Judges rip Texas courts in death penalty case

[AlamoGirl]

being

[JepJep]

well if america didn't have the DP you wouldn't have these problems. And you can't tell me the death penalty works. LOOK AROUND the USA has more murders per 1,000 people than here in Australia or in the UK or practically in any non- DP country.

and to actually bring Mexico and Mexicans and become racist? Is this the america we in the other countries we thought was a good country where all people no matter who or what they are were respected?

and some americans wonder why the world is turning on them, including people who used to like them?

[cityofchi]

They shouldnt be able to lessen sentences. Same sentence for the crime committed period.

http://www.cityofchi.com

[Dave Dischord]

I think murderers should get the death penalty no matter what "excuse" they have. Filter out the gene pool.

[outnleftfield]

Mentally ill people aren't responsible period. but if they are why don't those who think they are give them work and housing so that they can stay out of trouble?? no not gonna trust a retard , so ... kill them??
Nice humane solution. How about instead of drug rehabs and state jails we build some facilities to house the many with mental disorders, limit breeding among the healthy and all future pregnancies be monitored and terminated if the child will be defective? Sounds like a solution, doesn't sound American yet but the one we are coming to.

[Dave Dischord]

outnleftfield wrote:

Mentally ill people aren't responsible period. but if they are why don't those who think they are give them work and housing so that they can stay out of trouble?? no not gonna trust a retard , so ... kill them??
Nice humane solution. How about instead of drug rehabs and state jails we build some facilities to house the many with mental disorders, limit breeding among the healthy and all future pregnancies be monitored and terminated if the child will be defective? Sounds like a solution, doesn't sound American yet but the one we are coming to.

Right on!

[Da Man]

This obsession with death penalty is beyond me. Since any crime rate research clearly shows theres no consistent connection between capital punishment and lower crime rates. On the contrary, most states not having a capital punishment statute, face lesser capital crime rates.

[Brown Sugar]

Yaybob wrote:

Texas - what a lovely bunch of people. They apparently just love to kill, leading the nation in capital executions year after year. Thank you, Texas, for such lovely people as John Tower, Phil Gramm, Rick Perry, Joh Cornyn, Tom DeLay and George Bush. What a national embarrassment.

Friggin liberal tree hugger! Texas executes vicious killers; and that is exactly the way we want it....and wish to keep it. This so-called mental retard is just gaming the system. Get real. The tax payers should not have to care for this clown for the rest of his life.

[Christopher]

Claire wrote:

I think it's time to change laws that allow people to get lesser sentences if there is any possibility of mental limitation, be it genetic, developmental, or drug-induced. They can and do still commit premeditated murder and are dangerous criminals and need to be separated from society or eliminated altogether if they commit heinous crimes.
Remember Stephanie Roper? Those men didn't deserve to live, but they were "high," and almost got off with a slap on the wrist, and still got off way too lightly.

No, it isn't. Frankly, drugs of any form can make someone do something that they would not normally do. They are not 'dangerous criminals' for doing something while in an altered state of mind. If that was the case, then we should put in prison the fathers who kill the men who have sex with their daughters, because of this same argument.

I have no problem with letting someone off easily if they are in an 'altered' state of mind or insane at the time that they do their crime.

Also, let's face facts here: usually, when a 'mentally disabled' person kills another person, they have been incited BY said person into killing them, by getting them EXTREMELY angry, to the point where their minds are not working in a normal way anymore.
That is basically the same thing for most 'normally minded' killers, excepting serial killers and those who kill in the drug trade (which would STOP if we were to legalize drugs).

Basically, you want to kill and punish someone for something that they will most likely NEVER do again in their lives, because the same circumstances will not come up again.
I do not see the point in doing that. The person in question is already dead, there is no point in ruining another person's life (unless they are unrepentant) just for your revenge (and that is EXACTLY what you are calling for).

[Brown Sugar]

AlamoGirl wrote:

