He pleaded guilty (political)

[rgraham666]

Jim Adkisson was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Universalist Church murders.

Good. Don't let him out.

After he was sentenced he released his 'manifesto'. Don't read this if you're not ready. It's really fucking scary.

 

[Guest]

Jim Adkisson was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Universalist Church murders.

Good. Don't let him out.

After he was sentenced he released his 'manifesto'. Don't read this if you're not ready. It's really fucking scary.

That's not ami, is it?

Or maybe JBJ?

Wow.

 

[rgraham666]

That's not ami, is it?

Or maybe JBJ?

Wow.

I comfort myself that people like him aren't common.

On the other hand it takes only a few of them to pull another 9/11.

 

[sadangel]

The guy pleaded guilty. Screw life in prison. Give him an automatic death penalty. No appeals.

God, the guy is fucking crazy. I know...that's half the point.

For the record, I don't normally go with the death sentance...but in this case.....

I comfort myself that people like him aren't common.

On the other hand it takes only a few of them to pull another 9/11.

That's just too true. <deep sigh>

 

[Boxlicker101]

The guy pleaded guilty. Screw life in prison. Give him an automatic death penalty. No appeals.

God, the guy is fucking crazy. I know...that's half the point.

For the record, I don't normally go with the death sentance...but in this case.....


That's just too true. <deep sigh>

I strongly agree with the death penalty. I don't know if TN has one or not, but they should. I am an advocate of the death penalty when it is appropriate, and this is one of those times. I always look askance at "insanity" pleas. I believe if some guy is kill-crazy, all the more reason to remove him as a threat to society. After all, we kill rabid dogs, don't we?

 

[R. Richard]

I agree with the idea of executing the guy. Why should the taxpayer give the guy free room, board and medical care for the rest of his life? His own idea is that people who don't do 'what they are supposed to do' should die. Why deny him his own idea of how the world is to be run?

 

[rgraham666]

I'll post my objections to the death penalty yet again.

1. You can't fix mistakes.

2. It's not going to be carried out fairly.

3. It's usually a political tool, not a judicial one.

 

[sadangel]

I'll post my objections to the death penalty yet again.

1. You can't fix mistakes.

2. It's not going to be carried out fairly.

3. It's usually a political tool, not a judicial one.

I agree usually. But when they plead guilty, I figure they should get what they set out to do anyway. He wanted the cops to kill him. He went on a murdering spree for that reason.
They just didn't kill him then.

Normally, I object to the death penalty for the reasons you stated and more.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SARAH

You'd enjoy my horror stories.

"Rob" and his mother "Roberta" operate a drive-in movie.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I'll post my objections to the death penalty yet again.

1. You can't fix mistakes.

2. It's not going to be carried out fairly.

3. It's usually a political tool, not a judicial one.

1. I agree, which is why proof of guilt must be absolute. Prison snitches should never be believed, as long as the snitch might get some benefit. Guilt must actually be proven. There have been some cases, Scott Peterson for one, where there was little or no actual proof.

2. Can you prove this. I have heard there is a racial bias in passing death sentences, but I also believe that tangerines are being compared with grapefruit. By that I mean that a killing as part of a fight betwen two street gangs is compared to the senseless murder of a store clerk or kidnap victim.

3. Not in the USA. Sometimes people are put to death in other contries for political beliefs or activities, but not here. There may be people in the USA who are in prison for such things, but not on Death Row, unless the "political crime" is an assassination or a mass murder such as was committed by Timothy McVeigh.

 

[sadangel]

Part of my reason for normally objecting to the death penalty is that too many people that have since been proven innocent have already been put to death. Too many that now, they can say without doubt didn't do it. But they have already been put to death. Rob is right. You can't fix that mistake.

Um. I think anyone fairly observant knows that it hasn't been used fairly already. Again, innocent people already put to death. What more proof is needed?

Yes, IN the USA, it is often times political. It has been for decades and much, much longer. Even I know that and I'm not the world's most politically savvy person and know that. There are most definitely people on Death Row today and are there because it suits someone's political agenda. To think otherwise.....<shakes head> Perhaps you view a different US then I do.

I'd love to think our justice system is without flaw. It isn't. It hasn't been from day one. It needs to fixed like so many other things. Yes, ours is better, perhaps than many, but it is far from perfect.

In this case I am not objecting, only because he has pleaded guilty. Admitted to the crime. Also. it's the part of me that knows what murder does to people, their families. It's personal. My emotions cloud my better judgment sometimes. I'm human. I know that rationally, I should object to even this time of there being a death penalty. I'm still working on that.

