The Death Penalty in action - issues updates and the ongoing debate

[JohnLanders]

https://www.4029tv.com/article/us-ca...ades/33308823#

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. —
The U.S. has carried out the first federal execution in nearly two decades, putting to death a man who was convicted of killing an Arkansas family in the 1990s in a plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.

Forty-seven-year-old Daniel Lewis Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, died Tuesday after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Lee is the first death row inmate to be executed since 2003.

Lee's last words were: “You’re killing an innocent man.”

Lee's execution came over the objection of the victims’ family and following a series of legal challenges related to the raging coronavirus pandemic.

An Execution has taken place.

[Queena]

I'm against the death penalty. The way that this country seeks vengeance is so disturbing to me. Look on the comments of almost any news article and the public is talking about basically lynching the accused before a trial. It's sick. I'm sure that I'm alone in my thoughts. Tbh the death penalty reminds me of the lynchings that were used against my people. This is the only so called civilized country that practices the death penalty.

I'm quite sure that I will feel this way if something were to happen to someone in my family. I get no pleasure from death.

[puzzld]

I think this is a good way to look at the issue.

I have been on both sides of the issue in my life, and done a complete 180. I was pro death penalty back when I was in LE, but over the years started changing my mind. Now I am very against it for many reasons: possibility of innocence, cost for death row inmates is much higher than life in prison inmates, barbaricness of it.

When I lived in TX and was transitioning my viewpoint, I was talking with a bunch of coworkers about it and brought up the fact that if you support the death penalty you should be willing to advocate for death if your brother or mother was accused of a Capital Murder. They all got really mad and said "you can't bring family into this". That's the point though, you have to think about it like that in my mind, or you're a HUGE hypocrite. If it's good enough for every one else, then it's good enough for you and your family. I think looking at it from the victim's family viewpoint it also important...would you be willing to ask for no death penalty if your loved one was killed and you had been against the DP in the past?

I actually think we would be a lot better off as a nation if we would look at more things (abortion, immigration, etc) in this manner, but we as a nation want to pretend that it only happens to other people and doesn't affect us, so as a nation we develop very set in stone viewpoints on things we don't fully understand or think is beneath us.

It's just so pointless. The Ted Bundy's of the world are obviously not deterred by the possibility of the dp. And if it's not about deterrence, what's the point? Vengeance? We keep someone on ice for 16 years and then we put them to sleep? That doesn't seem very satisfactory to me. We spend a ton of money and for what.

If we want to reduce crime we need to find a way to deal with the causes. If we want vengeance, give the victims survivors the power to determine the punishment. (not practical, but...)

[Queena]

I agree with all of your points Puzzld and RBW. I take no pleasure in most deaths. Sure there are some that I do not feel sorry for, but if given the chance, I wouldn't kill anyone. Legally or illegally. I think back to the guy in Texas who was killed, and they used faulty science (it was a fire). Think about the people because of teeth marks. Or those who are only there based on eyewitnesses. It's such a slippery slope and I don't think that you can ever be 100% sure. I remember one guy who said that he was innocent right up until the very last moment. Years later DNA test says that he was guilty. Let's just do away with the dp and let them rot in prison.

[Angiebla]

I was reading about a 4 year old girl who was killed by her mother's boyfriend while the mother was out of town. She was tortured for 10 days. She had 66 bites marks, different degrees. She was hit so hard with an extension cord she had copper imbeded in her skin. She had over 144 injuries and a brain bleed. The forensic odontologist said he prayed she was dead because of her injuries.

That guy deserved the death penalty.

[Bewitchingstorm]

I was reading about a 4 year old girl who was killed by her mother's boyfriend while the mother was out of town. She was tortured for 10 days. She had 66 bites marks, different degrees. She was hit so hard with an extension cord she had copper imbeded in her skin. She had over 144 injuries and a brain bleed. The forensic odontologist said he prayed she was dead because of her injuries.

That guy deserved the death penalty.

Agree. I also feel that the guys who were responsible for the Petit family murders in CT deserve the death penalty.

[Angiebla]

Agree. I also feel that the guys who were responsible for the Petit family murders in CT deserve the death penalty.

Yes they definately did! I think one of them is off death row.

[jennafyre]

That is wild. The article stated that although a jury voted 11-1 for a life sentence, a judge overrode them and gave him a death sentence.

[raisedbywolves]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...e/75298897007/

Marcellus Williams executed in Missouri amid strong innocence claims: 'It is murder'

Missouri executed Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams on Tuesday in the 1998 killing of a former newspaper reporter despite a prosecutor in the case and the family of the victim saying his life should be spared.

Williams, who always maintained his innocence − a claim backed by not only his defense team but later prosecutors − is now the third inmate executed in Missouri this year and the 15th in the nation. He was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. following the lethal injection, the Missouri Department of Corrections reported.

The execution came despite one of the prosecutors in the case saying that Williams' life should be spared because DNA did not connect him to the case. Critics are calling the execution murder.

[Bewitchingstorm]

There was another execution yesterday in Texas.