<quoted text>
However, we(The United States) did win BIG in The Supreme Court:
The 6-3 vote Tuesday means the pending execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin can proceed. He faces lethal injection for two brutal slayings.
At issue was whether the state had to give in to a demand by the president that the prisoner be allowed new hearings and sentencing.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion saying the international court "is not domestic law," thereby restricting the president's power over states. "The executive's narrow and strictly limited authority to settle international claims disputes pursuant to an executive agreement cannot stretch so far as to support the current presidential memorandum" that would force Texas to conduct a new state trial, he wrote.
Medellin was 18 when he participated in the June 1993 gang rape and murder of two Harris County, Texas, girls: Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16. He was convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death.
Medellin's lawyers argued he was not informed upon his arrest of his right to contact Mexican consular officials. Those officials were never able to meet with him until after his conviction.
About 43 other Mexican nationals awaiting execution in various states -- including 13 in Texas -- also will be affected by the high court ruling. Only Oklahoma has commuted a capital inmate's sentence to life in prison in response to the international judgment.
The Mexican government filed an appeal against the United States with the International Court of Justice in January 2003, alleging violations of international law. Medellin filed his own federal and state appeals based on similar complaints as well as a claim of ineffective counsel. Medellin has the support of the European Union and several international human rights groups.
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* Read the opinion (PDF)
The ICJ ruled in 2004 the United States had violated the rights of the Mexican prisoners, in part because officials and prosecutors failed to notify their home countries, which could have provided legal and other assistance. The ICJ judges ordered the United States to provide "review and reconsideration" of the sentences and convictions of the Mexican prisoners.
The court is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and resolves disputes between nations over treaty obligations. The United States is one of the signatories to the 1963 Vienna Convention, laying out rights of people detained in other nations. The case turned on what role each branch of government plays to give force to international treaty obligations.
Roberts concluded international court judgments cannot be forced upon individual states. The president cannot "establish binding rules of decision that pre-empt contrary state law," he said, and the treaty does not specifically require states to remedy any treaty violations.
The chief justice was supported in his position by Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer said the presidential memorandum in this case was "self-executing," and warned, "the nation may well break its word even though the president seeks to live up to that word and Congress has done nothing to suggest the contrary."

Well done! Now I hope we can get on with the executions.....all of them. Mexico and the ICJ cannot be allowed to dictate what is, or is not, justice in the United States....nor be allowed to interfere with same. It's past time we strapped these bastardly killers to the gurney and send them to hell.

[Miyamoto Musashi]

Judges know full well the opportunities and common direction of defense attorneys. It is questionable whether Courts should not have the latitude to judge within a trial process the mental aptitude of the accused based solely on composure in the court room. The use of extended process to expose facts such as defense attorneys advising their clients to intentionally degrade their scores on such as IQ tests places the jurisprudence process totally within the hands of potentially deceptive defense attorneys. A Judge can and does perceive such during trial.

The Appeals ruling has validated unreasonable one-sided manipulation of jurisprudence by potentially unethical defense attorneys.

[Diggy]

They love to see blood run in Texas.

[Maraty]

Ace wrote:

This piece of crap kidnapped this girl and used her for target practice because he was, as he put it, having a "sucky-ass day" and wanted to kill someone.
If you can plan and carry out a murder and to try to escape afterwards, you're intelligent enough to be responsible for your crime.

I dont agree with how you said it.. But i agree with what you said..
If it had been an accident. Got scared pushed her, put hand over her mouth.. Some thing a mental ill/handicap person may not realize they are doing.. Then id say he shouldnt be exacuted..
However he had brains enough to take her brains enough to do what he did.

[ImAnEvilCarrot]

Yaybob wrote:

Texas - what a lovely bunch of people. They apparently just love to kill, leading the nation in capital executions year after year. Thank you, Texas, for such lovely people as John Tower, Phil Gramm, Rick Perry, Joh Cornyn, Tom DeLay and George Bush. What a national embarrassment.

Awww, look at the bright side. At least half the time, the person they execute is another Texan.

[Skeptical]

Dave Dischord wrote:

I think murderers should get the death penalty no matter what "excuse" they have. Filter out the gene pool.

With that view, you are ineligible to serve on the jury in any death penalty case in any state that has the death penalty...thankfully.

[Karma]

I say the death penalty is way underused. the third time one failed a class A drug test (testing which would be madatory) would be killed without appeal. and that is just for starters.

[Dave Dischord]

Skeptical wrote:

<quoted text>
With that view, you are ineligible to serve on the jury in any death penalty case in any state that has the death penalty...thankfully.

Whatever keeps me from jury duty :-)

[BusterTee]

Libertariangunowner wrote:

I don't give a damn if he's retarted or not if he kills he still a damn murderer.I just wish the law would enforce equally what the murderer did to his victim should be done to him.If he raped and stabbed a women 20 times then build a machine to rape and stab him 20 times.

You'd like it better in Iran. You should move there.

[BusterTee]

Dave Dischord wrote:

I think murderers should get the death penalty no matter what "excuse" they have. Filter out the gene pool.

And when YOU have a mentally-challenged child someday, I'm coming to your house to kill him before he can hurt anyone.

[Sick and Tired]

If this is republican idea of rule of law then I am justified to shoot all repubs.
That texas law that says to the effect..."sometimes people just need to be killed" is a great idea and should be the rule everywhere.

Save the constitution, shoot all repubs.