Governor Rick Perry of Texas Is An Idiot. (DP Thread)

[SlowwHand]

Listen, the executed guy was an accomplice. Had they the executed the shooter, I wouldn't really care too much about this guy. Yes, he was scum. I'm not debating that fact. I don't think it's proper to execute an accomplice and not the shooter. It's not a matter of tears. If Texas is going to carry out executions at a record pace, which I'm fine with, the state needs to make double damn sure that all is appropriate. This isn't a game.

[DinoDoc]

How is it not appropiate to execute this guy?

[SlowwHand]

When the shooter in the crime got life? You can't reason it out?
Again, I don't think the guy was a poor lost soul. I guess it's a matter of balance. This is not in balance.

[DinoDoc]

When the shooter in the crime got life? You can't reason it out?

I don't see how one effects the other.

[Boris Godunov]

Different juries are allowed to reach different conclusions, especially when they're ignorant of what the other is doing, as the system strives to achieve.

I don't agree with the DP in any circumstance, but Solowmi is quite right here. Juries can and will arrive at different sentences. An accomplice to a murder is eligible for the DP, so his sentence was valid under Texas state law. That the shooter didn't get as harsh a sentence is irrelevant.

[SlowwHand]

What's relevant is that the parole board voted 5-2 and Perry decided he could live with ignoring.

[Lefty Scaevola]

What is relevant is that Texas has historically like elected officials better that appointed ones, and commonly give the former the last word over the latter.
It also elects its judges and most of what would be an appointed cabinet in other states, like:
The secretary of state
The comptroller (like a secretary of Treasury)
Chairman and members of the Railroad commission (industry)
Attorney General
Land commissioner
Agriculture commissioner
Education Board
Lieutenant Governor is elected separately from the governor
and more I cannot remember

throw in the two (criminal and civil) supreme courts that are elected and we over around 2 dozen statewide elected officers and judges. Texas wants its top decision makers to go before the people in elections.

[Solomwi]

He wasn't guilty of murder in this case. Damn, dude. I'm about as staunch a supporter of the death penalty as can be found here, and I can see it isn't proper, no matter how many times Solomwi repeats himself that my problem is with the law, not the governor.

Yes he was, and this is one more instance of your qualm being with the law. Murder, as it's relevant here, is a statutory construct, and one that, in Texas, was specifically designed to include what Thompson did.

[Lefty Scaevola]

And DP under the law of parties does require a higher standard of intent and aforethought than for the triggerman. Up to around 30 something years ago, when SCOTUS restricting DP, it was very common under the law of parties for gangmates. You would try a whole gang involved in a murder together, and gas them all.

[notyoueither]

Are we through the looking-glass here?

-Arrian

I took the red pill.

[SlowwHand]

And DP under the law of parties does require a higher standard of intent and aforethought than for the triggerman. Up to around 30 something years ago, when SCOTUS restricting DP, it was very common under the law of parties for gangmates. You would try a whole gang involved in a murder together, and gas them all.

And that would be fine, but it's not fine when the shooter got life.
I'll quit saying it.

[notyoueither]

Psst. Sloww. Maybe the mistake was the sentence for the shooter. Possible?

[SlowwHand]

Well, certainly. There's no question about that.

[notyoueither]

So, if the sentence for the shooter was a mistake, what does it have to do with withholding clemency from the guy who shot another person four times and killed two other people because they were Asians who work in convenience stores?

[SlowwHand]

He wasn't on trial for anything else.