this week’s edition.
Leading off this edition:
No new opinions of note are had this edition.
In the news, NPR’s Fresh Air has an exceptional piece interviewing David Dow discussing his Autobiography of an Execution. In a sign of the times, Gabriel Gonzales returned to the same Bexar County courtroom Monday where, 13 years earlier, a jury had condemned him to die for killing a pawnshop owner during a robbery, this time . Gonzales received life. In Maryland, key changes to the public defender service appear to be working their way through the state legislature. In Pennsylvania the issue of the cost of the death penalty is again causing many community leaders to ask whether the death penalty is worth the cost.Finally, in the words of DPIC:
Henry Skinner is scheduled for execution in Texas on February 24 despite the lack of DNA testing of critical evidence from the crime scene that could lead to his exoneration. Skinner has always maintained his innocence of the 1993 murder of his girlfriend and her two grown sons in Tampa, Texas. At his trial, the prosecution presented the results of selective DNA testing on some of the crime evidence that tended to prove Skinner’s presence at the scene, which was his place of residence, a fact he has never disputed. But the state has repeatedly refused his request to test other evidence, including material found on the victim, that could point to another suspect. In addition, an investigation by journalism students from Northwestern University in 1999 and 2000 revealed that a key witness from the trial had recanted her testimony linking Skinner to the crime. Texas has already executed a number of individuals who may have been innocent, leaving a cloud of doubt on the fairness of the criminal justice system. By conducting relatively routine DNA tests before his execution, the doubts surrounding Skinner’s case could be resolved one way or the other.As always, thanks for reading. -k
Tuesday, 9. February 2010 10:58
Texas has already executed a number of individuals who may have been innocent, leaving a cloud of doubt on the fairness of the criminal justice system.
Leave it to an anti-dp site and liberal do gooders to stir up and make absolutely unfounded accusations to try and get sympathy for criminals that deserve none. There is no proof whatsover anyone executed was actually innocent. period!
Tuesday, 9. February 2010 11:36
So why pull the plug on the commission investigating Willingham’s execution? I mean unless……
Wednesday, 10. February 2010 19:44
Dean O says: “… There is no proof whatsover anyone executed was actually innocent. period! ”
And there are so many cases of reasonable doubt that I’d prefer to say there is hardly any proof anyone execeuted was actully guilty.
Besides: where from does any government claim the moral justification to kill prisoners?
Let’s abolish the death penalty and try to become humans who sort out their problems without the need for others to be punished and killed.