Texas Executes Mexican

[Lucky... 0]

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Right, 90% liberal, yet 5 of the last 7 presidential terms were served by neo-con garbage.

Like I said.. THEY believe that 90% of the country is liberal.. since only about 10% are that far right of center.. it does skew the shit out of things.

They see liberals hiding behind every tree.. just waiting to give away their jobs to minorities

I hear ya, I was poking fun at their ill-perception, not yours. With us or against us and no, we're not lock-stepped....RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT.

[normiss 640]

most people that are in favor of the death penalty seem that way...so long as that 1 innocent isn't someone they know and care about...once it IS, then they oppose the death penalty.

[Lucky... 0]

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> You're willing to place a dollar value on someone's life?

Once they forfeit their lives by taking another's - yes. Whatever's cheaper.

>The legal costs associate with the death penalty and the time it takes
>to get to that event seem to usually cost more than a life sentence.

That's fine. If that's the case, then life in prison works better. The important thing is that they never have a chance to kill another innocent person.

Arguments for the DP are dead-ended. In order to make it cheaper we woul have to abreviate it, causing more innocent people to be sucked in. COuld you imagine the dirty, dirty cops and prosecutors slamming people thru if they knew they would be under less scrutiny?

[gemini 0]

FYI: Mamma's little boy...

Jose Medellin is a convicted rapist. Jose Medellin is a convicted murderer. Fourteen years ago he was sentenced to death for participating in the gang rape and murder of Elizabeth Pena, 16 and Jennifer Ertman who was 14. The girls had tragically wandered upon a gang initiation.

The girls were raped and strangled with a belt and shoelace after they stumbled into a drunken gang initiation rite while cutting through the park to get home before their curfew.

The victims were abused for an hour, then killed to prevent them from identifying their tormentors. Mr. Medellin strangled one girl with her shoelaces, the trial revealed.

The center of the dispute is Jose E. Medellin a onetime gang member in Houston who took part in the rape and slaying of two teenaged girls on June 24, 1993.

Medellin, a Mexican national who spent most of his life in the United States, was condemned for the June 1993 murders of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Peña, 16.

Four days after the crime, a tip from a gang member's brother led authorities to the bodies, then to the suspects.

Within three hours of his arrest, Medellin admitted his role in the gruesome murders, appalling authorities with his boastful, callous description of the night's events.

On June 24, 1993, Medellín performed a gang initiation in a park along with five others, Peter Cantu, Roman Sandoval, Efrain Perez, Raul Villareal and Sean O'Brien.

Two others, Frank Sandoval and Venancio Medellín, were present but did not participate in the initiation.

The initiation involved the new member, Raul Villareal, submitting to beatings from the others.
After this, the gang members remained in the park, drinking beer.

At this time, 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena were taking a shortcut through the park to get home before curfew.

They encountered the gang, and Medellín began talking to Pena. She attempted to flee, but he forced her to the ground. Pena cried for help and Ertman ran back to assist her. In response, Cantu and O'Brien pushed her down as well. Roman and Frank Sandoval chose to leave then.

The remainder of the gang, as well as Venancio Medellín, took turns vaginally and anally raping the two girls.

Afterwards, they were beaten, then the gang decided to murder the girls so they would not be identified as the rapists. Medellín killed one of the girls by using his shoelaces to strangle her, then crushing her neck with his foot.

Other gang members strangled the remaining girl with a nylon belt, until the belt snapped.

Medellín, Villareal, Perez, and Cantu then congregated at Cantu's home, where he lived along with his brother, Joe Cantu, and sister-in-law, Christina Cantu.

Christina Cantu questioned why Villareal was bleeding and Perez had a bloody shirt.

This prompted Medellín to say the gang "had fun", and that details would appear on the news. He then elaborated that he had raped both girls.

