Someone remind me again what’s “conservative” about the death penalty. Don’t we believe in limiting government power? Don’t we believe in not wasting money – dealth penalty cases cost more than life-sentence cases, right? And for those of us (not me of course) that believe in God, isn’t the death pentalty OBVIOUSLY MORALLY WRONG????

The death penalty is something best left in our past, and I can’t see how any self-respecting conservative could support it.

Or maybe I’m wrong…but that rarely happens. :)

Enrique on August 27, 2007 at 10:47 AM

Dude, we buy in bulk. Saves money…

I do always find it funny laughable/ludicrous/preposterous/absurd when some leftist fool or sympathizer starts to lecture a conservative (or, like me, an arch-conservative) about morality–AS IF HE HAS A F^*$#&@ CLUE!!

In his book God At War, Greg Boyd makes the point that we cannot deal with evil as an abstraction and come to the right conclusion. The chilling examples of actual crime (tickled dragon, so sorry for your loss) are futher evidence of this. We tend to not fully grasp the depth of the word evil, like trying to comprehend a billion of something, until we attach it to a concrete example. Then our thinking becomes so much clearer.

TheSitRep on August 27, 2007 at 6:33 PM

You may also want to add a disclaimer that if your victim was a child and you choose lethal injection you will receive only the paralitic and a salene solution. This will cause them to suffocate.

We for the most part despise Rick Perry. He is the worst kind of RINO. Real good at a strong message. But a puss at results.

No one on this website would actually shove a screwdriver into a person to execute them nor would they really want to be the person who actually threw the switch on the electric chair or pulled the trigger in a firing squad
lawman2 on August 27, 2007 at 6:50 PM

Au Contraire Mon Frere.
There are literally millions of people that would even pay to flip the switch on dirt bags like Gary Graham, and other dirt bag child rapist etc..

And they would pay extra for the privilege of getting to actually shoot them.

I guess, I look at it clinically, like when a doctor commits abortion.
Except I would be killing a murderer instead of an innocent.

Only one problem with this concept. These “slave prisoners” would refuse to work, thereby forcing some sort of physical torture such as whipping to act as “motivation.”

Cut off their food and luxuries. In most of the world, if you don’t work, you starve. Why should the taxpayer fork out the cash for a child rapist or serial killer’s dinner? And as I recall, hard labour used to be a punishment for convicts. What happened to that?

Do you think liberals will be any more approving of these motivating techniques than they are the death penalty?

Liberals will never be satisfied unless we put them into a five star royal suite and feed them roasted duck and mango salsa.

In fact, it’s most likely they’ll whine about how cruel it is to actually force manual labor. In the view of most of those opposed to the death penalty, these are human beings who are victims of society in some way and they’re the same people who are responsible for prisoners being blessed with free cable television, pool tables, ping pong tables, law libraries, and other resort type benefits. These people believe it’s simply inhumane to actually punish these poor victims.

Gregor on August 27, 2007 at 1:43 PM

All the more reason to ignore them.

The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was cruel and unusual, abolished it. The Democratic regime under Governor Ann Richards paroled McDuff. Oddly enough, he started kidnapping, raping, and killing women the same week he left prison. The police think he killed five women, but nobody will ever really know how many. Fortunately, George Bush was governor of a Republican Texas was McDuff was convicted of murder again and executed. McDuff played games with the victims’ families right up to the end, bargaining with the location of their remains.

You see, innocent people die when you don’t execute murderers. A study of prisons in the 1980s found 625 murderers there on their second murder conviction. In other words, 625 victims died because the state did not execute murderers. The bottom line is that if the state does not execute murderers, liberals will try to set them free. Even Charles Manson, once sentenced to death, regularly comes up for parole, courtesy of the California Supreme Court and Rose Bird, who thought killing too harsh for the likes of Charlie.

For those critics of the Texas death penalty who think that convicted killers are innocent guys wrongly charged, I invite you to read Texas Death Row, which lists 200 murderers executed. Take a long, hard look at the guy who raped and beat his grandmother to death and tell me that anything less than death will suffice for him. Read about the child rapist-killers who left their victims out for the animals to eat. In one case, hunters found the victim’s body after they found her Raggedy Ann doll hanging from a branch.

After you’ve perused the child killer section, please come back and tell us again why you think the cost of carrying out such an execution is too much.

If you haven’t been involved in the process, your opinion though well-intentioned, is made without complete information.

No one on this website would actually shove a screwdriver into a person to execute them nor would they really want to be the person who actually threw the switch on the electric chair or pulled the trigger in a firing squad. Trust me, you would not want to be the man that prepares the solution of chemicals that purposefully causes a healthy man to suffer death due to heart failure.
Have you ever actually read a death warrant? It is a chilling piece of literature.

The death penalty exists because there are people so vile, and without conscience, that they can and have killed without any remorse. Trust me, your average murderer doesn’t make the cut.