I do hope that he never gets out no matter what. Not to plead later to insanity or anything like that.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Part of my reason for normally objecting to the death penalty is that too many people that have since been proven innocent have already been put to death. Too many that now, they can say without doubt didn't do it. But they have already been put to death. Rob is right. You can't fix that mistake.

Um. I think anyone fairly observant knows that it hasn't been used fairly already. Again, innocent people already put to death. What more proof is needed?

Yes, IN the USA, it is often times political. It has been for decades and much, much longer. Even I know that and I'm not the world's most politically savvy person and know that. There are most definitely people on Death Row today and are there because it suits someone's political agenda. To think otherwise.....<shakes head> Perhaps you view a different US then I do.

I'd love to think our justice system is without flaw. It isn't. It hasn't been from day one. It needs to fixed like so many other things. Yes, ours is better, perhaps than many, but it is far from perfect.

In this case I am not objecting, only because he has pleaded guilty. Admitted to the crime. Also. it's the part of me that knows what murder does to people, their families. It's personal. My emotions cloud my better judgment sometimes. I'm human. I know that rationally, I should object to even this time of there being a death penalty. I'm still working on that.

I do hope that he never gets out no matter what. Not to plead later to insanity or anything like that.

What persons have actually proven innocent after being put to death? I'm not saying it has never happened, but I don't know of any cases, at least not in the last hundred years. I would agree that have been a few whose guilt I would consider to be doubtful, but I would not say these people have been proven innocent.

Can you tell me a case in the last hundred years where a person has been convicted and put to death for political reasons? I don't believe this has happened to an innocent person. I will concede that there may have been times when a person's political beliefs and activities may have contributed to the severity of the sentence, but that would not involve innocent persons. There have also been criminals who were politically motivated, and were put to death for their crimes. This would include Timothy McVeigh and the Rosenbergs, and maybe some others. However, I don't believe there has been a person in the last hundred years or more who has been wrongfully convicted because of a political agenda, and put to death. I would be willing to read any proof you might have that this has happened.

 

[sadangel]

Determining Innocence After An Execution

This report does not include in its totals the cases of possibly innocent persons who have been executed. Reports of executions of innocent people weighed heavily in some other countries' decisions to stop using the death penalty. Two American researchers, Professors Hugo Bedau and Michael Radelet, reported 23 instances in which innocent people have been executed in the United States in this century.39

Among the cases noted by Bedau and Radelet are cases in the south of black men tried by all white juries and executed for the rape of a white woman. In some of these cases, subsequent evidence revealed that the woman had an ongoing sexual relation with the accused, but such evidence was considered either unbelievable or irrelevant at the time.

The difficulty with such cases is that generally no court decides that an executed person was innocent. Courts hear current cases brought by live petitioners. Whether an executed person was innocent becomes a matter of historical research (which is rarely undertaken) and an evolving consensus among the public. This is a much slower and less precise process than a retrial ending in an acquittal.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/523

Recent Cases of Possible Mistaken Executions
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, there have been inmates with reasonably credible claims of innocence who were nevertheless executed, some without a full review of those claims. In 1992, for example, Roger Keith Coleman made headlines with his dual plea that he was innocent and that no court would review his evidence.40

Coleman's representation at trial was shoddy. On appeal, his new attorneys misread the state statute governing the time for submitting an appeal and filed their brief a day too late. The Virginia state courts held that this late filing was the same as no filing and refused to review his issues. The federal courts then said that he could not raise a federal claim because he had waived his state review. Finally, the Supreme Court said that he could not complain that it was his attorney who erred, since he was not entitled to an attorney in the first place.41 Coleman was executed without a full review of his innocence claims.

Leonel Herrera may have been innocent, but he was not innocent enough to satisfy the Supreme Court.42 A former Texas judge submitted an affidavit stating that another man had confessed to the crime for which Herrera was facing execution. Numerous other pieces of new evidence also threw doubt on his conviction. Still, the Court said that at this late stage of his appeal, he needed an extraordinary amount of proof to stop his execution. He was executed in Texas in 1993.

Another kind of innocence was illustrated in the case of Jesse Jacobs, who was executed in Texas on January 4, 1995.43 Jacobs had been convicted and sentenced to death after the state had put on evidence to show that he was the actual killer in an abduction ending in murder which also involved a co-defendant. At the later trial of the co-defendant, the state reversed its story and said it was the co-defendant, not Jacobs, who pulled the trigger. In fact, the prosecution used (and thus vouched for) Jacobs's own testimony that he did not do the shooting and did not even know that his co-defendant had a gun. The co-defendant was also convicted, though not sentenced to death. Despite the admission by the prosecution that the arguments they made at Jacobs's trial were false, Jacobs was executed.