Peter Cantu then returned, and divvied up valuables that had been stolen from the girls. Medellín got a ring with an 'E', so he could give it to his girlfriend, Esther. Medellín reported that he had killed a girl, and noted that he would have found it easier with a gun.

Derrick Sean O'Brien was videotaped smiling at the scene of the crime.

After the gang left, Christina Cantu convinced Joe Cantu to report the crime to police.

Four days after the crime, the bodies were found in the park. They were badly decaying, and dental records were used for identification. The medical examiner corroborated that the cause of death was strangulation.

All those believed responsible were ultimately arrested. Medellín, after receiving his Miranda warning, gave both a written and taped confession.

[Excerpted from various articles and court testimony.]

Blue skies,

Jim

[Lucky... 0]

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I agree with removing them as a threat.
I cannot support killing for killing.
As a parent I always thought it foolish to teach a child not to hit by hitting them. I think the same principle applies here.

I've said that for some time, corporal punishment: hit people hard and with more frequency until they behave as you wish. Hnmmmm, wonder what we teach them? Then they watch the news and watch us kill (execute people daily sometimes)....but at least they see no boobies

[Lucky... 0]

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most people that are in favor of the death penalty seem that way...so long as that 1 innocent isn't someone they know and care about...once it IS, then they oppose the death penalty.

Right, Americans are not well read and don't understand these things.

[Butters 0]

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I agree with removing them as a threat.
I cannot support killing for killing.
As a parent I always thought it foolish to teach a child not to hit by hitting them. I think the same principle applies here.

I've said that for some time, corporal punishment: hit people hard and with more frequency until they behave as you wish. Hnmmmm, wonder what we teach them? Then they watch the news and watch us kill (execute people daily sometimes)....but at least they see no boobies

Can you not distinguish between a person breaking into a house and murdering someone and a person being executed because they broke into a house and murdered someone?

"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch

[Amazon 7]

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Wait, you weren't actually expecting a reasoned, rational position from her, with consistency and everything, were you? Yeah, right!

You know how many times I've read the opinions of death-penalty opponents, who say it's cruel and inhumane to execute murderers, who then say that we should be happy to give them life in prison because of how cruel and sucky life in prison is, and how torturous to spend decades behind dank walls in a tiny cell? So on one hand, they are all about compassion and being humane, and on the other hand, tell us that we should support life in prison because it's a great way to make life torture for the condemned. This is the "consistency" of the left.

Tsk Tsk Tsk

Poor Jeffrey

ITs been a while but welcome back to making your typical PA's


Number one

I guess when everything to the LEFT of you looks like a liberal in your mind.. I guess you could believe the phallacy you put forth.

Number two.
I am an opponent of the death penalty.. because I do not think is is a good thing for our government...ANY government to have the right to murder their citizens for ANY reason.

ITs a waste of our money.

Its an easy out for the criminal who needs to be PUNISHED.

IF.. and that is a BIG IF.. they are ever found to NOT have commited the crime.. and are indeed innocent..they can be let out.

If this is the case then they are alive and can be let out.. and I expect the STATE who made that mistake to PAY for THEIR mistake and compensate them for thier screwup. If there was malfeasance on the part of the police OR the persecutor.. they need to take the place of the former criminal.

Number three..

I support life in prison because I believe in PUNISHMENT... and rapists and pedophiles need to be there for life.. since the victims get to relive their attacks for LIFE.

Life in prison to me means just that.. you get sentenced and you stay there till you DIE... not let them out for good behavior or ANY other reason. If a little bit of societal payback comes your way.. well too fuckin bad.

[Lucky... 0]

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I agree with removing them as a threat.
I cannot support killing for killing.
As a parent I always thought it foolish to teach a child not to hit by hitting them. I think the same principle applies here.

I've said that for some time, corporal punishment: hit people hard and with more frequency until they behave as you wish. Hnmmmm, wonder what we teach them? Then they watch the news and watch us kill (execute people daily sometimes)....but at least they see no boobies

Can you not distinguish between a person breaking into a house and murdering someone and a person being executed because they broke into a house and murdered someone?

