August 24, 2007

Disturbing

I don't understand why is a need for this story of the latest blond celebs, when 400 have been executed in Texas out of the national total of 1096. One person executed this past Wednesday an others to be on August 28 & 30. Not knowing the details of all, I can't say the quilt or innocence; but the numbers are disturbing, I want to know is justice different in Texas?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I thought I might answer your question with a little personal experience as a resident here. I hope you don't think that all Texans are blood-thirsty executioners and that we walk around with guns on our hips.
Stereotypes and generalizations can often get in the way of understanding each other. To put it very briefly, because this topic could, and often does, take lengthy discussion. But, in just a few words, for those of us who see what's left of people hurt by crime, it boils down to this: some people don't belong. Even they know they don't belong. Today, John Couey was sentenced to death in Florida. I listened to the Judge read every gruesome detail he considered in rendering his decision. Couey is another example of someone who does not belong. Sadly, he will get to live about 10-12 more years anyway. More than his victim got to live her entire life. So long as more people feel sorry for the criminal, completely forgetting the victim and their shattered families, then justice is denied to Everyone. I don't feel sorry for criminals. I feel sorry for their victims. And, we trust our juries. We don't constantly second guess them and we aren't racked with guilt over it. Murder and rape (all kinds) are the easiest crimes to not commit. Don't be a dangerous, sketchy or risky person, or be in dangerous, sketchy or risky circumstances, and your chances of being mistaken for a criminal practically evaporate. It's common sense and common decency. Basically, that's how I and others see it. Anyway, I sensed that you asked an honest question, and, so, I thought I'd give an honest reply, from my POV.
Be well.
-A.

Hathor said...

In the back of my mind, I am thinking that they are not sentencing every one to death and surely have plea bargained: but it does appear that they execute most everyone on death row. 400 is over a third of those that have been executed during the same period, almost a twenty one period. I sensed that there were more murders than that in that period. I realized that all the murders may not have been solved and many still waiting on death row, but during that period of time (1976 - 2005) there have been 55,922 murders in Texas. That begs the question, is there some difference in those executed?

Hathor said...

I got up this morning thinking this number may be too high, so I looked for another source, the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics and got the same number.

Anonymous said...

Hi again. Are you wondering if Texas has a preponderance of people who have a tendency toward committing murder? Good question. I'd like to know if there is a study somewhere that plots all the variables that are a part of the entire volume written by a capital murder.
The death sentence is meant for those who don't belong among the rest of us. They showed themselves to be so, in the most graphic and vile of terms. Because they tortured their victims, they planned the murder, they killed a child or someone elderly or disabled, they killed many people serially or en masse, or they killed law enforcement.
-A.

Hathor said...

anonymous,
The Bureau of Justice Statistics link has variables that you can access the data. They have done some analysis of crime in the US and with each state.
Googling "Texas crime rate" will give you more studies than you would want.

The numbers are disturbing and I would guess that many of those murders would be categorized as first degree, but the person that is going to be executed on the 30th, actually doesn't fit any group that you have said, but fits in a law that makes it a capital offense to be involve in a crime in which a murder is committed. The person doesn't have to be present or know of an intent to commit murder. I would not put that persons right to live among us, up there with Charles Manson.

Anonymous said...

hathor,
Late yesterday I ended up doing searching online to see what I could find re your questions. I also saw the case you refer to. I haven't had time to read the case itself and know only the little that seems to indicate that a person who was not the actual murderer is about to be executed. One of the most potent complaints of those against the death penalty is that it is not applied uniformly across the country; the federal government defers to each state to handle it according to their customs and standards. I have no suggestions at this stage to remedy the situation. There will always be exceptional cases that are not representative of the typical convict on death row. The vast majority of the people awaiting execution are richly deserving of their sentence.
I believe in mercy. The murderers do not. Reading the ghastly descriptions of what some of them did to their victims is enough to make me want to throw open their cell doors and shoot them dead right this second. It's utterly heart-rending to learn of the abject suffering and terror the monsters dispensed on the women, children, teenagers, and entire families. Two people who should be dispatched forthwith: Charles Ng and Richard Allen Davis. Both are in California. Sadly, that state has been infected with the nasty legacy of Rose Byrd. As a result, those two pustulent maggots still live.
Being a survivor of a hideous crime means I have no interest in having the wrong person executed. I want the guilty to pay. If the innocent must pay with their lives ruined forever, or with their lives, dying in the most horrible way possible, then it is only fair that the guilty pay the same. Justice is not revenge and it is cruel and unusual of society to expect the victim and/or their surviving family to pay for the room and board, via their taxes, of the beast who violated them. If my government will not ensure my safety, how can I enjoy my civil liberties? How?
-A.

Hathor said...

Living in a city in which there are more murders per year than in some states, I have lived in anxiety knowing that the odds of my son being murdered is high. I have been made to think of what if that occurred, would I want the murderer put to death. In all honesty I can't say what I would want if that happened; but from my perspective now I would want to have personal revenge and may want to directly kill that person with my own hand. However, if it were punishment, death would not suffice, because the murderer's life would end and it would only punish his survivors. I would want the murderer on some island crushing rocks or some solitary work that would gnaw at the bones: a living hell.
I am not trying to convince you to feel differently that me, but what I was trying to point out that not only the innocent can be executed, but not all murderers under that same circumstance you mention get put to death.
In a society when certain people all look alike(I am including other minorities and some groups of whites), these persons are grouped to together by poverty and skin color and none on face value, have any redeeming value; I look at the population of death row and I think they can't be the only people that murder.

Anonymous said...

Hi again... no, they aren't the only people who murder and I try not to think about that too much (it's too scary and depressing to know that there are serial killers out there, running unchecked). But our society has lost its nerve. Too many people who commit crimes aren't being punished accordingly. Too many are being shoved back onto society because of a bunch of reasons and none of them are good enough, to me anyway, to keep letting it happen. We've become so tolerant of what should not be tolerated, we are endangering what makes us so beautiful to the rest of the world: equal protection under the law. (According to my globe trekking friends, most people around the world actually like America, contrary to what our sensationalistic press would have us think... just why does our own press hate the country that gives it better protection than it would have anywhere else? I don't get it...)
I know you're not trying to change my mind, and, honestly, I'm not trying to change your's, either... I sensed that you and I are just trying to figure out how to make sense of it all or make it better. I don't come across very many who can discuss this subject, at all, without becoming angry or hostile. Fear, experience, upbringing, local mores, so much colors our personal perspective.
What can we do Hathor, to turn around the society we're raising our children in? A society that actually predicts that someone like your son is at greater risk of dying by crime than old age? Where did we go wrong? How did we let it get so bad? Don't our kids deserve better? Or are we going to keep holding back, hanging back, and let them deal with our bad decisions by themselves?
Best of luck to you and especially your son. As for me, I think I'll just keep pushing to kill as many bad guys before they kill our kids. No holding back, no more excuses, no more letting crap slide.
Take care,
-A.