Submitted by Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
I learned that policemen are my friends
I learned that justice never ends
I learned that murderers die for their crimes
Even if we make a mistake sometimes
And that’s what I learned in school today
That’s what I learned in school.”
–Tom Paxton, “What Did You Learn in School Today?”
When Rick Scott was in the hospital business, his company specialized in billing Medicare for services that were not performed. Now he is governor of a state that specializes in sending people to death row for crimes they did not commit.
Florida conservatives love the death penalty. Since it was reactivated in 1979, 75 people have been executed. In the past two years, Florida has sentenced more persons to death than any other state. And Gov. Scott is setting records of his own, executing eight prisoners to date, the highest rate of any Florida governor in the past thirty years. But despite this carnage, the current death row population still exceeds 400 people, larger than the entire population of many small towns. This is at least partially due to the fact that Florida is one of only two death penalty states that do not require a unanimous jury recommendation of death. Alabama requires a 10-2 vote. Florida is decidedly more majoritarian; a 7-5 favorable vote is sufficient.
Florida also leads the nation in another grim statistic. Since executions have resumed, 24 death row inmates have been exonerated, far more than in any other state. This means that for every three persons executed over the past thirty years, one additional death row inmate has been found innocent and released. One would think that given this statistic, combined with Florida’s history of botched executions and chronic underfunding of agencies charged with defending those on death row, the legislature would be looking at ways to improve the system. And one would be wrong. On June 14, 2013, Gov. Scott signed the Timely Justice Act, a bill that is intended to hasten executions. The new statute was signed by the governor over the opposition of every major newspaper in Florida, the Innocence Project and other bar groups, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops and ordinary citizens who sent thousands of letters and emails to Tallahassee. It requires that death warrants be signed within 30 days following certification by the Clerk of the Florida Supreme Court that initial post-conviction appellate proceedings have been completed. It also requires that a death warrant specify an execution date within 180 days. And it imposes strict procedural deadlines for other post-conviction motions.
The chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican, described the bill as “a modest down payment on the reforms that we need to ensure that victims’ families aren’t waiting decades for justice.” As if to confirm that the intent of the new law is wholly unrelated to preventing the execution of innocent persons, Rep. Gaetz also observed, “Only God can judge, but we sure can set up the meeting.”
Attorneys have already filed proceedings in the Florida Supreme Court seeking to block implementation of the new law for numerous constitutional infirmities, not the least of which is the legislative intrusion on the rule-making authority of the judiciary, a game played with increasing relish by legislative bodies. But once again we are witnessing the worst excesses of the evangelical right. No reasonable person can deny any longer the arbitrary and racist history of capital punishment in this country. It remains the nation’s shame that capital punishment still exists. However, until we decide to reject the efforts of a minority to impose Old Testament views on the justice system, we will continue to see this sort of legislative abomination.
“Florida is Texas with better weather and fewer horses.”
And more citrus and better Cuban food.
Florida is Texas with better weather and fewer horses.
Gene,
Actually, all liquids are viscous to some viscosity. The word has just taken on a slimy slant, in popular usage.
And, to your second point, I thought we agreed not to discuss my predilection for being slapped with fish, in public.
Bruce,
Don’t like abortions? Don’t get one!
Now, back to the subject of this thread, which isn’t abortion, Benghazi, or Obamacare,
Yes, murderers (that what you meant to say?) and innocently convicted, put to death, never kill again. Or do anything else, again.
BK abortion is killing so the mother isn’t inconvenienced. murders put to death never kill again, unlike William Spengler
Bruce, You are so wrong it is not worth trying to explain why it is not an issue for most women of being inconvenienced.
As for those put to death don’t murder again, and those who didn’t kill but were railroaded as in some of the examples I gave earlier or wrongly convicted and given the death penalty, and killed, won’t kill either, except that they never did in the first place.
Bruce, meet Professor Carlin:
If you don’t like the statistic of the number of innocent people being exonerated, kill them first.
