From World: 2007 Death Penalty statistics, notes and case studies and Secrecy surrounds death penalty;
Michael Richard was executed in Texas, USA, on 25 September after a state courthouse refused to stay open an extra 15 minutes to allow the filing of an appeal based on the constitutionality of lethal injections.
Richard’s attorneys had been unable to file the appeal on time because of computer problems; problems they had already brought to the court’s attention. The US Supreme Court then refused to stop the execution. Earlier in the day, however, it had agreed in a Kentucky case to review the lethal injection issue, a decision that led to a de facto moratorium on all other lethal injection executions around the country. The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected later this year.
…and we know how that turned out.
15 minutes!
From that list, the fact that the USA is the only ‘Western’ country – that they are still partaking in state authorised murder beggars belief.
Link from: Chicken Yoghurt
Maybe his attorneys should have acted in a bit more timely manor? This is a man’s life not a parking ticket.
It’s true though, the death penalty is completely wrong. Hard labor I say. He should have been breaking rocks with a toffee hammer for the rest of his miserable existence.
and of course I’m inclined to agree, the problem sometimes with this debate is people think because one opposes the death penalty that we are on the side of the criminal – this if of course a load of rubbish. Anyone who is proved beyond reasonable doubt of such a bad crime deserves to stay in prison for a long long time, but we as human beings have no right to take his/her life away – anymore than he/her had the right to take the life that bought us to this position in the first place.
Fulla: Maybe his attorneys should have acted in a bit more timely manor? This is a man’s life not a parking ticket.
I’m sure they understood the seriousness of the situation, hence “problems they had already brought to the court’s attention”.
Surely it should’ve been the other way round, Maybe the judge should’ve acted differently instead of being in such a hurry to get to the golf club. probably.