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06/25/2011— On Friday, the human rights organization Amnesty International initiated*a world-wide campaign to ask Texas authorities to suspend the execution of a Mexican man named Humberto Leal García, who was condemned for the violation and assassination of a minor and is scheduled to be put to death on July 7th. Amnesty International claims that Leal … Read more

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Gee, what ya think Texas has to say on this one........ hey, skeeter where are ya...

Amnesty International needs to be executed side by side in the fire seat with the ACLU.

Originally Posted by DENNIS

Amnesty International needs to be executed side by side in the fire seat with the ACLU.

Not when your particular ox is being gored.

Kinda funny sometimes, when the ACLU take the side of some particularly heinous right wing nut.

In my opinion, these organizations serve a true purpose. Trying to keep those in power in check.

Sadly, it's not working as well as it should, simply because huge amounts of money are spent to discredit these organizations.

Maybe you ought to ask a released death row prisoner, exhonerated by DNA evidence, but convicted by an overzealous police/ proesectorial system, what he/she thinks about these organizations.

Originally Posted by Bajahowodd

Kinda funny sometimes, when the ACLU take the side of some particularly heinous right wing nut.

Nonsense. The ACLU is the Amish of the modern legal system, fighting for an archaic Bill Of Rights with their outdated horse 'n buggy principals. They need to buy nice cars and the Bill Of Rights needs to be brought into the 21st century.
Take comfort away from criminals. Electroconvulsive therapy should be their only entertainment.

Originally Posted by DENNIS

Nonsense. The ACLU is the Amish of the modern legal system, fighting for an archaic Bill Of Rights with their outdated horse 'n buggy principals. They need to buy nice cars and the Bill Of Rights needs to be brought into the 21st century.
Take comfort away from criminals. Electroconvulsive therapy should be their only entertainment.

Thanks for the insight, Atilla.

I am not aginst the Exicution if they have the right man on the gurney

I am not aginst the Exicution if they have the right man on the gurney.Ca. needs to follow suit and get rid of a whole bunch of permenate residents they have on Death Row

State sponsored murder is what that is. Since when is the the role of government to provide retribution for victims of crimes.

Not to mention that given the spotty record of the police and prosecutors, resulting in DNA evidence showing death row inmates not guilty, and the millions and millions of dollars spent to finance the death penalty process, taxpayers could save tons, in an era of shortages, and relieve themselves of the guilt of participating in state sponsored murder.

As I recall, just about all industrialized nations in the world have eliminated capital punishment. That goes for Mexico as well. Not to mention, that in Mexico, even life without possibility of parole is considered cruel and unusual punishment in all but the fewest most heinous crimes.

Originally Posted by Bajahowodd

Not to mention, that in Mexico, even life without possibility of parole is considered cruel and unusual punishment in all but the fewest most heinous crimes.

Actually a life sentence is handed out routinely by government down here and I personally know many currently serving time. Some down here call it matrimonio...

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Actually a life sentence is handed out routinely by government down here and I personally know many currently serving time. Some down here call it matrimonio...

Specifically, without any chance of parole.

Borderland Beat: Mexican Judge Hands Down Countrys 1st Life Sentence

"Like Spain and most other Latin American nations, Mexico has traditionally limited to 30 years the amount of time anyone can be held behind bars."

Sound like some miscommuincation, in that the first life sentence, according to sources was handed down 7 months ago.

Originally Posted by Bajahowodd

Since when is the the role of government to provide retribution for victims of crimes.

Huh???? I thought that was their job so others wouldn't demand it of themselves.

I believe Mexico still has a death penalty for treason.

Originally Posted by DENNIS

Huh???? I thought that was their job so others wouldn't demand it of themselves.

I believe Mexico still has a death penalty for treason.

I actually understand why folks may not be able to grasp the concept, but taking a life, as heinous as it may be, as committed by some criminal, ought not to empower the state to do so on behalf of others.

Not to mention....


Death penalty costs California $184 million a year, study says - LA Times


A senior judge and law professor examine rising costs of the program. Without major reforms, they conclude, capital punishment will continue to exist mostly in theory while exacting an untenable cost.

Taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment in California since it was reinstated in 1978, or about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then, according to a comprehensive analysis of the death penalty's costs.

The examination of state, federal and local expenditures for capital cases, conducted over three years by a senior federal judge and a law professor, estimated that the additional costs of capital trials, enhanced security on death row and legal representation for the condemned adds $184 million to the budget each year.

The study's authors, U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell, also forecast that the tab for maintaining the death penalty will climb to $9 billion by 2030, when San Quentin's death row will have swollen to well over 1,000.

In their research for "Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature's Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle," Alarcon and Mitchell obtained California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records that were unavailable to others who have sought to calculate a cost-benefit analysis of capital punishment.

Their report traces the legislative and initiative history of the death penalty in California, identifying costs imposed by the expansion of the types of crimes that can lead to a death sentence and the exhaustive appeals guaranteed condemned prisoners.

The authors outline three options for voters to end the current reality of spiraling costs and infrequent executions: fully preserve capital punishment with about $85 million more in funding for courts and lawyers each year; reduce the number of death penalty-eligible crimes for an annual savings of $55 million; or abolish capital punishment and save taxpayers about $1 billion every five or six years.