You gotta love Monty Python in the morning!! 🙂
There is no better case then one from just 2 years ago about a man wrongly executed
Troy Anthony Davis (October 9, 1968 – September 21, 2011)[1][2] was an American man convicted of and executed for the August 19, 1989, murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant when he intervened to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot. During Davis’s 1991 trial, seven witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail, and two others testified Davis had confessed the murder to them among 34 witnesses who testified for the prosecution, and six others for the defense, including Davis. Although the murder weapon was not recovered, ballistic evidence presented at trial linked bullets recovered at or near the scene to those at another shooting in which Davis was also charged. He was convicted of murder and various lesser charges, including the earlier shooting, and was sentenced to death in August 1991.
Davis maintained his innocence up to his execution. In the 20 years between his conviction and execution, Davis and his defenders secured support from the public, celebrities, and human rights groups. Amnesty International and other groups such as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People took up Davis’s cause. Prominent politicians and leaders, including former President Jimmy Carter, Rev. Al Sharpton, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. Congressman from Georgia and presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing. In July 2007, September 2008, and October 2008, execution dates were scheduled, but each execution was stayed shortly before it was to take place.
In 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to consider whether new evidence “that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis’s] innocence.” The evidentiary hearing was held in June 2010. The defense presented affidavits from seven of the nine trial witnesses whose original testimony had identified Davis as the murderer, but who it contended had changed or recanted their previous testimony. Some of these writings disavowed parts of prior testimony, or implicated Sylvester “Redd” Coles, who Davis contended was the actual triggerman. The state presented witnesses, including the police investigators and original prosecutors, who described a careful investigation of the crime, without any coercion. Davis did not call some of the witnesses who had supposedly recanted, despite their presence in the courthouse; accordingly their affidavits were given little weight by the judge. Evidence that Coles had confessed to the killing was excluded as hearsay because Coles was not subpoenaed by the defense to rebut it.
In an August 2010 decision, the conviction was upheld. The court described defense efforts to upset the conviction as “largely smoke and mirrors”[3] and found that several of the proffered affidavits were not recantations at all. Subsequent appeals, including to the Supreme Court, were rejected, and a fourth execution date was set for September 21, 2011. Nearly one million people signed petitions urging the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency.[4] The Board denied clemency[5] and, on September 21, it refused to reconsider its decision.[6] After a last minute appeal to the United States Supreme Court was denied, the sentence was carried out through lethal injection on September 21, 2011
Bob K.,
In Mike A’s defense, mucus is not the only substance that is viscous. Besides, I thought a “viscous slap” was a kind of whitefish only found in the Pacific Northwest. Does anyone like to be attacked with a fish?
rgcomega,
“You make good points, some valid, some worthy of debate, but like my law prof they end up holding little importance when you take a viscous, unnecessary, and uncalled for slap at those who may not think exactly the same as you.”
Mr. Appleton aimed a viscous slap at you? He slapped you with mucus? Sounds disgusting!
Bruce,
Sorry, you wandered onto the wrong thread. This thread concerns the death penalty, not the subjugation of women.
Both are held dear by Fundamentalists, but there’s really no other connection.
“Only God can judge, but we sure can set up the meeting.” (Rep. Matt Gaetz)
As a member of First Baptist Church of Fort Walton Beach, a body of believers committed to worshipping and serving Jesus Christ, Rep. Matt Gaetz’s statement is heretical.
Isaiah 6:5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6 is the basis of worship within the Christian faith … any time one comes into the presence of God one is humbled to the extent that a sense of complete unworthiness unfolds and one falls flat on one’s face uttering the above.)
Only the deluded believe that their life is so free from sin, so Godly, that in taking the life of another human being they are doing nothing more than arranging a meeting for the departed with God. Gaetz’s religious view is pure heresy and that heresy fosters the words passing over his unclean lips.
Bruce and the opposite stands too then if you are against abortion then you should be against the death penalty, what you consider killing is killing in both instances.
Seems that the Gov wants to make sure, as much as possible, that the time is shortened so the wrongly convicted and condemned to the death penalty won’t have time to prove it.
To say essentially “let G-d sort it out” is disgusting to the nth degree and the opposite of any kind of “Christian” behavior I have ever heard of.
