Still think Texas has never executed anyone who was innocent?

Nope.

This one:

 

A position I am obviously OK with - I'm just willing to call it what it is and not play all these semantic games about it and use softer terms to describe what it is.

 

Did you read the Guardian story? Or even the bit I posted? Where Hernandez BRAGGED ABOUT BEING THE KILLER?

Also, those guards whose safety several of you are concerned about? They'd tell you that the way to keep prisoners from doing things like killing guards is to give them something to do, even if it's a 13-inch B&W TV.

But prison isn't about beatings or any of that stuff. It's about deprivation of liberty. Sure, the state's buying your dinner. But the state's telling you what you're having. Every. Single. Day. And most of the time, it cost about 40 cents.

 

Thread jack, but I wonder why those found guilty of capital murder can suddenly bring up mitigating factors that all-but-admit guilt so they won't get a death sentence.

 

Of course, this is some of the bio of the fuckhead we are supposed to feel bad for as he was almost on death row for the one crime he apparently did not commit.....

"By the time of his first arrest at 15, Carlos De Luna was a 7th-grade dropout who liked to sniff paint and glue.

His rap sheet eventually would include nearly two dozen crimes, mostly offenses such as public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, auto theft and burglary. He was in and out of juvenile detention, but it wasn't until a 1980 arrest that he faced time in an adult prison.

He was then living with relatives in Dallas and working at a Whataburger franchise. Charged with attempted aggravated rape and driving a stolen vehicle, he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 2 to 3 years.

Paroled in May 1982, De Luna returned to Corpus Christi. Not long after, he attended a party for a former cellmate and was accused of attacking the cellmate's 53-year-old mother. She told police that De Luna broke three of her ribs with one punch, removed her underwear, pulled down his pants, then suddenly left.

He was never prosecuted for the attack, but authorities sent him back to prison on a parole violation. Released again in December of that year, he came back to Corpus Christi and got a job as a concrete worker.

Almost immediately, he was arrested for public intoxication. During the arrest, De Luna allegedly laughed about the wounding of a police officer months earlier and said the officer should have been killed."

Again, he was innocent THIS TIME but I'm assuming it is a matter of time he will be back in the system facing hard time.

 

Yes. Read it, and the entire Trib series I linked to.

Hernandez says he did it. So what? The guy's a sociopath. He might have thought it was hilarious to brag about committing a murder for which another guy was sitting on death row for.

People make false confessions. There was a high profile false confession in the JonBenet case.

I don't see any evidence Hernandez is the murderer. He may very well be. I'd say it was either him, or DeLuca. And, it would be hard to convict either.

And, while it's still a problem, when you've put one man to death for the crime, but I'm not sure you can say it's proof an innocent man was put to death.

 

You might want to read that story just a little bit more closely, as it's kinda, sorta fundamental to the discussion.

 

Got it - the point still stands. This was a criminal who was put to death and based on his rap sheet, the world is a better place.

Fuck him.

 

If it's murder, it's a crime.

A crime is, by definition, not legal.

 

If it is sanctioned by the government, it is legal.

 

I told you this guy wasn't the perfect poster child.

You couldn't even get Zag to feel any sympathy.

 

No, sorry, that's not right. You're saying that because: A) we can't be certain that every person convicted is absolutely guilty; that means B) we can't be certain that any person convicted is absolutely guilty. That's not true.

I recall a case many years ago in another state in which a young man was in the pokey while on trial for sexual assault or some such thing. In the night, somehow he got into it with some other dude who was in there on some "lesser" offense. Guy A somehow manages to beat the shit out of the guy B, then because B's ragged breathing was annoying, stomped on B's face repeatedly until B died. There was absolutely no doubt that A committed murder. There were multiple eyewitnesses. There was video and audio. There was blood and tissue and other physical evidence. And then, to top it all off, A admitted it. That Carlos de Luna turned out to be innocent changes nothing in the way of the certainty that this guy I'm talking about was guilty.