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Death by Ideology

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - Despite what Mitt Romney says, the lack of health insurance does kill people.

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Texas Executes Man With IQ of 61; State Cites Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” To Justify Killing

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Aug. 08 (News Report) - Last night, Texas executed 54-year-old Marvin Wilson, despite evidence that he was mentally disabled and reportedly sucked his thumb into adulthood. Wilson's lawyers had argued that an IQ test on which Wilson scored 61 -- nine points below the standard for competency -- should have saved him from execution under a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring execution of the intellectually disabled. Wilson is the second prisoner in Texas to be executed by a new lethal injection method involving a single drug. We speak with Democracy Now! producer Renée Feltz, who has long reported on the death penalty, especially in Texas, where she has covered the state's ongoing execution of developmentally disabled prisoners.[Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Georgia to execute mentally handicapped man | AlterNet

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Jul. 22 (News) -

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A vital (and unlearned) lesson from Julius Caesar

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - May. 08 (Opinion) - Julius Caesar then stood and noted that Roman law forbids the execution of Roman citizens even for heinous crimes, and that executing the conspirators would thus require the creation of a radical and dangerous precedent: dangerous because to vest the power in the State to kill its own citizens, even if justified in the specific case where it is first done, would be to vest the power generally and thus ensure its inevitable abuse. Thus, even as Caesar professed his boundless contempt for the traitors (“I consider no tortures sufficient for the crimes of these men”), he vehemently argued against allowing passions to lead the Senate to embrace punishments “foreign to the customs of our country” — not primarily on moral grounds but on pragmatic ones:

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Olbermann Loses It At GOP Rep.

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Keith Olbermann - Oct. 13 (Opinion) - Keith Olbermann was especially feisty during his "Worst Persons" segment on his Wednesday show, going hard after Bill O'Reilly and even swearing on air. Olbermann...

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Rick Perry's Next Controversial Execution Comes Thursday

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jason Linkins - Sep. 15 (News Analysis) - Prosecutors firmly established Buck's guilt, but to secure a capital punishment conviction in Texas they needed to prove "future dangerousness"—that is, provide compelling evidence that Buck posed a serious threat to society if he were ever to walk free. They did so in part with the testimony of a psychologist, Dr. Walter Quijano, who testified that Buck's race (he's African American) made him more likely to commit crimes in the future (Quijano answered in the affirmative to the question of whether "the race factor, [being] black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons.")

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A Watchdog Professor, Now Defending Himself

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Carr, John Schwartz - Jun. 17 (Special Report) - ...since then questions have been raised about deceptive tactics used the the Medeill students, about allegations that mr.protess cooperated with the defense lawyers.....

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TIn Texas, a Brave, New Lethal Injection

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Raymond Bonner - Apr. 05 (News) - Texas prison officials are about to carry out an execution with a combination of drugs and procedures that they have not used before, and that a veterinarian is proscribed from using when terminating an animal's life.

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Family's Effort to Clear Name Frames Debate on Executions

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By John Schwartz - Oct. 15 (News) - That debate [on capital punishment in Texas] has been framed, in part, by a 2006 opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, in which he said that the dissent in a case had not cited “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.” Many who oppose the death penalty have taken Justice Scalia’s statement as a challenge, and argue that the Willingham case is their proof.

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Iran criticized over executions

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Iason Athanasiadis - Apr. 04 (Special Report) - ISTANBUL, Turkey — The first time Siamak, a private sector employee who participated in Iran’s post-election protests, witnessed a killing was last June, one day after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned demonstrators he was escalating the government’s

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Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By David Grann - Sep. 03 (Special Report) - The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and . . .

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Death penalty 'closer to demise'

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Mar. 24 (News Report) - "The good news is that executions are only carried out by a small number of countries, which shows that we are moving closer to a death-penalty free world," she said.

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Death penalty rift in states continues

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

stateline.org - By John Gramlich - Mar. 19 (Special Report) - Gov. Bill Richardon’s decision Wednesday (March 18) to repeal New Mexico’s death penalty and replace it with a maximum criminal sentence of life without parole is being hailed by supporters as a major victory in the decades-old debate over state-sanctioned executions.

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Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Lisa Rein - Oct. 07 (News Report) - Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

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Florida, California Suspend Death Penalty

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:37:42 -0800

Playfuls.com - Dec. 16 (News Report) - Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Friday issued a moratorium on the death penalty following the 34-minute-long death by lethal injection of a prisoner, while a federal judge also effectively banned capital punishment in California.

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