Death Penalty // Current TV

I Know How Copernicus Must Have Felt

I know how Copernicus must have felt. He's the fellow who first posited that the... more

omnipotentpoobah
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11 days ago
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Gingrich Proposed the Death Penalty for Pot Smokers -- Even Though He Admitted to Smoking it Himself

Watch this video from MSNBC, broadcast Dec. 10, 2011. Newt Gingrich proposed the... more

im1mjrpain
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1 month ago
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Hank Skinner, Texas Death Row Inmate, Granted Stay Of Execution By Court Of Criminal Appeals

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay of execution to death row inmate Hank Skinner Monday, who was scheduled to be executed Nov. 9.

Multiple items from the crime scene have not been tested for DNA. The stay will determine whether the law allows the DNA to be tested.

Skinner, 49, was convicted of the 1993 deaths of his girlfriend and her two sons in Pampa, Texas. A group of current and former lawmakers, judges and lawyers called on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to order the testing of DNA to "ensure certainty." Skinner came within one hour of execution in March 2010 before the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay.

Perry, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has declined to express an opinion about the upcoming execution, saying only that it's a matter for the courts.

The Huffington Post's Radley Balko reported on the Skinner case last week:

There is DNA from the crime scene that could exonerate Skinner -- or could affirm his guilt -- that has never been tested. That includes blood from the murder weapon, blood from a jacket left in Busby's home, a rape kit taken from Busby, scrapings from under Busby's fingernails and hairs she was clutching at the time of her death -- hairs that likely came from her killer. For more than a decade, Hank Skinner's legal team has tried to get that evidence tested, at no cost to the state of Texas. And for more than a decade, the Texas 31st District Attorney's Office has refused.
Skinner isn't exactly a poster boy for wrongful conviction. He had previously been convicted of assault, and by his own admission he was at the scene of the crime the night of the murders. Skinner's neighbor and ex-girlfriend told police that Skinner came to her home after the crime and implicated himself, then rattled off a number of contradictory stories.
But Skinner has maintained from the night he was arrested that he was passed out from a mixture of alcohol and codeine when the murders were committed. His defense team has produced testimony from toxicology experts who say Skinner had far too high a concentration of the drugs in his system for him -- a slight man at the time -- to have killed an adult woman and her two adult sons. At best he was groggy. He was likely unconscious. The state did conduct DNA testing on blood smears on Skinner's shirt, which matched two of the victims. But that could be consistent with Skinner's story, which is that he woke to find the bodies and tried to jostle the victims to see if they were still alive.
Skinner's lawyer, Rob Owen, issued a statement on the stay Monday:

The Court of Criminal Appeals with its decision today, has ensured that Mr. Skinner's request for DNA testing will receive the thorough and serious consideration it deserves. We are grateful for the Court's action and look forward to the opportunity to make Mr. Skinner's case for DNA testing in that forum.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/hank-skinner-death-row-texas-court-stay-of-execution_n_1080422.htmlThe Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay of execution to death row inmate... more

MotherForTruth
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3 months ago
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New @ 10: Robert Blecker Wants me Dead

How on earth can Robert Blecker and Daryl Holton be friends? That question pulses at... more

CurrentUK
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3 months ago
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Guilty Until Proven Innocent

If you're convicted of a crime you didn't commit, good luck getting... more

MotherForTruth
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4 months ago
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Republican Amsements

The old amusements and the new

mollymew
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4 months ago
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US: An Attack on Human Dignity

Statement on World Day against the Death Penalty The cornerstone of human rights is... more

joeeddy
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4 months ago
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Oops! Sorry We Executed an Innocent Person, Again.

Death penalty. Capitol punishment. Execution. To kill or not to kill? Let’s... more

joeeddy
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5 months ago
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STATE SANCTIONED MURDER or for those with weak stomachs THE DEATH PENALTY

I have been an opponent of the Death Penalty for many years, before that I really... more

thinkingblue
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5 months ago
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Can you be 'Pro-Life' and 'Pro-Death Penalty' at the sametime?

Question of the week.

dcherry
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5 months ago
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2 comments

Thom Hartmann: Have the psychopaths taken over America?

