Work to end the death penalty

a little question to pose people:
“do we execute the “20th hijacker” for something he didn’t do? his failure to act on the knowledge he had to prevent the 9/11 attacks may cost him his life because society demands this response to the horrors now being relived. so who will do the killing? what if society picked you to perform the execution? no problem? how about with your bare hands around his neck. you personally will be held accountable for squeezing the life out of this man as he stares into your eyes. can you do it?...”
read the rest at http://tomawesome.blogspot.com

might be our new friend in the court. this news blurb doesn’t mention but it isn’t the discriminatory nature of the justice system that they won on, rather that death by injection was cruel and unusual. just a small step in the right direction:

WASHINGTON—New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito cast his first vote on Wednesday, as the court refused to give Missouri permission to immediately execute a man who killed a teenage honor student.

The court’s 9-0 action was procedural, however, because a stay was already set to expire Wednesday afternoon.

Separately, the court acting without Alito rejected Michael Taylor’s appeal that argued that Missouri’s death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white.

“The death penalty as practiced in the state of Missouri discriminates against African-Americans such as (Taylor), such that it is a badge of slavery,” the justices were told in a filing by Taylor’s lawyer, John William Simon.

Taylor had won a stay until Wednesday afternoon in a lower court, and Missouri wanted the justices to lift that stay. It was the second time in two days that the Supreme Court had turned down a Missouri request to allow it to proceed with the execution. The Tuesday vote, without Alito’s participation, came hours after he won Senate confirmation to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and took the oath.

courtesy of http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/2/1/165223.shtml?s=lh

‘Without an apology, there can be no redemption’
“Is Williams’ redemption complete and sincere, or is it just a hollow promise?” Schwarzenegger wrote less than 12 hours before the execution. “Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption.”

He added: “The facts do not justify overturning the jury’s verdict or the decisions of the courts in this case.”

...I’m sure this was not an easy decision for the governor, but I would have liked to seen better. Who among us really feels better now that this man has been killed?

about this subject. for details go to http://tomawesome.blogspot.com

(from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10251767/)
“Clemency forestalls nation’s 1,000th execution
Virginia governor intervenes; North Carolina inmate next in line

Robin Lovitt, convicted in 1999 of killing a pool hall employee, was spared execution after last-minute intervention from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.
AP file
Updated: 8:56 p.m. ET Nov. 29, 2005
RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia’s governor on Tuesday spared the life of a convicted killer who would have been the 1,000th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.

Robin Lovitt’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole a little more than 24 hours before he was to be executed by injection Wednesday night for stabbing a man to death with a pair of scissors during a 1998 pool-hall robbery.

In granting clemency, Gov. Mark R. Warner noted that evidence from the trial had been improperly destroyed, depriving the defense of the opportunity to subject the material to the latest in DNA testing…”

well done Gov.! nobody wants to be responsible for the 1000th execution I hope…

there is a campaign (www.tookie.com) to spare this guys life. google him and see what kinds of activites are going on. he is scheduled to be executed in December at San Quentin. if Ah-nold was a real man he’d show some real courage and not kill this individual.

I recommend this as a first step. get yourself educated. once you have the facts, then you can start debating with people and steer them to our side.