I was addressing the other poster's point on corporal punishment.

As for the DP, dangle more pictures of defenseless victims to forget about the innocent people executed.....better yet, just ignore the obvious truth.

[skittles_of_SDC 0]

After reading that I hope he didn't get lethal injection, thats too good for people like him.
Texas still does the chair, right?

[billvon 2,466]

>is life expectancy will still be longer as a lifer than it will with capital
>punishment.

Probably true, but I don't really care all that much.

>And in prison, there are other people who he might have a chance to
>murder. And not just a guard - a convicted bugrlar who gets murdered in
>prison is still an innocent victim of his murder.

Agreed. However, it is considerably easier to keep a murderer from murdering other people when he's in a steel cage than when he's living in an apartment across from an elementary school.

[skittles_of_SDC 0]

the thing about child predators is you don't have to give them the death penalty. they get a vigilante death penalty courtesy of the other "moral" inmates.

[jenfly00 0]

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> So on one hand, they are all about compassion and being humane,
>and on the other hand, tell us that we should support life in prison
>because it's a great way to make life torture for the condemned.

I don't really care about their feelings either way. Once they murder someone they lose their rights. Assuming a working justice system, either put them in jail for life or execute them, whatever's cheaper.

Yep. That about sums it up for me.

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"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[mnealtx 0]

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> So on one hand, they are all about compassion and being humane,
>and on the other hand, tell us that we should support life in prison
>because it's a great way to make life torture for the condemned.

I don't really care about their feelings either way. Once they murder someone they lose their rights. Assuming a working justice system, either put them in jail for life or execute them, whatever's cheaper.

Yep. That about sums it up for me.

Agreed.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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Over 300 years? How about 217 years.

Oops how embarrasing. I must have been using "conservative math" (kind of like "conservative spelling").

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[normiss 640]

"Probably true, but I don't really care all that much. "

Isn't it nice when people value life so little?
Yet we wonder why murderers have no value for it either???

Thanks for telling us how you honestly feel about someone's life Bill.

[Lucky... 0]

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> So on one hand, they are all about compassion and being humane,
>and on the other hand, tell us that we should support life in prison
>because it's a great way to make life torture for the condemned.

I don't really care about their feelings either way. Once they murder someone they lose their rights. Assuming a working justice system, either put them in jail for life or execute them, whatever's cheaper.

Yep. That about sums it up for me.

Great point, it's also cheaper to execute innocent people than to jail them forever.

[jenfly00 0]

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> So on one hand, they are all about compassion and being humane,
>and on the other hand, tell us that we should support life in prison
>because it's a great way to make life torture for the condemned.

I don't really care about their feelings either way. Once they murder someone they lose their rights. Assuming a working justice system, either put them in jail for life or execute them, whatever's cheaper.

Yep. That about sums it up for me.

Great point, it's also cheaper to execute innocent people than to jail them forever.

Pssst ...got enough to share?

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"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[birdlike 0]

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Different subject, sort of
Where's the line between
"I crawled under the fence and deserve to be treated like a citizen" and "I crawled under the fence and deserve to be treated like an alien"?

There is no need for a "line" there.

Where's the line between, "I got money from you by stealing it from you at knifepoint and I deserve to go spend it," and "I got money from you by working for my day's wage and I deserve to go spend it"?

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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All those believed responsible were ultimately arrested. Medellín, after receiving his Miranda warning, gave both a written and taped confession.

Sounds like he got all the motherfuckin' due process a piece of shit needs in a case like this.

Thank you for reproducing the graphic details of this story so that the whiners can see just what the fuck they are defending. Thank you very much for that.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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> So on one hand, they are all about compassion and being humane,
>and on the other hand, tell us that we should support life in prison
>because it's a great way to make life torture for the condemned.

