Texas set to execute man despite possible mental disability

reply to post by bluemirage5


thriving isn't the word I would have used...
but I can see where he would make some progress not having access to all the street drugs the prosecutors were so good to point out as being a big part of his past troubles

IQ is a best a rule of thumb, and nothing more, as it relates to being held accountable for your actions.


This "poor young man" had the mental and physical faculties to do the following:

1. Obtain a pistol.

2. Obtain ammunition of the proper caliber for that particular pistol.

3. Conceal the pistol as he made his way to the house, entered it, and entered the room where the first victim was staying.

4. Deliberately aim and shoot the first victim in the head, killing him.

5. Attempt to cover the murder up by telling a witness (the landlord) that the first victim had shot himself.

6. Deliberately aim and shoot two more victims in the head, killing another man and paralyzing a 15 year old girl from the neck down permanently.

7. Deliberately aim and attempt to kill the girl's mother to eliminate her as a witness, but the gun was empty by then.

8. Loot the house.

9. Set fire to the house to destroy evidence.

10. Steal and operate one of the victim's cars as a getaway vehicle.


Disabled? Didn't know or realize the consequences of what he was doing?

Bull.

Every year some group of shrinks and related voodoo doctors come out with some new study that pushes the IQ football for personal responsibility one way or the other. Psychology is NOT a science.

Execute him.

Originally posted by Lysergic
in all honesty, if you were convicted to life in prison, wouldn't you rather seek death?

Absolutely...there is little room to argue that a life in prison is much more of a penalty that death...IMHO.

Setting capital punishment aside...not really an option here as this man is going to be put to death, but the question is this:

Does the death penalty provide more to the surviving victims in the form of justice (the families of the victims), or is it really being used to punish the criminal?

I know that much of the arguments that are in support of the death penalty propose that too often an innocent man might be put to death...clearly not the case here.

reply to post by jerryznv


The best thing about the death penalty is 0% repeat offenders.



Second line.

reply to post by mydarkpassenger


Ahhh, more disgusting armchair murderers.

I don't care what a person did wrong, execution is a Dark Ages throwback and only the very slow or the intellectually challenged still think it is the right thing to do. It is wrong in every way, shape or form and nobody, particularly those disgusting people who advocate it, will ever change my mind.

How do people like you sleep at night? Oh wait, don't answer that.......I can imagine you would sleep quite well in your bloodbath dreams......

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger
reply to post by jerryznv

 

The best thing about the death penalty is 0% repeat offenders.

Second line.

I suppose there are 0% chances of that particular person committing a like or similar crime, but make no mistake there are many more just like him in the world.

Many...many...many more...and although this man will not commit another offense, you can be absolutely certain the problem is far from solved...humanity at it's best...kill a killer...does not make any sense. Now who is a killer?

Because the man that throws the switch or pushes the plunger is justified in killing? I hardly think so...the right to take life is not in the hands of courts and men...that right (if you are to call it a right) belongs to no person, and no court, no state, and no government...things like this go to a much higher power!

Except not all retards go around shooting people like this guy. Let Texas do him in...he doesn't have any more right to live than those he killed. And he certainly doesn't have the right to live off of taxpayer dollars. Hang him.

reply to post by laiguana


I hope somebody shows you the same courtesy someday.

Bet your tune would change then eh.

reply to post by Kryties

So what do you propose? We leave a murderer in a jail cell and waste valuable resources that could instead go to feeding a person who's in poverty? Is that how you really want to spend earth's precious few resources when people elsewhere are dying of starvation and malnutrition? Anyone who would prefer to allocate what little we have to those who have done wrong is as guilty as the hangman.

For a guy that can't dress himself, he must be a savant when it comes to firearms. Instead of killing him, I'm surprised our government isn't sending him to Libya.

Originally posted by Mishmashum
reply to post by Kryties

 

So what do you propose? We leave a murderer in a jail cell and waste valuable resources that could instead go to feeding a person who's in poverty? Is that how you really want to spend earth's precious few resources when people elsewhere are dying of starvation and malnutrition? Anyone who would prefer to allocate what little we have to those who have done wrong is as guilty as the hangman.

How about take some of the U.S. defence budget to feed those poor people? You know, the budget that is more than the next 15 countries on the list PUT TOGETHER. Oh thats right, it's being spent killing poor people rather than feeding them.......can't stop that now can we.

Absolutely pathetic reasoning.

Nice try.

reply to post by Kryties

Ah so pipe dreams and saving everything and everybody is the solution. Right, we live in candy land in the realm of fantasy and delusion. Why not wave that magic wand of yours and make everybody love each other and then we'll be whisked away to the world of happiness and unicorns that defecate skittles.

reply to post by Mishmashum


Ahhh, sorry to have burst your little bubble by injecting some logic into it. I see you deftly avoided addressing the fact that I pointed out the ridiculousness of your reasoning.