Texas executed Travis James Mullis on Tuesday for killing his infant son in 2008, making him the fourth inmate executed in the nation's busiest death penalty state this year and the 16th in the nation.

Mullis was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m., according to Amanda Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Mullis was convicted of murdering his 3-month-old son Alijah, who was molested, stomped to death and abandoned at the Galveston’s Seawall, a popular tourist destination just south of Houston. Mullis, who was 21 at the time, said he had reached a "breaking point" the day he killed Alijah after the baby wouldn't stop crying.

Travis Mullis used his last words to thank and apologize to loved ones, including the mother of his child and the victim's family.

"I do regret the decision to take the life of my son. I apologize to the mother of my son, the victim's family," he said. "I have no ill will towards the court, the judicial system, the prosecution or the execution protocol. The morality of execution is between you and God ... It was my decision that put me here. I'm ready Warden.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...n/75351792007/

[Bewitchingstorm]

Garcia Glenn White was executed by lethal injection in Texas on Tuesday for the murder of 16-year-old identical twin sisters 35 years ago. The execution makes him the sixth death row inmate killed in the U.S. in the past 11 days, an unusually large cluster.

White, who became the fifth man executed in Texas this year, confessed to murdering five people in a six-year period but prosecutors only pursued charges for the teenage girls. He was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m.

"I apologize, and I pray that you can find peace, comfort and closure in your heart for the wrong I have done and the pain I have caused you, and anybody else I’ve caused pain to," White said as he was strapped to the execution table, apologizing to some of his victims' family members. "I’m sorry for all the pain I have caused."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...s/75473668007/

[Angiebla]

Im glad they seem to have some guilt about what they did.

I know it wont bring the victims back, but at least they have justice.

Losing your temper with a baby doesnt cause you to molest them. And you dont accidentally kill 5 people.

Good riddance.

[Bewitchingstorm]

Alabama executed Carey Dale Grayson for the 1994 brutal slaying and mutilation of a hitchhiker in Jefferson County on Thursday evening, making it the state’s sixth execution in 2024.

Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for 50-year-old Grayson to be killed using the relatively new method of pumping nitrogen gas into a mask fitted over an inmate’s face and suffocating him to death.

Grayson used his last words to curse the warden in charge of the prison.

Grayson was convicted with three other men-- all teenagers at the time-- for the murder and mutilation of 37-year-old Vicki Lynn Deblieux.

The woman had been hitchhiking when she was picked up by the group of teenagers. Her body was found days later at the base of a cliff.

The prison warden read the death warrant and pointed the microphone to Grayson’s face to utter his last words, but then immediately backed off after Grayson said, “For you, you need to f*** off.”

Grayson, at one point, also pointed up the middle finger on at least his left hand, which was visible to media witnesses.

“He’s cussed out most of our employees tonight so we were not going to give him the opportunity to spew that profanity,” said Commissioner John Hamm on why the warden took away the microphone.

But following Grayson’s death, his attorney and spiritual advisor Kacey Keeton said that Grayson had more to say when the microphone was taken away.

Keeton said Grayson talked about how he committed a horrible crime and how sorry he was for it, adding that he had been sorry for over 30 years.

According to Keeton, Grayson said he repented and that he was saved and knows God, and hopes for forgiveness.

https://www.al.com/news/2024/11/live...94-murder.html

[Nic B]

"Grayson used his last words to curse the warden in charge of the prison"

Hahahahahaha that's hilarious.

[Bewitchingstorm]

It was rather godly of him.

[raisedbywolves]

I was curious about the other killers and if they got the death penalty too. They were all under 18 at the time of the crime. One was 16 and just got a life sentence. Two others were given the death penalty but it was later commuted to life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Vickie_Deblieux

Kenneth Loggins and Trace Duncan, were 17 at the time of the offense. Their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 2006, after Alabama agreed to change the law and prohibit the execution of minors younger than 18 at the time of their offenses, leaving the final member, Carey Dale Grayson, to remain on death row.[2][3]

[Nic B]

Holy shit, they were monsters:

"Deblieux's face was so badly shattered that she was recognized from a previous X-ray of her spine. Her fingers had also been cut off. Investigators revealed that the four teenagers were identified as suspects after one of them displayed a severed finger to a friend and bragged about the murder"

[Bewitchingstorm]

How terrible. They indeed were monsters.

[Bewitchingstorm]

A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for the 2007 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl who knew him as “Uncle Chris” — with the killer telling observers he hopes to see them “in heaven one day.”

Christopher Collings, 49, was declared dead nine minutes after he was injected with a single dose of pentobarbital inside a state prison in Bonne Terre — marking the 23rd execution in the US this year.

The father of two was found guilty of the murder of little Rowan Ford, who was sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in a sinkhole in a small Missouri town.

“Right or wrong I accept this situation for what it is,” Collings said in a written final statement.

“To anyone that I have hurt in this life I am sorry. I hope that you are able to get closure and move on.

His last meal was a bacon cheeseburger, breaded mushrooms, tater tots and a chef salad.

https://nypost.com/2024/12/04/us-new...-ford-in-2007/