Ranta is only the latest to be freed.
1937; Isidore Zimmerman, was imprisoned from 1937 to 1962 for a murder he did not commit. . He died 4 months later, after having spent 24 of his 66 years in prison. Zimmerman had his death penalty commuted to a life term just hours before he was scheduled to be electrocuted (he willingly sought execution because of the intense psychological torture of being on death row).[43]
1976; Randall Dale Adams convicted of the 1976 murder of police officer Robert Wood in Texas largely due to testimony from David Ray Harris, who was later executed for a similar murder. Errol Morris’ film, The Thin Blue Line explored his case and caused a closer examination, resulting in his release after 12 years in prison – 4 of them on death row
1984; Juan Roberto Melendez-Colon was wrongly convicted of the Florida murder of Delbert Baker. He spent over 17 years on Death Row and was released from prison on January 3, 2002.
After spending 14 years on Louisiana’s death row, John Thompson was exonerated by a jury. Another jury later held the DA’s office culpable for Thompson’s ordeal (which included coming within weeks of execution before the exculpatory evidence was revealed), and awarded him $14 million in compensatory damages. The state appealed the jury’s award all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against Thompson and stripped him of his award in 2011.[52][53]
Glen Chapman, who spent 14 years on death row, was released after the District Attorney dismissed murder charges against him.[81]
Ada Joanne Taylor, Joseph White, Thomas Winslow, and three others were wrongly convicted in a murder and rape case[84] Ada Joanne Taylor confessed to police of being part of the crime after she was told that she would be the first woman to receive the death penalty in Nebraska.[85]
(Yep the death penalty has an effect, not on thinking I may get it but Id better confess to something I didn’t do because they are threatening me with death.)
Paul House was exonerated after spending 22 years on death row for murder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miscarriage_of_justice_cases#United_States
(I doubt this is even close to a full list, and the article from which I cited lists miscarriage of justice for many, not just death penalty cases)
rgc, The only time I speak of the death penalty is when it is brought up. I never preach about it, and respect the opposing view. However, we realize that is becoming quite rare, isn’t it.
The contradiction is to kill someone perfectly innocent, yet let someone live that has committed murder.
raf, Absolutely. The fact that this horribly corrupt politician did the right thing has always mystified me. Many of my beliefs have moderated over my 60 years. However, my anti death penalty belief has remained steadfast.
raise your hand if your for abortion and against the death penalty. Kind of contradictory isn’t it.
RE: Bruce
Agreed, I would also pointed out that the same applies to those who claim to be pro-life but have no problem with our death ladened foreign policy.
AY,
Former Gov. George Ryan was released from home confinement last week, I believe. He was in prison then a half way house and then home confinement. His best work was putting the death penalty moratorium in place in Illinois.
I used to be in favor of the death penalty but after reading Ron Paul’s book “The Revolution” I’ve changed my mind on it. He argues that since the government is grossly incompetent in several areas that it runs it shouldn’t be trusted in judgement and execution of the convicted. He does cite the innocence project in that there are government screw ups in which innocent people are sent to die.
My solution IMO is to loosen gun restrictions. Criminals are less likely to go after people knowing that their life can be ended by an armed individual.
For the record I’m a libertarian
Mr. Applelton. I’m guessing you’re a Progressive since you take great pains in painting all “conservatives” as bad people with your broad brush. Leaves me to believe you’re one of those who also thinks all those damn Republicans want is to push Granny off the cliff! Conservatives are not the only people who support the death penalty, and not all conservatives who live in FL support the death penalty. Your comments are an outrageous slander in that regard. Do I need a show of hands or will a little common sense do?
Death penalty is a tough issue for everyone, not just liberals. I spent a term with a law professor over 40 years ago where every lecture was a rant over the death penalty. Didn’t learn a lot of law, but you definitely didn’t fall asleep from boredom in his class.
You make good points, some valid, some worthy of debate, but like my law prof they end up holding little importance when you take a viscous, unnecessary, and uncalled for slap at those who may not think exactly the same as you. I would ask you – why is it that you’re entitled to your opinion, but everyone else is either stupid or evil?