Jacobs was not innocent in the full sense of the word. He had admittedly participated in the underlying crime, but it is doubtful that the jury would have sentenced him to death if the prosecutors had acknowledged that he was not directly involved in the actual murder. Three Supreme Court Justices were highly critical of this deception on the prosecution's part. Justice Stevens wrote: "It would be fundamentally unfair to execute a person on the basis of a factual determination that the state has formally disavowed. I find this course of events deeply troubling."44

Senator Arlen Specter, an ardent death penalty supporter and former district attorney, was also distressed at this development, and in addressing the Senate he warned against such impositions of the death penalty in "a callous or unreasonable fashion."45 The European Parliament likewise passed a resolution expressing "shock" at this execution; there were no votes opposing the resolution.46

The recent execution of Coleman Wayne Gray in Virginia is another example of improper state tactics used to tip the balance toward a death sentence. At the time of Gray's sentencing hearing, the state circumvented the rules of disclosure and at the last minute raised the prospect of other notorious offenses by Gray (even though he had not been charged in these alleged offenses). With no chance to adequately refute these allegations, Gray was sentenced to death. Federal District Court Judge James Spencer found the state's action unfair, but found himself constrained by the new Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 from granting Gray any relief. He wrote: "One cannot morally support the death penalty without some assurance, by evidence or faith, that the ultimate penalty is imposed fairly." Gray was executed on February 26, 1997.47
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/523

Actually, just read the entire article. Even the article states:

The most obvious reason for the increase in the number of innocent cases being discovered among those on death row is the overall expansion of the death penalty. The number of people on death row has been increasing6, and this expansion is likely to continue as states and the federal government broaden the death penalty to new crimes, and new states such as New York and Kansas begin sentencing people to death. With the greater use of the death penalty, there is a greater likelihood of mistakes.

Secondly, the death penalty has become even more political as legislators, prosecutors, and even judges promote the death penalty in their campaigns7. This results in the expansion of death penalty crimes and a shorter and narrower appeal process. Prosecutors, with virtually unbridled discretion to seek the death penalty, may pursue a death sentence even when the evidence is weak, and they may be reluctant to change course when contradictory evidence later arises.8 Even judges, many of whom are also subject to elections, can be influenced in their decisions to ignore evidence of innocence unless it is absolutely irrefutable. And recent changes in the appeals process, especially in federal courts, have made it more likely that executions will proceed even in the face of evidence raising doubts about a defendant's guilt.9

 

[rgraham666]

I couldn't find U.S. stats but I did find Racial Statistics of Death Row inmates in Texas. 2/3rds of them are black or Hispanic.

That's a pretty definitive political statement for me.

 

[Guest]

C'mon, you two.

You know that Box will not believe your evidence, no matter where it comes from, no matter what it says.

 

[Lady_Guenivere]

Jim Adkisson was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Universalist Church murders.

Good. Don't let him out.

After he was sentenced he released his 'manifesto'. Don't read this if you're not ready. It's really fucking scary.

What scares me Rob is that there are people that share a planet with me and my children that are so evil. Sociopaths scare the hell out of me because they can justify just about anything, including murder...without any remorse. These people are unable to feel empathy...and that makes them truly frightening.

 

[sadangel]

C'mon, you two.

You know that Box will not believe your evidence, no matter where it comes from, no matter what it says.

Actually sarahh. I didn't know that. I now know.

I will simply let it stand up there. I can't come up with the immediate names of those innocent people, but there is compelling evidence that innocent people have been put to death and sometimes knowingly it seems to show.

 

[Guest]

Actually sarahh. I didn't know that. I now know.

I will simply let it stand up there. I can't come up with the immediate names of those innocent people, but there is compelling evidence that innocent people have been put to death and sometimes knowingly it seems to show.

It's good information.

 

[Boxlicker101]

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/523[/url]

Quote:
Recent Cases of Possible Mistaken Executions
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, there have been inmates with reasonably credible claims of innocence who were nevertheless executed, some without a full review of those claims. In 1992, for example, Roger Keith Coleman made headlines with his dual plea that he was innocent and that no court would review his evidence.40

Coleman's representation at trial was shoddy. On appeal, his new attorneys misread the state statute governing the time for submitting an appeal and filed their brief a day too late. The Virginia state courts held that this late filing was the same as no filing and refused to review his issues. The federal courts then said that he could not raise a federal claim because he had waived his state review. Finally, the Supreme Court said that he could not complain that it was his attorney who erred, since he was not entitled to an attorney in the first place.41 Coleman was executed without a full review of his innocence claims.