Alarcon, who prosecuted capital cases as a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney in the 1950s and served as clemency secretary to Gov. Pat Brown, said in an interview that he believes the majority of California voters will want to retain some option for punishing the worst criminals with death. He isn't opposed to capital punishment, while Mitchell, his longtime law clerk, said she favors abolition. Both said they approached the analysis from an impartial academic perspective, aiming solely to educate voters about what they are spending on death row.

Alarcon four years ago issued an urgent appeal for overhaul of capital punishment in the state, noting that the average lag between conviction and execution was more than 17 years, twice the national figure. Now it is more than 25 years, with no executions since 2006 and none likely in the near future because of legal challenges to the state's lethal injection procedures.

The long wait for execution "reflects a wholesale failure to fund the efficient, effective capital punishment system that California voters were told they were choosing" in the battery of voter initiatives over the last three decades that have expanded the penalty to 39 special circumstances in murder, the report says.

Unless profound reforms are made by lawmakers who have failed to adopt previous recommendations for rescuing the system, Alarcon and Mitchell say, capital punishment will continue to exist mostly in theory while exacting an untenable cost.

Among their findings to be published next weekin the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review:

International Law and Opinion | Capital Punishment in Context

Maybe we ought to crawel into the 21st century?

Originally Posted by Bajahowodd

I actually understand why folks may not be able to grasp the concept, but taking a life, as heinous as it may be, as committed by some criminal, ought not to empower the state to do so on behalf of others.

Why not?? Where does it say that??
A death sentence shouldn't cost all that much to implement. It should be an in-house chore like cleaning a toilet.
Call it a form of Nest Fowling.

Originally Posted by DENNIS

Why not?? Where does it say that??
A death sentence shouldn't cost all that much to implement. It should be an in-house chore like cleaning a toilet.
Call it a form of Nest Fowling.

Then, we may just be encroaching on the territory of the Nazis and the Soviets. The distinction, for me, is that we ought not allow state remedies to be exacted for civilians. Otherwise, we get Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

Put the bad guys away. No question. But whenever there's even an inkling that the state can execute, it opens the field up to almost anyone.

Originally Posted by Bajahowodd

Put the bad guys away. No question. But whenever there's even an inkling that the state can execute, it opens the field up to almost anyone.

OK.....Put them away, but keep the ACLU out of it. Strip prisoners of rights on a scale equal to the severity of their crime.

I firmly believe that a person who takes the life of another has forfeited his right to live. He/she owes a debt and to not demand payment is society's loss.

If you don't like it....don't watch, but you shouldn't deny me my due.

"No blindfold for you."

Originally Posted by Bajahowodd

Since when is the the role of government to provide retribution for victims of crimes..

For sure since about 600 BC. There are records. Few historians or anthropologists would disagree that probably long before that.

Some humans subscribe to the premise that this is an important role of governments, particularly constitutional governments. The alternatives can be chaotic; either the vagaries of victims inflicting whatever punishment they determine appropriate, no punishment being inflicted or ......

Originally Posted by dusty

For sure since about 600 BC. There are records. Few historians or anthropologists would disagree that probably long before that.

Some humans subscribe to the premise that this is an important role of governments, particularly constitutional governments. The alternatives can be chaotic; either the vagaries of victims inflicting whatever punishment they determine appropriate, no punishment being inflicted or ......

Ah! But you are harkening back to waaaaaay before so-called representaive democracy.

Just sayin' that the government by the people, for the people, and of the people, was a game changer. That means that you and/ or I agree with with the murder of a convict.

You are the one who said "since when". Representative democracies have/had capital punishment.
Whether we agree or not is irrelevant.
It is not murder, it is not manslaughter, it is not revenge, it is ....punishment, legally defined as such. Most people live in countries that have and use it as legal punishment. This president has even issued an execuitve order for its use without due process. This diminishes the probablity in my mind that the "globalist new world order" mind set is going to spawn a kinder, gentler more civilized (whatever that means) society with a legal system, like ours, designed and refined to deliberately be arduous in the prosecution, conviction and ensuing punishment of criminals. One needs to evaluate whether or not part of the reason that some countries do not use capital punishment it isn't because they do not have a legal system and trial prcedures that protect the rights of the individual as much as ours does. Mexico doesn't.

In the US the states have the power to use it. Tested and affirmed by SCOTUS. If our representative democracy wants to change it we have an amendment process to do that. That's where those who would eliminate it should focus.

Capital cases are rare. Prosecutors evaluate very carefully before they begin them. In the over all scheme of things it makes me wonder why they receive the noisy attention by the media that they do and, cynic that I am, I wonder if naive people aren't being manipulated by media and other powers to seize on an emotionally charged issue in order to chip away at the sovereignty of states, of nations with the intended consequence of expanding the fascistic movement we are seeing unfold.

"Most people live in countries that have done and use it as legal punishment. This president has even issued an executive order for its use without due process. "

Not to ignore the mention of executive order, and as for that, I cannot abide, but, to say that most countries is avoiding the reality that most countries in the industrialized world, do NOT have capital punishment, for precisely the reason I mentioned. State sponsored murder is just that. Murder. So, let's begin rounding up the perps.