Before a defendant is even considered for the death penalty, all the evidence demonstrating his guilt is considered. Then, all the evidence available on his background, character, past misdeeds, and criminal affiliations is evaluated along with any and all mitigating evidence. Finally, there has to be evidence that he poses a future danger to society. That can include the danger he poses to prisoners as well as the public at large. Remember, some of these men have escaped from death row: (Please keep in mind that these intake sheets give a “bare bones” rendition of the offense and don’t list all the county or local criminal history these men have. Also, none of them was prosecuted for the escape which occurred on the evening of November 17, 1998 because they were already serving death sentences.)
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/drowlist/wikerson.jpg
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/drowlist/garciagj.jpg
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/drowlist/dunnhe.jpg
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/drowlist/guidry.jpg
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/drowlist/cathey.jpg
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/drowlist/clayton.jpg

(By the way, when Ponchai Wilkerson was executed he spit out a handcuff key while strapped to the execution gurney.)

Only those who have demonstrated that they are a continual danger to others make the cut. In all but one case, the men I have prosecuted or defended have killed more than one person and have documented anti-social and criminal behavior that dates back to their early juvenile years. Each of them was involved with the criminal justice system several times and received greater and greater punishments with no improvement in their behavior. They do not respect judges, police officers, prosecutors, or you. Even after spending long periods of time in prison, they have killed when released. http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/statistics/deathrow/executed/mcduff.jpg
This man killed a Brazilian couple after following them home from a Lowe’s home improvement store. He was on a day-pass from the Wilmer-Hutchins drug treatment facility in Dallas County. http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/sigalamichael.htm

In every case I have tried, almost the entire jury panel, even the ones not chosen to sit on the actual jury have agreed that Texas needs a death penalty. Most agree that it may not act as a general deterrent to criminal behavior but all agree as a specific deterrent to a particular individual it is without peer.

The bottom line is that there is a need for the death penalty both here in Texas and elsewhere. Life without parole may be the answer for some offenders, solitary confinement may be what an offender needs. In some cases, the death penalty is the right punishment. I resent the Europeans who pass judgment on the system, act as if we impose the death penalty in every single case, and refuse to acknowledge that these men have done anything bad enough to warrant forfeiting their lives.

By the way, I wanted to correct what another poster wrote. Death Row is housed in part of the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas. The Walls Unit in Huntsville, is where the executions take place but no death row inmates are actually housed there.

I don’t understand why some people here think lethal injection is a prissy way to kill someone. Yes it’s painless in theory but no one has ever come back from the grave to confirm it so we don’t really know. It reminds me of putting down animals. I’d argue its a publicly humiliating way to die. If I was going to be executed I’d ask for a cigarette and a firing squad.

aengus on August 27, 2007 at 5:20 PM

Okay, POP QUIZ:
You are going to be executed tomorrow, here are your choices:

A. Hanging
B. Electric chair
C. Gas Chamber
D. Lethal injection

Which do you choose?
Remember
“All the chemicals used in America are standard medical drugs. Sodium thiopental is a short acting barbiturate which is used widely as an anaesthetic and causes unconsciousness very quickly if injected into a vein.”

Saavy?

I always agreed with Ann Coulter’s take on European countries telling us how it is we should govern ourselves. The newest example of this is the European Union, specifically the……

Governor Rick Perry has refused to release many of the details of the $1.3 billion contract his administration has signed with Cintra for a toll road from Austin to Seguin as part of the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Spanish company has had a close relationship with the governor’s office: Perry’s former legislative director, Dan Shelley, worked as a Cintra consultant and lobbyist prior to joining the governor’s staff, and in September 2005, he went back to work for Cintra. Both he and his daughter, Jennifer Shelley-Rodriguez, now have lucrative contracts to lobby Texas legislators on the company’s behalf.

In the abortion/death penalty debate, there are four permutations.
Three of them are logical whether you agree with them or not.
1. pro-abortion & pro-death penalty
2. anti-abortion & pro-death penalty
3. anti-abortion & anti- death penalty
4. pro-abortion & anti- death penalty

I’d be in the number 3 category but I agree with Perry’s statement.

I don’t understand why some people here think lethal injection is a prissy way to kill someone. Yes it’s painless in theory but no one has ever come back from the grave to confirm it so we don’t really know. It reminds me of putting down animals. I’d argue its a publicly humiliating way to die. If I was going to be executed I’d ask for a cigarette and a firing squad.

what’s the name of that company in Spain who’s the main investor in the Trans Texas Corridor?

BowHuntingTexas on August 27, 2007 at 4:48 PM

Cintra

By the way, what’s the name of that company in Spain who’s the main investor in the Trans Texas Corridor?

tickleddragon on August 27, 2007 at 2:57 PM

;)

Darth Executor on August 27, 2007 at 1:16 PM

The only thing that this choice lacks is a consistency in governmental application. You can’t be sure that a future governmental body won’t let them out. The only SURE way to keep them off the street is take them off the earth.

TheSitRep on August 27, 2007 at 2:10 PM

Let me restate the hypothetical argument for ya:

1. Kill All
2. Kill Guilty/Evil
3. Kill None
4. Kill Innocent

That is why I concur…100%.