Posted on 07/02/2006 6:14:01 PM PDT by skandalon
Concerned that executions were as arbitrary as lightning strikes, the U.S. Supreme Court halted capital punishment across the country in 1972.
Laws were rewritten to the high court's satisfaction, and in a landmark decision 30 years ago today, states were allowed to resume executions. Since then, 1,029 killers have been shot, hanged, gassed, electrocuted or fatally injected.
And since then, geography has had much to do with a murderer's fate.
Though 38 states now have a death penalty, one region carries it out far more often than any other. Southern states have executed 81 percent of the national total since 1976. Nearly half have been in just two Southern states: Texas with 368 and Virginia with 95.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
That guy in Richmond is probably afraid we'll find out some really bad news about him and put him on a gurney.
Here is a tag-a-long piece by the same writer about Virginia having the highest percentage of death sentences---->http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188883155&path=%21news&s=1045855934842
Since it is done in the South, it is always racism. What these outsiders don't understand is some folks just deserve a killin. If you kill a Texan we don't want to feed you. Every time I think I could agree that the death penalty should end, some a-hole kills a little girl. Revenge? Yeah it is.
The South deals with its murderers to keep them from repeating. Other areas prefer the excitement of putting them back into society sooner or later.
It's also for the protection of society. If they're dead, they can never break out of jail and kill again.
>Nearly half have been in just two Southern states: Texas with 368 and Virginia with 95.<
Shhh. Don't tell the liberal Yuppies up in NOVA that Virginia might be a (GASP!!!) Southern state. You'll make them die of embarrassment.
The left claims that if the victim is white than the perp is more likely to get the Death penalty.
Men are more likely to get the DP while for instance if one lived in Richmond as opposed to Fairfax.
However, if the executions were carried out on the bases of the race of the victim, more blacks would be put to death since black-on-black crime is more common than white-on-white or black-on-white.
There was a white guy, Kermit Smith, in North Carolina who was executed in 1995 for killing a black woman.
In North Carolina since 1984 42 people have been executed. 41-Men, 1-Woman. 27 have been white, 13 have been black, 1 Lumbee Indian, and 1 Syrian.
Of the 51 victims, 40 have been white, 9 Black, and two Lumbee Indian.
Just about every one of them who was tried for First-Degree will end up killing or trying to kill another prisoner, a guard, or a visitor.
I personally favor ending offical executions - just let Bubba and AIDS take its course.
ping
Better to write "Low crime rate, Zero recividism rate has southern accent".
Don't forget the practice of releasing people sentenced to "Life without Parole" for a fun weekend at the expense of men and women who are insufficiently armed.
ping
Death penalty's Southern accent:
"Pistols At Dawn!"
Southerners are into the "That guy just needed killin'" philosophy. Would help us out up here if we had the same.
As Ron White said about Texas, "If you kill someone, we will kill you back."
A corpse cannot commit murder. There is no question that the death penalty significantly decreases recidivism.
Ron White had another one about Texas, "Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty... mine's putting in an express lane."
The fact that the South executes more convicted murderers than the North only means one thing to me: the North is behind the South.
Yep, that's another good one. :-)
"If they're dead, they can never break out of jail and kill again."
Actually most of them are released after pathetically short sentences. I think NY is something like 12 years average for murder before parole.
Proud to be from TEXAS...leading the way, putting scumbags six feet under! :)
"There was a white guy, Kermit Smith, in North Carolina who was executed in 1995 for killing a black woman."
I think his execution may have been carried out partially due to his first name.
"Kill them all. Problem solved."
And don't wait 20 years. In cases like Carly Bruscia (Sp?)
where you have the guy on film, you take him out the back door of the court house and drop him where he stands. When he says he had a bad childhood, tell him it is about to get worse.
Another reason to be proud of the South!
They were tried, convicted, appealed. Some folks need killin'. Oregon and Virginia would do well to tell their killers to stay there. Because if they come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill them back. And sometimes there is not a judge and jury involved.
1029 scumbags won't be preying on any more innocent people!
(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)
Ron White (comedian) -
I'm from Texas and in Texas we have the death penalty and we USE it. If you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back. That's our policy. They're trying to pass a bill through the Texas legislature right now that will speed up the process. If you commit certain heinous crimes and there's more than three credible eyewitnesses... if three witnesses saw you do what you did, you don't sit on death row for 15 years making appeals. You go to the head of the line. Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty. My state is putting in an express lane.
it's a good start.
Personally, I think the hanging is the way to go. I don't want their death to so hospital like and anticeptic. Dont't they tranquilize them first?
Hell, let them pace the floor like a caged animal up till they are led away for the last mile. Let them cry out in anguish, pound their fists and heads against the wall as the hour of their death nears. Be nice and put fifty pounds of sand on their feet before they open the trap. Let's hear those words..."hanged until dead."
tater salad
Don't ya just love how the morally superior northerners look down their noses at the south?
And continue to allow murderers and rapists and drug addicts to represent them in conngress and the senate.
"Don't ya just love how the morally superior northerners look down their noses at the south?"
The funny thing is, they start moving down here and end up dropping their attitudes and adopting ours. In a geographic region of Southern Republicans, they'd rather join us than fight us. Except for the true bedwetters of course.
TEXAS...We're #1!!! Just carrying out the justice that other states won't do.
Reminds me of a "Wizard of Id" comic strip I once posted in my office:
King to condemned prisoner: "Any last words?"
Prisoner: "The death penalty doesn't work!"
King: "I'll believe that when I see you again."
That's cold! -- LOL!
State sovereignty -- it wasn't any of the Supreme Court's damned business in the first place.
Typical liberal overreaching, trying to make their pussyfoot into law for everyone.
free dixie,sw
Euroweenies will complain about us killing murderers while they'll ignore China killing tens of thousands political dissidents every year.
Dieter said geographic and other disparities make the words of one U.S. Supreme Court justice in 1972 ring true today: "It is impossible to distinguish the few cases that receive the death penalty from the many that are eligible. Such a punishment is arbitrary and therefore cruel and unusual."
This guy's argument that the death penalty ought to be abolished because it's "arbitrary" is disingenuous and intellectually mendacious.
So was the Supreme Court Justice who penned those words, as if Pennsylvania's laws ought to be the same as Maine's and Alabama's, and if they aren't, then they are "arbitarary". Given our tradition of federalism, so to say is fundamentally dishonest.
Second point, condemning the death penalty on the basis that it is "arbitrary" and therefore "cruel" simply masks the speaker's true motive.
We can't know the merits of his argument unless the arguer articulates it truthfully, instead of hiding behind specious reasoning.
And we should worry about what the Euroweenies think of our death penalty?! They who have been killing off their own for a few hundred years before we became a nation. Like John Locke said, when a person commits murder, they have forfieted their right to live in society. I don't give a crap if they had a bad childhood or not, they have choices, and they chose the wrong path in life. Let 'em apologize to God when they meet HIM face to face. Western justice = a long drop on a short rope.
Uh, "Treason's Northeastern Accent"?
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