So In the aftermath of Troy Davis's execution - it's time for the United... more

KB723
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5 months ago
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30 comments

Republicans Pro-Life or Pro-Death?

When audience members at recent Republican presidential debates cheered executing 234... more

KB723
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5 months ago
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121 comments

Is A Right Wing Agenda of Crushing Faith in Humanity For REAL?!Ironic News Report, Sept 23, 2011

This week's edition of the Ironic News Report makes you wonder! We also take on... more

IronicNewsReport
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5 months ago
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3 comments

Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer: 2 executions, 2 reactions

Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer were executed Wednesday night. And the nation's... more

crabbyoldguy
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5 months ago
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Two men were executed in America yesterday – but only one of them won the pity of the human-rights brigade

Yesterday in America, two men were executed, but you will probably only have heard of one of them: Troy Davis, who was killed in the state of Georgia for the murder of a police officer. The other executed man, Lawrence Brewer, put to death in the state of Texas for murdering a black man in 1998, has barely featured in the news at all. Unlike Davis, he did not win the backing of Amnesty International and its trendy supporters. No one tweeted and retweeted their sorrow over Brewer or made a public spectacle of how heavy his execution weighed upon their hearts, as many did with Davis. No one lit candles outside the American Embassy for Brewer in full glare of photojournalists’ clicking cameras. No one wore t-shirts saying “I AM LAWRENCE BREWER”.

It might seem obvious as to why Davis was championed while Brewer was ignored: there were many doubts about Davis’s conviction, whereas Brewer was undoubtedly guilty. Furthermore, he was a racist toerag, a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, whose murder of James Byrd Jr was racially motivated and horrifically executed. But if you are opposed to the death penalty on principle, as many of the Troy Davis campaigners claimed to be, then you should be just as outraged by the execution of Brewer as you were by the execution of Davis. You should be as opposed to the state killing of a guilty racist as you are to the state killing of a possibly guilty black man. Even James Byrd Jr’s son asked for the state of Texas to show mercy to his father’s killer, but no army of bleeding-heart Twitterers backed him up.

The airbrushing of Brewer from yesterday’s heated discussions on the death penalty speaks volumes about the Troy Davis campaign. It seems pretty clear that it was motivated, not by a principled, across-the-board opposition to the state killing of citizens, but rather by campaigners’ desire to indulge in some very public moral preening. Unlike the Brewer execution, which was ugly and complicated, the Davis execution could be squeezed into a cosy moral narrative in which the state of Georgia was depicted as backward and racist and those who opposed the execution of Davis presented themselves as purer than pure, good and decent, and more than willing to prove it by writing tweets of concern every four or five minutes. What message should we take from this disparity in campaigning? That Troy Davis did not deserve to die but Lawrence Brewer did? Such moral flightiness, such brutal arbitrariness, reveals much about today’s very changeable campaigners against the death penalty.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100106437/two-men-were-executed-in-america-yesterday-but-only-one-of-them-won-the-pity-of-the-human-rights-brigade/#disqus_threadYesterday in America, two men were executed, but you will probably only have heard of... more

crabbyoldguy
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5 months ago
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4 comments

Texas Prisons Have Ended Special Last Meals Before Executions

. NPR... . Texas Prisons End Special Last Meals In Executions by The... more

EthicalVegan
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5 months ago
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4 comments

Was the execution of Troy Davis Cruel and Unusual?

Yes but not in this barbarous, bloodthirsty, callous, godforsaken country. People DO... more

thinkingblue
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5 months ago
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Troy Davis Put to Death in Georgia | Photos | Videos | Commentaries

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/justice/georgia-execution/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 CNN...... more

EthicalVegan
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5 months ago
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139 comments

Kim Kardashian and Twitter saved Troy Davis From Execution Today

Perhaps it's the power of social media--or the power of Kim Kardashian--but an... more

knowandtell
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5 months ago
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130 Death Row Inmates Have Been Found Innocent Since 1973: Troy Davis' Execution is Set for Tomorrow

It's not too late; please sign the petition.... more

PIANORAMA
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5 months ago
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123 comments

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