U.S. Supreme Court Denies Mexican National Killer's Request for Execution Stay

I read a book recently called The Autobiography of an Execution by David R. Dow. The author is an attorney in Texas who specializes in death sentence appeals. Apparently a lot of the people on Death Row in Texas had extremely poor representation at trial - attorneys getting drunk during the trial, attorneys falling asleep in court, attorneys not cross-examining witnesses or investigating their clients' case at all. But since these issues aren't new evidence, they're not enough to overturn the verdict.

It's an eye-opening book. There are times when viscerally I just want a criminal to die for what he's done - child molesters, rapists, particularly brutal murderers. But I have serious doubts about whether that's justice or vengeance. It doesn't seem to be deterring anyone from committing crimes. And if a criminal knows he's going to be executed for what he's done, why wouldn't he just go on a big spree, then shoot it out with the cops when they catch him and go out in a blaze of glory? What's to stop him from being the worst, most violent nightmare in the prison system and killing a few of his fellow inmates and maybe some prison guards? 

The more I think about it, the less sense the death penalty makes to me. 

 cc_rider wrote: 
They have enough of their own. Especially since we send them guns and buy their drugs.

*poof*

 katzendogs wrote:
  The Mexicans don't want that animal in their country either.

 cc_rider wrote: 
Give him life in a Mexican prison. He is a monster with 120 minutes left.

 MrsHobieJoe wrote:
 
Apparently the whole thing is a mess. The guy had been in the U.S. practically all his life, apparently has mental issues and was abused himself. Certainly he had no idea he could contact the consulate, and the Texas authorities either were not aware of his citizenship, or didn't know the law, or didn't feel it necessary to tell him about it.

The guy is a monster, there is no doubt about that. I won't shed a tear over him. But that doesn't mean we should not follow the laws, including the international treaties we have agreed to.

 meower wrote: 

nasty- of course you are required to comply with other countries law when overseas or take the consequences based on their local law,
however to deny access to consular officials in contravention of international law comes across as very arrogant

 oldviolin wrote: 

 meower wrote: 
7:00 pm EST.

does anyone know? did we kill him?

 rosedraws wrote: 
Even if you can get past that, which I can't, the numbers just don't add up.

 BillnDollarBaby wrote: 
This is exactly why I am against the death penalty.  Setting up some members of our society to commit murder in response to other members who have committed murder... there's just something so fundamentally wrong about that.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
So we should kill a few innocent people because life in prison is worse?  I didn't say stopping the death penalty would fix wrongful conviction.  But it will certainly stop wrongful murder.  Prison is a bad, bad place.  Let's fix our broken penal system. 

When you look at the hard facts, it doesn't even add up to being a valuable tool...

50% of all murder victims are white.  75% percent of death row convicts murdered a white person.  The DAs in states with the death penalty are almost all white.  So, just for starters, the death penalty is a racist system.

The murder rates in states with the death penalty are about the same as states without it.  So, its not working as a deterrent.  *Edit:  I was out of date... "For 2009, the average Murder Rate of Death Penalty States was 4.9, while the average Murder Rate of States without the Death Penalty was 2.8."
It costs less money to execute than to carry out a life sentence?  More and more, its becoming more expensive to execute than to incarcerate.  So, that old standby isn't even valid anymore.

Since 1973, over 130 people on death row have been exonerated.  Not had their sentence reduced, but were found to be innocent.  Those are just the ones that had their innocence proven.  That doesn't include the ones that are still there due to a mistake or misconduct.  So, we should just chalk up the innocent victims as the cost of "justice"?

Give me one valid fact that proves the death penalty does anything put perpetuate vengeance.  Justice is not served by the Hammurabi model. 
And let's be honest here.... execution is murder, no matter how you paint it. The contraption that makes no single person responsible, but their actions collectively are fatal, just makes more people bearing the burden of a murder. Even if there is no question, the person or persons "flipping the switch" are still murdering another human. I can't and won't ask anyone to bear that on their conscience.

I'm against dying without first having lived

 sirdroseph wrote: 
A life in prison still gives the opportunity for proving that the wrongful conviction was wrong. There have been many people in Illinois who have been freed because new evidence came up. In some cases, confessions were tortured out of the convicted by Police Commander Jon Burge, who has finally been convicted himself, but unfortunately the statute of limitations has passed for convicting him of his worst crimes.

 BillnDollarBaby wrote: 

I understand what you are saying and agree with this in principle, but again a wrongful conviction that results in life in prison to me anyway is just as bad, if not worse than death so you are not really fixing the issue of wrongful conviction just because they do not execute them. So in the end, a wrongful conviction is a wrongful conviction, death penatly or no death penalty is not even relevant in that context IMO.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
I edited a bit .  One mistake is one too many.  Just because the mistakes are less, doesn't mean that makes it okay.

My problem is with what it really is.... one human being, killing another one.  The executioner is a murderer as much as the murderer being put to death.  I cannot, in good conscience, ask any other human being to do that, even if they themselves are comfortable with it. Murder is murder, even if it is state sanctioned.

Illinois made the right choice in ending their death penalty. Kudos to Illinois!

 BillnDollarBaby wrote: 

If there were no death penalty and someone was wrongfully convicted, do you think life in prison is any better than death? No consolation. Besides with the advent of DNA technology, wrongful convictions have decreased dramatically.

 meower wrote: 
I don't believe in the death penalty.  Period.  How is the executioner any less guilty of another's death?  He or she is not.  And that's a problem to me.  Executing a murderer? Sure, maybe you can justify that to yourself even if I can't. I can never ask another person to bear that burden for any reason.

How do you live with the death of an innocent on your hands? Even if the state told you to do so? There have been too many wrongful convictions for anyone to ever feel comfortable with the death penalty.  Murder is murder.  The laws of state do not supersede the laws of humanity, regardless of what the governor or whoever says.  There is no room for an error margin on this one.  If even one person is wrongfully put to death, that's one too many.