I don't really care about their feelings either way. Once they murder someone they lose their rights. Assuming a working justice system, either put them in jail for life or execute them, whatever's cheaper.

Billvon, you are pro-death penalty? Or rather, you are not opposed to it? I am surprised to learn that.

Now, as for "whatever's cheaper," it seems to me that the only reason the death penalty is more expensive is all of the appeals granted to the condemned. In some states, there's AUTOMATIC appeal. How much sense does that make? It's like a tacit admission that the justice system hands down verdicts even as it admits there's a good chance it might be wrong.

If we said, "Verdict's in; it's guilty; come with us" and put a bullet into the killer's skull, capital punishment would be mighty inexpensive.

I guess that in the current situation, capital punishment is more expensive than just warehousing criminals for life because since it takes 20 years to get the criminal finally executed, he's been sucking up that $40k/year cost of being incarcerated! And then you add the court costs of all his appeals. Take away the appeals, and you take away the need to warehouse him for $40k/year, kill him expeditiously and promptly and you saved all that money.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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You're willing to place a dollar value on someone's life? They hype over the cost of keeping someone in prison for life costing more than the death penalty doesn't appear to be very well supported. The legal costs associate with the death penalty and the time it takes to get to that event seem to usually cost more than a life sentence.

I agree if convicted of a capital offense the rules change somewhat, but we're still talking about life. An irreversable action if later found to be incorrect.

How does it differ from being incorrect and letting the guy rot in prison for sixty years until his death? Dead is dead, regardless of how long it took, if you were wrongly convicted.

And ironically, I'll bet that the system and the prisoners' advocates take a lot harder of a look at the trial that got a guy sentenced to death than at the trial that got a guy sentenced to life.

Imagine being the lifer who is standing at the bars begging someone to take another look at the fraudulent evidence that was used to wrongly convict him, and being told, "Hey, do you mind, we have limited resources and this guy was sentenced to DIE in 20 years so he's our priority, ok?!" So you sit for decades because everyone wants to prove the condemned guy innocent.

So how is life imprisonment so much fairer if there's been an error?

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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That's fine. If that's the case, then life in prison works better. The important thing is that they never have a chance to kill another innocent person.

But that's just the thing. Anyone dangerous who's warehoused in a prison after murdering represents a clear danger to anyone with whom he comes in contact.

Example: How would you like it if your nephew got sentenced to 36 months for some bullshit pot arrest, and then because he looked at the wrong mofo the wrong way in the joint, he gets shanked in the yard and DIES IN PRISON WHILE THERE FOR POT, because some SHITBAG MURDERER WAS ALSO THERE, BUT WAS GIVEN LIFE INSTEAD OF EXECUTION?

Then there is always the issue of guards who are just doing their (dangerous) jobs, and get killed by prisoners.

I see it as safer all around--for the guards, for the other inmates (who may not be such bad people, depending on what they got bagged for), for society in general.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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I agree with removing them as a threat.
I cannot support killing for killing.
As a parent I always thought it foolish to teach a child not to hit by hitting them. I think the same principle applies here.

Do you not give children credit for being able to understand the difference?

You don't hit a kid to show him that hitting is wrong, I agree.
But that is not the same as executing someone who has killed, and holding him up to those you wish to teach that murder is wrong.

Execution is not murder. They are both killing, but they are not equivalents. Skydiving and committing suicide off a building are both falling, but are they the same?

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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most people that are in favor of the death penalty seem that way...so long as that 1 innocent isn't someone they know and care about...once it IS, then they oppose the death penalty.

The same goes for the 1 innocent person who is killed by a murderer that we should have put to death. As long as the murderer's next victim is not your relative, you don't mind letting him go on living.

This example of yours certainly goes both ways. See my other example, about someone in prison for something minor, who is exposed to a high concentration of depraved, violent people, including murderers, and has to hope he doesn't get murdered in prison because you insisted that was where we should warehouse the most vile killers we have.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire