Can we just THROW texas out of the union already?

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I feel sorry for everyone. There's something that Jesus said that means something to me. "Let he without sin cast the first stone."

There aren't any good and bad people. You can't make that judgement, cause you aren't an angel either.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Patroklos


ummmmm....

No.

That is very obviously not the case, and it is telling you have resorted to that form of nonreasoning to make such statements. Is that supposed to be an appeal to emotion or something?

I think refusing to allow admission of DNA evidence for old DP cases would at least be the moral equivalent of manslaughter. The courts should bend over backwards to take advantage of opportunities to further reduce the number of innocents executed when those opportunities have no significant chance of somehow sparing the guilty from being executed. The only thing they have to lose is some expenses involved in the process but they gain further legitimacy for their decisions.

Do you think it is often defensible to refuse to allow DNA testing in old cases that might remove an innocent from death row?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12


Very good point and I even agree with you, but this is a subject for a different thread. We are talking about a guilty person who commited a terrible crime complaining about the way he will die. These are two different issues as far as I'm concerned, so please stop trying to confuse the two.

threadjacks happen all of the time. In this case if they take the issue in that direction I'd merely regard it as a concession that the original objections weren't valid.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Patroklos


ummmmm....

No.

That is very obviously not the case, and it is telling you have resorted to that form of nonreasoning to make such statements. Is that supposed to be an appeal to emotion or something?

If someeone is convicted and sentenced to die before DNA evidence technology was viable and then that evidence might proove them innocent(and they are innocent) then the court that denied it, has murdered that individual.

[SlowwHand]

Yeah, we execute people just to fill the time between football games.

[Patroklos]

Do you think it is often defensible to refuse to allow DNA testing in old cases that might remove an innocent from death row?

That is completely different from what he said. That is not the same as willfully committing what you know without a doubt is murder, like running out into the street and shooting someone.

And yes, if new evidence is available, of course they should take that into consideration. That of course, is not what this thread is about.

[PLATO]

300 million people...41 executions.

19 years on death row...

raped a mother of seven and then murdered her.

I can't say that I see any rush to judgement.

I can't say that the state should support this admitted rapist and murderer for years at taxpayer expense until he grows old and dies.

I can't say that even if he experienced pain during his lethal injection that I would shed a tear. Maybe that's wrong, but this guy committed heinous acts upon a person that her family still experiences pain over. I have no sympathy for him.

With the extremely low number of executions versus the population, I can't even say that there is any kind of predisposition to execution by anyone.

Good riddons to this guy.

moving along now....

[Wezil]

Originally posted by PLATO

moving along now....

Not so fast.

AUSTIN, Texas - High-profile lawyers are accusing a state judge of violating the rights of a condemned inmate by cutting off appeals once office hours ended, leading to his execution.

Convicted killer Michael Richard was put to death the evening of Sept. 25 after Sharon Keller, Texas Court of Appeals presiding judge, ordered a clerk to close the office promptly at 5 p.m.

Keller last week noted to the Houston Chronicle that Richard's lawyers did not file their request on time, saying they had all day. She did not return a phone call to her office from The Associated Press this week.

Twenty lawyers, including a state representative and a former appellate judge, on Wednesday filed a complaint against her with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. They say Keller improperly cut off appeals even though the U.S. Supreme Court had earlier in the day accepted a case on the propriety of lethal injection.

The case the Supreme Court accepted had direct implications for Richard's execution, the lawyers argued.

Richard, 49, was executed for the 1986 rape and fatal shooting of a mother of seven.

His lawyers called the court's clerk the day he was to be executed, asking that the office stay open an extra 20 minutes so a request to delay the execution could be filed.

Even if the stay were denied by the Texas court, that state request was needed procedurally to get a stay from the Supreme Court. But Keller ordered a clerk to close the office, and Richard was executed later that evening.

It wasn't clear why Richard's lawyers did not file their appeal during business hours, though reports have suggested computer trouble and pressure in responding to the Supreme Court ruling were responsible. Messages were left Friday night with Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which is representing the lawyers who filed the complaint.

Judge Cheryl Johnson, the appeals court jurist in charge of Richard's case, said she heard nothing about the clerk's office closing off the appeal until the next day.

She said she understood that in a death penalty case, court officials remain at the office until the time of execution and accept filings until the execution is under way.

The lawyers' complaint also argues that Keller's action "brought the integrity of the Texas judiciary and of her court into disrepute and was a source of scandal to the citizens of the state."

[Kataphraktoi]

I feel sorry for everyone. There's something that Jesus said that means something to me. "Let he without sin cast the first stone."

There aren't any good and bad people. You can't make that judgement, cause you aren't an angel either.

That would directly imply there is a right and wrong, with the one being perfect=jesus.

Are you saying your a christian now?



...

Anyway i dont see what the problem is. The guy got it streched out 20 years already.

[SlowwHand]

Who's next?

[Wezil]

The lawyers' complaint also argues that Keller's action "brought the integrity of the Texas judiciary and of her court into disrepute and was a source of scandal to the citizens of the state."

Certainly didn't raise my opinion of the State.

[Wezil]

I would like the posters that claimed the 5:00pm deadline was absolute to come and answer to the bolded section.

Judge Cheryl Johnson, the appeals court jurist in charge of Richard's case, said she heard nothing about the clerk's office closing off the appeal until the next day.

She said she understood that in a death penalty case, court officials remain at the office until the time of execution and accept filings until the execution is under way.

[DinoDoc]

It wasn't clear why Richard's lawyers did not file their appeal during business hours

Perhaps they should have claimed incompetent council?

[Wezil]

Just so it's clear - I"m calling out the following posters: Zkribbler, DinoDoc, Darius871, MichaeltheGreat, DanS, Lefty Scaevola, Slowwhand and Wycoff.

It would appear the whole lot of you have been pwnd.

[SlowwHand]

How do you figure? The jackass waited until the last day, after 20 years. Mass rationalization is your claim?
And that means who was pwnd? Keep talking. You people are doing a fine job on yourselves without my help. Dig that hole. Here, a bigger shovel. Take you less time on this hole, so you can go dig another.