Death Penalty // Current TV

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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8 months ago
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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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8 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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8 months ago
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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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8 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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8 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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8 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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8 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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8 months ago
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123 comments

Blood Sport

During the recent Republican and Tea Party debates the response of the crowd to... more

Jim_Brenneman
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8 months ago
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Cheering For State-Imposed Death

BY GLENN GREENWALD

At last night's GOP debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was asked by Brian Williams about the 234 executions of death row inmates over which Perry has presided -- "more than any Governor in modern times"-- and the mere mention by Williams of this morose record triggered an outburst of cheering and applause from the audience.

This episode is creepy and disgusting, though as both Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dahlia Lithwick point out, it's hardly surprising for a country which long considered public hangings a form of entertainment and in which support for the death penalty is mandated orthodoxy for national politicians in both parties. Still, even for those who believe in the death penalty, it should be a very somber and sober affair for the state, with regimented premeditation, to end the life of a human being no matter the crimes committed. Wildly cheering the execution of human beings as though one's favorite football team just scored a touchdown is primitive, twisted and base.

All of that would be true even if the death penalty were perfectly applied and only clearly guilty people were killed. But in the U.S., the exact opposite is true; see here to read about (and act to stop) a horrific though typical example of a very likely innocent person about to be executed by the State of Georgia. That Perry in particular likely enabled the execution of an innocent man -- as well as numerous other highly disturbing killings, of the young and mentally infirm -- makes the cheering all the more repellent. That the death penalty in America has long been plagued by a serious racial bias makes it worse still. That this death-cheering comes from a party that relentlessly touts itself as "pro-life" and derides the other as The Party of Death -- and loves to condemn Islam (in contrast to its war-loving self) as a death-glorifying cult -- only adds a layer of dark irony.

Story continues here:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/08/death/index.htmlBY GLENN GREENWALD At last night's GOP debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was... more

Vic_Romano
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9 months ago
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94 comments

Georgia’s videotaped execution sets new precedent

The video camera that recorded the execution of a Georgia death row inmate did more... more

joeeddy
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10 months ago
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Illinois closes Death Row!

A civilized country does not put its citizens to death.

lazloman
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11 months ago
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Man Has Death Penalty Sentence For Porn Quashed In Iran

An Iranian man has had his death sentence for operating a pornography website quashed,... more

Radical_Centrist
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12 months ago
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Cinema And Culture - Said Mughanli, poet and Journalist, arrested June 8, 2011. Life in danger

Islamist Regime of Iran, Killing Freedom activists and ARTISTS.

John_Doran
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12 months ago
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Troy Davis Could Be Executed Despite Lingering Doubts

Troy Davis has spent over half his life in prison and could be executed for a crime he didn't commit.

According to the state of Georgia, Mr. Davis spent the evening of August 18th, 1989 participating in a string of violent acts, starting with shooting a stranger in the face, followed by pistol whipping a homeless man, and then culminating in the murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, an off-duty police officer who had helped to break up the previous altercation.

The problem with this story, however, is that there is very little evidence which actually supports it. There has never been any physical evidence that linked Mr. Davis to the crime, the gun that he allegedly used has never been found, and of the nine witnesses whose testimony prosecutors used to make their case, seven have since recanted, explaining that they were threatened with legal action if they did not corroborate the police's story. One witness, Redd Coles, has consistently maintained that he saw Davis shoot Officer MacPhail. The problem with his testimony is that multiple witnesses have since reported that Coles has admitted at various times that he shot Officer McPhail.

Mr. Davis has steadfastly maintained his innocence since his arrest, and has spent the last twenty years exhausting every possible appeal, facing at least three different execution dates that were all postponed at the last moment. At the crux of his case has been the claim that prosecutors never had sufficient evidence for conviction, especially in light of the multiple recantations by key witnesses.
Unfortunately, the state and federal courts have consistently refused to grant Troy a new trial, relying on legal technicalities to avoid seriously considering the exculpatory evidence that was suppressed at the time of Mr. Davis' original trial and early appeals. The sad irony here is that the Court has justified their actions by saying that evaluating such claims would invalidate the trial jury's original determinations, while multiple members of that jury have said that had they known then what they know now, they would never had sentenced Mr. Davis to death. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ooPHNsFqb8M

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amnesty-international/troy-davis-trial-_b_853765.htmlTroy Davis has spent over half his life in prison and could be executed for a crime he... more

Radical_Centrist
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1 year ago
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A Trial Begins: Did Casey Anthony Kill Her Daughter?

This week, more than 500 journalists are descending on Orlando, Fla., for the start of... more

ylin
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1 year ago
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Uganda anti-gay bill pushed out of parliament

Draft laws that would have punished homosexuality with death are wiped from the agenda... more

Pfailblog
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1 year ago
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Ugandan parliament yet to debate bill that would jail gay people for life

Ugandan MPs will debate a bill calling for gay people to be imprisoned for life on... more

Pfailblog
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1 year ago
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California Backs Off on Plan to Resume Executions This Year

Los Angeles Times... San Quentin State Prison's new warden wants to recruit a... more

EthicalVegan
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1 year ago
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Mubarak sons could face hanging, but still enjoy prison perks

On Sunday, Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, sons of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,... more

Aimee_Kligman
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1 year ago
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