primarily because we are rightly concerned with making mistakes.

"[T]he death penalty is turning into a very expensive form of life without parole," said Richard Dieter, DPIC executive director, in a statement. "At a time of budget shortfalls, the death penalty cannot be exempt from reevaluation alongside other wasteful government programs that no longer make sense."

Here's an idea. Instead of pretending that there is something inherently wrong with the death penalty that makes it too expensive, how about we change its application to make it more efficient and less costly? I know, what a radical idea.  As the article notes,

Some officials may be tempted to try to cut capital-punishment costs, notes the DPIC report, but many of those costs reflect Supreme Court-mandated protections at the trial and appeals-court levels. "The choice today is between a very expensive death penalty and one that risks falling below constitutional standards," the report says

This could be avoided by taking two steps. Step one, restrict the death penalty to criminals who are clearly & unmistakably guilty. There are certain criminals whose guilt is beyond a shadow of a doubt, and for whom a trial is merely a formality. Those individuals are the only ones who should be sentenced to death. If there isn't rock-solid, indisputable proof of guilt, the death penalty should not be applied, regardless of the crime.

The second step is to remove all of the delays slowing down application of the death penalty. The reason for those protections is to avoid accidentally executing the innocent. If we have far tighter restrictions on who can be given the death penalty in the first place, those protections become unnecessary, and criminals can quickly and inexpensively receive the executions they deserve. Let's fix the system instead of just throwing it out.

One of the Innumerable Examples of Why I Strongly Support the Death Penalty

From the UK comes the account of 20-year old Robert Tozer. Three weeks after being released from prison after serving time for assault (2nd offense), Tozer entered the home of 85-year old neighbor Joan Charlton, beat her viciously with a bottle in search of money, tried to set her on fire, and left her to die from her injuries. He was just sentenced to life in prison. We know a life sentence doesn't actually mean life in many cases in the U.S., what about in Britain?

Tozer, who admitted murder and burglary, must serve a minimum of 22 years, less the 90 days he spent on remand.

This guy essentially tortured a helpless old woman to death for money, yet he could conceivably be released from prison at age 42. That sounds like justice, doesn't it? Tozer admits his crime. There's no question about his guilt. He should be immediately executed. There is simply no reason to keep such a person alive, let alone risk having him kill or injure others in prison, or eventually return to society to possibly kill someone else. It's now fashionable in many countries -- and some U.S. states -- to pretend that abolishing the death penalty is a new hallmark of civilization. But preserving the lives of human garbage like Tozer isn't civilized, it's stupidity. And if he kills again, a legal system that elevates the lives of criminals above the lives of their victims will be partially responsible.

Bad Use of the Death Penalty

Former Republican turned libertarian Bob Barr has an op-ed in today's New York Times called, "Death Penalty Disgrace." Since I'm in favor of the death penalty, I started reading it expecting to strongly disagree. Instead, what I found was a case where the death penalty shouldn't have been applied, and shouldn't be carried out.

Troy Davis was sentenced to death for murdering an off-duty police officer back in 1989. According to Barr, he was convicted only on the testimony of supposed eye-witnesses.

With no murder weapon, surveillance videotape or DNA evidence left behind, the jury that judged Mr. Davis had to weigh the conflicting testimony of several eyewitnesses to sift out the gunman from the onlookers who had nothing to do with the heinous crime.

Now, seven out of nine of the witnesses have changed their story. But a law that Barr helped write has blocked Davis from bringing the new evidence of his innocence to light. In my opinion, the death penalty was inappropriate in this case from the beginning. Imposition of the death penalty should only be done in cases where guilt is clear: a positive DNA match, a criminal literally caught in the act, an un-coerced confession, a criminal openly bragging about the crime, etc. In these types of situations I am all for swift executions and limited appeals.

But testimony of witnesses who don't even all agree is simply not reliable enough to send someone to his death. How many times do witnesses change their stories? Davis should never have been sentenced to death. Hopefully the Supreme Court will intervene and prevent a possibly innocent man from being executed.

UPDATE

Check the comments for the other side and more detail about the case.

Death Penalty Dies in New Mexico

New Mexico just repealed the death penalty, replacing it with life without parole. Governor Bill Richardson made a big deal out of it, saying that it was “most difficult decision in my political life.” Why was it difficult? New Mexico never uses the death penalty anyway. According to the New York Times, that state has executed only one person since 1960.

Just out of curiosity I decided to check on the number of murders in New Mexico. Maybe they haven't had many, so there just isn't a need for a death penalty. After all, they've only executed one criminal in almost 50 years. If my addition is correct, after checking the statistics, there have been 6,033 murders in New Mexico from 1961 to 2007. Let's see now: over 6,000 murders, 1 execution. Wow, they sure are harsh on murderers there in New Mexico. And people wonder why the death penalty might not be an effective deterrent.

As an aside, the article notes that one of the main supporters of getting rid of the death penalty was the Catholic Church, which "lobbied hard for repeal." It's good to see that the church took time out from attacking child rape victims who have abortions, and discouraging people in AID-infested areas from using condoms, to successfully fight against a penalty that is never even used.