As far as I'm concerned, jailing somebody for life for killing people is just punishment, and taking money away from state-sanctioned mass killing in other countries answers your "but somebody PLEASE think of the poor people" argument.

reply to post by Mishmashum


I just realised I'm having a death penalty argument with someone who uses a bomb as their avatar. As much as I would like to think I have injected some sense into you, I fear you are just sitting back twiddling with the trigger on your shotgun just hoping somebody will break in so you can blow them away......

reply to post by DaddyBare


DaddyBare, if this fellow was related to a big politician or from a wealthy family we both know he would be sitting pretty. John Hinckley Jr., son of a well-to-do family, tried to kill a President of the United States and was sent to a nice mental institution. Hinckley has been granted supervised and unsupervised 'visits' - and these are not for an afternoon, they were for days, at his parents stately home. The man tried to kill the President.

There is no justice in the USA. If you have $$$ you can get away with most anything.

Many would also argue that Bush Jr is retarded, and he was responsible for lots of killings. In jail? Not in prison, Bush Jr makes huge coin on the personal appearance / speech circuit.

No justice.

Originally posted by Mishmashum
reply to post by Kryties

 

Ah so pipe dreams and saving everything and everybody is the solution. Right, we live in candy land in the realm of fantasy and delusion. Why not wave that magic wand of yours and make everybody love each other and then we'll be whisked away to the world of happiness and unicorns that defecate skittles.

edit on 21-6-2011 by Mishmashum because: (no reason given)

In this pipe dream land...are the skittles the sour kind? And can you ride the unicorns?

Just nobody really likes the sour kind...sure they are fun to eat every now and then but they are just entertainment and get old after awhile.

Maybe a unicorn that defecated chili dogs would be more like it...and a ice cold Budweiser pond to drink from...now that would be something!

On topic: Killing people as a form of saving precious dollars is ridiculous...life certainly has more value than paper. Also noteworthy...prison industries is one of the fastest growing markets in the United States today...money to be made everywhere as long as people keep getting locked up. Pockets are deep in the industries of corruption...prisons are money making machines!

reply to post by Kryties

So basically your airtight logic is this ... "lets re-divert our military budget, weakening our defenses, so we can coddle a person who murdered useful people in our society." Let me guess you've never taken an economics class? Scarcity has effects. Here are three: (1) the need to make choices, (2) the need for a rationing device, and (3) competition. Your solution is, "We don't need to protect ourselves ... we must defend the murderers!" Did you grow up in a bubble?

reply to post by Mishmashum


I'm saying re-divert a military buget that accounts for more than the next 15 countries in the list COMBINED - overkill much?

Or how about getting the hell out of Iraq, seeing as those pesky WMD's weren't found.

Or how about getting out of Afghanistan now that the pesky Osama is swimming with the fishes.

There's a few suggestions that won't lower your defensive capabilities at all - you know why? IN case you didn't notice, unless I've been looking at my maps wrong then the U.S. is not Iraq nor Afghanistan and therefore they don't need defending do they?

But alas, I am saying this to someone who uses a bomb as their avatar........

reply to post by Mishmashum


No lets just continue to kill people.

I just don't understand how someone could agree to killing another human as justice. It is not it is VENGEANCE. As long as we continue to think like this we will continue to kill each other over stupid S%#$. The implications of using capital punishment effect us in more ways then one. It makes us cynics, keeping us stuck in the same "cycle of pain" we have been in since man wrote the first word on stone.

I know that these people are murderers. But are they beyond redemption? Are they not worthy of love despite their faults? Are they not worthy to live even if they took a life?

There are only two argument against letting them live.

1: They must die for our protection.

I think it is understood by now that capital punishment does deter murderers. Even with the advent of forensics murder in Baltimore, MD and Los Angeles, CA is still going strong.

2: It costs to much to keep them alive.

I love this one. Money. Just like the capitalist shills to only care about the money that their plutocracy throws at the war machine and makes a mockery of human life.

This is sick I'm sorry I'm done with this thread.

Originally posted by Kryties
reply to post by Mishmashum

 

I just realised I'm having a death penalty argument with someone who uses a bomb as their avatar. As much as I would like to think I have injected some sense into you, I fear you are just sitting back twiddling with the trigger on your shotgun just hoping somebody will break in so you can blow them away......

Ahhh...come on...don't hate the bomb avatar just because one person with a bomb avatar is being silly!

That is not a logical argument either.

If my bomb had a void stamp through it it would be okay? I imagine mine is in remembrance of where we have been and where we do not want to go...just saying.

Killing is never an answer...not an acceptable one anyway...please don't take it out of context as I know defense and the arguments behind it make killing justified sometimes (The age old question: "what if it was to save your family")...but in my opinion that is not what is happening in a death penalty situation. Two different sides of the fence.