Death Penalty - Tonight Texas executes a 36-year-old who was sentenced at age 15

[matt819]

Someone shared this on FB this morning, suggesting that the 20 minutes it might take to read the storey is worth it, as this man dies tonight.

Coming as it does on the heels of so much other weird shit going on - Puerto Rico, CA wildfires, kneeling, police violence, savaging the first amendment while blindly supporting the second, etc. - it's just one more depressing story of the savage and rogue nation we are.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/the-autobiography-of-robert-pruett

[janterry]

1. No one in their right mind should think this is justice

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. The death penalty is barbaric.

This is heartbreaking.

[WinkyDink]

3. COMPLETELY MISLEADING THREAD TITLE**. He was incarcerated at 15, then, AT TWENTY (20), he was

convicted of murdering a Correctional Officer ("the 20 minutes it might take to read the storey is worth it&quot , THEN he was sentenced to the DP.

I'm not making a judgment call on his life, his guilt, or his innocence. I'm pointing out the legal facts.

**In 2005 the SCOTUS ruled that executing someone for a crime committed AS A JUVENILE is unconstitutional:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62584-2005Mar1.html

[Sneederbunk]

7. +1

[matt819]

10. I realize that

But he wouldn't have been in prison if there was any sort of juvenile justice. He didn't commit the initial crime, and it is uncertain that he actually killed the guard. So, yes, the thread title was misleading, but the essence of it stands. And my reference to savagery stands as well. And, yes, I am opposed to the death penalty. Yes, some criminals may "deserve" the death penalty. For example, the shooter in Las Vegas might have fallen in that category. But the injustices and the scores and scores of death penalty convictions overturned more than suggest that it's time for to reconsider it.

[WinkyDink]

13. Oh, "the ESSENCE," eh? Nope, not acceptable. Your (and my) opinion of the DP wasn't my issue.

[Kaleva]

14. How do you know he didn't commi the initial crime?

He, along with a brother, was sentenced as an accomplice to a murder of a 29 year old neighbor whom his father killed.

[matt819]

16. It's in the article

He was there. He didn't commit the murder. His father did.

[Kaleva]

17. He wasn't charged with the actual murder

He was charged, along with a brother, of being an accomplice to the murder.

Edit: This is mentioned in other articles I read.

[CajunBlazer]

12. But the State of Texas can still take the life of a 15 year old...

By sentencing him to life in prison. Do you believe that more just than just killing him?

[Kaleva]

15. In the news recently was a 16 year old who killed a man and raped an 81 year old woman

[Orrex]

19. The answer is obviously and unquestionably yes.

Unless you can explain how an executed person might be resurrected after new evidence exonerates them, then I am comfortable stating conclusively that life in prison is the better choice.

It's not a matter of what it the sentence says about the prisoner; it's a matter of what it says about us.

[kcr]

18. Okay, thanks. I thought that was clearly unconstitutional.

That would have been egregious, even for Texas.

[Hortensis]

4. Texas elected Gov. W, and then America, AFTER he fought to not to

have to grant retrials to consider the new, potentially exculpatory information that genetic analysis provided. He was merely one person, it was the voters, and nonvoters, who chose these evils.

[WinkyDink]

5. Care to re-write in order to be understood?

[Hortensis]

6. Depicable, depraved votes and not-votes did this, but we won't

see evil intent in the voters' faces or their voices. It's usually not there. Evil brews as results of the cumulative actions of groups.

[WinkyDink]

8. Did not help one iota. "Not-votes"? Do you mean "non-voters"?

Seriously, is English your native tongue?

[Weekend Warrior]

11. This is very strange.

I have seen excellent writing from this individual.

[Weekend Warrior]

9. This murder will be done in our names. We own it.

We are a brutal society.

[JoeStuckInOH]

20. Accomplis to murder @ age 15: Jail Time. Murdering your corrections officer in jail @ age 20...

Well, evidently that gets you the Death penalty.

Allegedly he killed the corrections officer because the officer was writing him up for an infraction of eating a sandwich outside the cafeteria. That's a perfectly justifiable reason to kill someone and completely undeserving of execution.

(is the sarcasm tag needed?)