George Bush & Gonzales, letting the innocent die

[Jason McCullough]

It's difficult to read this (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/07/berlow.htm) without coming to the conclusion that Texas executed at least one innocent death row convict under Bush's watch.

[Bob Cherub]

Let me play my little violin for the poor mentally challenged guy who stabbed a woman 85 times.

Here's my violin -> <>--

Good riddance.

[Xaroc]

Let me play my little violin for the poor mentally challenged guy who stabbed a woman 85 times.

Here's my violin -> <>--

Good riddance.

They found his mental capacity to be that of a 7 year old. So if a 7 year old stabs someone 85 times you are going to put them to death as well? I understand the death penalty and the arguments for it but this guy should have been put in a mental institution not put to death.

-- Xaroc

[MikeJ]

I'm against the death penalty, and I agree that he should just have been confined to an institution for life.

However, the mental contorsion required to call this guy an innocent is just too extreme. When I was seven I certainly knew that stabbing someone to death was a Really Bad Thing. Heck, I knew that when I was two.

[Jason McCullough]

That's not even what I'm talking about; reasonable people can disagree on executing the mentally retarded, I guess. But this?


The handling of Stoker's clemency appeal was not unusual. Consider the case of Billy Conn Gardner, whose death-penalty case was plagued by issues of incompetent counsel, dubious witness testimony, and unheard mitigating evidence.

Gonzales's report to Bush gave no sense of these circumstances. It matter-of-factly described the robbery of a high school cafeteria in Dallas, during which Gardner, wearing a stocking to obscure his face, allegedly shot and fatally wounded Thelma Row, sixty-four, a cafeteria worker. Also in the cafeteria at the time was Paula Sanders, a co-worker who had told her husband, Melvin, that several thousand dollars in daily cafeteria receipts were processed in a back room at the school. Melvin, who drove the getaway car, claimed that he had persuaded Gardner to participate.

Paula, who knew Gardner, said that she could provide no description of the assailant, because her back was turned. Before Row died, however, she had been able to describe a man with a "bony face ... and a two-inch goatee." Gonzales didn't tell Bush that the state was unable to produce a single witness who recalled ever seeing Gardner with a goatee, or that two witnesses to the shooting—Carolyn Sims and the school custodian, Lester Matthews—described a man with reddish-blond hair, whereas Gardner's hair was black. Matthews nevertheless positively identified Gardner as the killer, and Gonzales accepted this testimony at face value—although Matthews didn't know Gardner, admitted to having seen the killer for only three or four seconds, and didn't actually identify him until his third police interview, three months after the crime. Also missing from Gonzales's memo were the facts that only after prosecutors threatened to bring other charges against Melvin Sanders did he finger Gardner as the murderer, and that in exchange for this testimony Sanders received complete immunity from prosecution for the murder and probation for pending forgery and firearms charges. The state also agreed not to prosecute Paula Sanders.

Gonzales told Bush in his summary that Paula "testified that she was unaware of the robbery plans"; but he neglected to mention that she had received several phone calls only minutes before the robbery and shooting, and that according to Carolyn Sims (whose name is absent from Gonzales's report), she appeared "nervous and upset" after taking these calls. Sims was not deposed until years after the trial, during Gardner's habeas corpus appeal. More important, Gardner's lawyer never interviewed Paula Sanders and met with Gardner only once before jury selection, for fifteen minutes, raising an obvious suggestion of ineffective counsel—which Gonzales also dismissed with no discussion.

The case is a disconcerting tangle of speculation and uncertainty. What Gonzales should have made clear to Bush during the clemency review is that the case involved many unanswered and troubling questions. Gardner was put to death on February 16, 1995.

Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt my ass. I don't agree with executing people, but jesus, the governor should notice that they transparently didn't have the right guy.

He *did* manage to get Lucas's sentence converted to life when slapped in the face with absolutely perfect evidence that he didn't do it, but that's a hell of a standard has was using there. It actually reminds me of Scalia's dissent a while back that since a death row prisoner had access to the appeals process, it was just too damn bad that he got a travesty of a trial and probably was innocent - he should have filed in the statute of limations.

[Bob Cherub]

So are you trying to say that the guy with a 7 year old's mind didn't know what he was doing when he stabbed someone *85* times. How about I punch you in your arm 85 times, I bet it won't feel too good.. helluva lot better than being stabbed 85 times though!

I know a couple 7 year olds. They aren't that stupid.

The world missed out on nothing with this scum off the planet.

[Cleve Blakemore]

So are you trying to say that the guy with a 7 year old's mind didn't know what he was doing when he stabbed someone *85* times. How about I punch you in your arm 85 times, I bet it won't feel too good.. helluva lot better than being stabbed 85 times though!

I know a couple 7 year olds. They aren't that stupid.

The world missed out on nothing with this scum off the planet.

They should wipe down the chair and put these liberal bleeding hearts in it as soon as it is cool enough to sit down in again, throw the switch on their sorry asses as well.

Liberals are always generous with everybody's life except the perp. "Oh, she only got stabbed 85 times, poor Leroy is a victim of his own diminished mental capacity." We need to lock these idiots in a room with Leroy and give him a big jungle caribe machete with the end sharpened like a razor.

Save some piano wire for these fools in CW2, they need to moonwalk before anybody else.

McCullough, your tiny effeminate arse is almost a caricature of a liberal nutter. Don't worry, the Leroys of the world will be coming to your 'hood real soon. Try to be Jesus when these savages are forcing you to watch while they do your entire family, you be holy for us. Notice how you want to be Jesus with the lives of others, nonchalant and forgiving. See if you can practice this universal altruism when the machete takes off your manhood with a single clean whack on the cutting board.

[bmulligan]

Wasn't it the will of the people that convicted this guy in the first place? Don't you believe in the ultimate prevailing will of the people? Leftists will trash Bush for 'circumventing' majority rule, then trash him for upholding a decision made by a jury. You can never win with the liberals, right and wrong have no objective standard with them, laws and statutes are transparent to them. It's all what 'seems' or 'feels' right at that moment that determines truth.

[Jason McCullough]

The entire point of having a jury is to defend rights from the tyranny of the majority.

[bmulligan]

What about the tyrrany of the asschair quarterbacks who judge trial verdicts by the soundbytes on CNN and newspaper clippings. None of us witnessed the trial, heard the eveidence as presented, or played a part in the verdict. It's easy to judge after the fact, when the transcripts have been conveniently summarized, spun, and compacted to fit in between our 30 second attention spans. Let's blame Bush for it, though, it must be his fault because he's a compassionate conservative.

[Bob Cherub]

The entire point of a jury is for them to make a decision and the law upholds it. Like putting this lowlife to death.

[hermyhermit]

Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt my ass. I don't agree with executing people, but jesus, the governor should notice that they transparently didn't have the right guy.


Didn't I ask you to die on another thread?

You are still here? Tell you what, send me an address where you live and I will send some of the noble magical people that I put in lockdown last night to come over and diversify and enrich your existence.

I'm sure you have a pretty white girlfriend or wife they'd be interested in meeting and having deep deep meaningful interactions with...

I want to see how you feel about the death penalty while you watch, something tells me you may have a change of heart. But then, you are from Crackerville, so I doubt you have ever seen a real rapist or murderer up close and personal, right? They seem so noble in movies though...

[Jason McCullough]

The entire point of a jury is for them to make a decision and the law upholds it. Like putting this lowlife to death.

And in the quoted case, the prosectutor flat out lied to the jury. Juries, and the court system, aren't foolproof; that's the reason the pardon power exists.

I guess they'll have to execute an innocent white guy before people pay attention.

[Anders Hallin]

I abhor a society in which killing someone is a job, where the state has the power between life and death, the most basic of human rights.

[XPav]

The fact that innocent people have been put to death should make any person sit up and take notice. Whatever your opinions on the morality of the death penalty, the fact that folks are allowing their desires for vengeance get in the way of a proper trial is very worrisome.

Its the "well, most of the time we're killiing the scum of the earth, so I suppose a few innocent people executed time to time is ok" idea that bothers me.

[Bob Cherub]

I love how liberals are champions for the innocent guy who gets put to death but I don't see them championing the innocent who are murdered by the guy who then gets set free cause of technicalities. And this probably happens a hundred times more frequently.

Fry them all.

[Jason McCullough]

I fail to see how Bush actually paying attention to capital cases would have "set guilty murderers free on techicalities."

[Jason Levine]

I love how liberals are champions for the innocent guy who gets put to death but I don't see them championing the innocent who are murdered by the guy who then gets set free cause of technicalities. And this probably happens a hundred times more frequently.

Fry them all.

So the fact that it happens more frequently, makes putting innocent people to death OK? Now there's an enlightened attitude for you. Let's hope that you or someone you love isn't the wrongly accused, Bob. That would probably change your attitude real fast.

[Anders Hallin]

I love how liberals are champions for the innocent guy who gets put to death but I don't see them championing the innocent who are murdered by the guy who then gets set free cause of technicalities. And this probably happens a hundred times more frequently.

Fry them all.
Okay, let us rate these two actions in evil-ness:
Killing someone who is innocent
OR
Not killing someone who is guilty

Gee, that's a head-scratcher.

[Skies]

What a stupid thread. If you don't like the way thing are, get politically active. If you're okay with it, have another beer. UMMM Beeeerr!

[XPav]

"I don't want to talk about this, so I'm going to make fun of everyone that does".

[Doug Erickson]

I'm sure you have a pretty white girlfriend or wife they'd be interested in meeting and having deep deep meaningful interactions with...

That's a pretty twisted fantasy life you've got there, chief. And why "white" - why is skin color particular to this little scenario you've concocted in your fevered cranium?

I'm actually pro-death penalty, but I sure as hell don't spend my time cooking up fantasies of violent retribution and lurid acts of horrible degradation performed on the kin of those who disagree with me.

[Met_K]

It's all because Bush is racist, especially against Mexicans, and Gonzales was taking out the repressed emotions out on retarded people.

I'm sure the niggers have something to do with it, too.