Showing posts with label Death Penalty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death Penalty. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Fry Him!!!



Beware ... This Post Is Rated NC-17 for Language

This is something that really pisses me off. I think the reason it affects me so much is that I really don't know the right answer ... it just seems unfair.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear a case where the Bush administration will try to overturn the death penalty for a piece of shit Illegal Mexican Immigrant. He is doing this at the behest of the International Court Of Justice (now there's an oxymoron). The International Court found that Jose Medellin was not informed of his international right to contact the Mexican Consulate for legal assistance as proscribed by the Vienna Convention. This is just the first of many fights as Medellin was just one of 51 illegals on death row that the International court wants new trials for.

Jose Medellin and four others were convicted of capital murder and rape in the deaths of Jenifer Ertman (14 years old) and Elizabeth Pena (16 years old). Medellin's younger brother (14 at the time) is serving 40 years for participating in the rape and murder. After gang raping the two girls for an hour, the girls were strangled and killed with a belt. Medellin confessed to the rapes and murders. Two of the five that were tried as adults had their sentences commuted to life because they were only 17 at the time of the crime (though one of them was less than a month shy of his 18th birthday), two have already been executed, and Medellin is scheduled to be executed in the very near future (not soon enough I say).

Here is my conundrum: I believe in laws and international treaties. We signed the Vienna Convention ... and it does protect American citizens abroad who are accused of crimes. The thing is ... when an American is brought in by police overseas, he promptly informs them that he is an American Citizen and wants to speak to someone from the State Department. I seriously doubt that this illegal claimed his nationality until he thought it might save his ass from a lethal injection. But the fact is that this International Court Of Justice has jurisdiction in this matter, and the US signed this treaty. Now Texas (God Bless Its' Soul) is fighting this. They want this man executed for his crimes. While my mind understands why we may have to re-try him (and hopefully he gets the same sentence), my heart screams to kill this piece of garbage before SCOTUS (Supreme Court Of The United States) can stop the execution. The families of these little girls have waited long enough for justice.

In defence of the President, though he is doing an extremely unpopular thing here, he is doing what he feels is required under international law. After this International Court made this ruling last year, he withdrew this nation from the treaty, but we were still covered by it when the ruling came down.

What do you think, do we go with our heads and grant him a new trial ... or go with our guts and fry him?

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Saturday, July 14, 2007

A Rush To Punishment?

Now, I am the biggest supporter of Capital Punishment you will probably ever meet. In fact, I wish it could be expanded to include the crimes of Rape, Sexual Molestation of a Child, Conspiracy to Commit Terrorism and Aiding a Terrorist. So, when you see me writing about an execution that should be stopped ... you can take it to the bank that something fishy may be going on.

Troy Anthony Davis is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on July 17th, for the shooting death of a Savannah police officer. Davis, 38 is a former coach in the Savannah Police Athletic League and had signed up to join the Marines, when in 1989, off-duty Savannah police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail was shot dead in a parking lot while responding to an assault. Davis was at the crime scene with a friend that accused him of the shooting. No physical evidence was found to link Davis with this crime.

Since his conviction and sentencing in 1991, seven of the nine witnesses that testified against him have re-canted their testimony. Two of the jurors that found him guilty have sworn out affidavits that stated, based on the recanted testimony, he should not be executed. They are afraid they may have sentenced an innocent man to die. Remember ... there was never any physical evidence linking this man to the crime.

Still, prosecutors in Georgia are trying to push the execution through. Maybe with the Mike Nifong thing, I don't place as much faith in prosecutors, but this execution must be stopped. An execution is not a thing you can correct later if you've made a mistake. While I believe that Capital Punishment is a good thing ... the standard of law should be higher than with any other sentence. Instead of "beyond a reasonable doubt", if the State is going to execute someone, the standard should be "beyond a shadow of a doubt". That means I want physical evidence (DNA, fingerprints, photos, video etc), eyewitnesses are too unreliable.

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