Leonel Herrera may have been innocent, but he was not innocent enough to satisfy the Supreme Court.42 A former Texas judge submitted an affidavit stating that another man had confessed to the crime for which Herrera was facing execution. Numerous other pieces of new evidence also threw doubt on his conviction. Still, the Court said that at this late stage of his appeal, he needed an extraordinary amount of proof to stop his execution. He was executed in Texas in 1993.

Another kind of innocence was illustrated in the case of Jesse Jacobs, who was executed in Texas on January 4, 1995.43 Jacobs had been convicted and sentenced to death after the state had put on evidence to show that he was the actual killer in an abduction ending in murder which also involved a co-defendant. At the later trial of the co-defendant, the state reversed its story and said it was the co-defendant, not Jacobs, who pulled the trigger. In fact, the prosecution used (and thus vouched for) Jacobs's own testimony that he did not do the shooting and did not even know that his co-defendant had a gun. The co-defendant was also convicted, though not sentenced to death. Despite the admission by the prosecution that the arguments they made at Jacobs's trial were false, Jacobs was executed.

Jacobs was not innocent in the full sense of the word. He had admittedly participated in the underlying crime, but it is doubtful that the jury would have sentenced him to death if the prosecutors had acknowledged that he was not directly involved in the actual murder. Three Supreme Court Justices were highly critical of this deception on the prosecution's part. Justice Stevens wrote: "It would be fundamentally unfair to execute a person on the basis of a factual determination that the state has formally disavowed. I find this course of events deeply troubling."44

Senator Arlen Specter, an ardent death penalty supporter and former district attorney, was also distressed at this development, and in addressing the Senate he warned against such impositions of the death penalty in "a callous or unreasonable fashion."45 The European Parliament likewise passed a resolution expressing "shock" at this execution; there were no votes opposing the resolution.46

The recent execution of Coleman Wayne Gray in Virginia is another example of improper state tactics used to tip the balance toward a death sentence. At the time of Gray's sentencing hearing, the state circumvented the rules of disclosure and at the last minute raised the prospect of other notorious offenses by Gray (even though he had not been charged in these alleged offenses). With no chance to adequately refute these allegations, Gray was sentenced to death. Federal District Court Judge James Spencer found the state's action unfair, but found himself constrained by the new Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 from granting Gray any relief. He wrote: "One cannot morally support the death penalty without some assurance, by evidence or faith, that the ultimate penalty is imposed fairly." Gray was executed on February 26, 1997.47
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/523

Actually, just read the entire article. Even the article states:

Quote:
The most obvious reason for the increase in the number of innocent cases being discovered among those on death row is the overall expansion of the death penalty. The number of people on death row has been increasing6, and this expansion is likely to continue as states and the federal government broaden the death penalty to new crimes, and new states such as New York and Kansas begin sentencing people to death. With the greater use of the death penalty, there is a greater likelihood of mistakes.

Secondly, the death penalty has become even more political as legislators, prosecutors, and even judges promote the death penalty in their campaigns7. This results in the expansion of death penalty crimes and a shorter and narrower appeal process. Prosecutors, with virtually unbridled discretion to seek the death penalty, may pursue a death sentence even when the evidence is weak, and they may be reluctant to change course when contradictory evidence later arises.8 Even judges, many of whom are also subject to elections, can be influenced in their decisions to ignore evidence of innocence unless it is absolutely irrefutable. And recent changes in the appeals process, especially in federal courts, have made it more likely that executions will proceed even in the face of evidence raising doubts about a defendant's guilt.9

:

I don't know of any specific cases of black men being wrongly convicted in southern states, but I am quite sure there were such instances. I consider such examples as being no more than legally sanctioned lynchings. Hopefully, these are things that have been put behind us.

I notice the first paragraph above refers to "in this century." I suppose that refers to the 20th century, which is not very up to date. None of the 23 people were named.

For those who were named, I must admit the prosecution and the courts were apparently guilty of some malfeasance, but that does not mean that innocent people were put to death:

The guilt of Roger Keith Coleman has been proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, since his execution.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011201210.html

Leonel Herrera was not actually innocent. How the jury would have ruled if they had known the true facts is doubtful. In any event, he did plead guilty in a very similar murder. http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Leonel-Herrera-Texas12may93.htm

Jesse Jacobs was certainly not innocent either, although he may not have done the actual killing. He did admit taking part in the abduction. I was unable to google anything definitive on him, mainly because there were so many hits.

Coleman Wayne Gray wasn't innocent either, although he may not have done the actual shooting.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06EFDB1331F93BA15751C0A961958260

 

[Boxlicker101]

I couldn't find U.S. stats but I did find Racial Statistics of Death Row inmates in Texas. 2/3rds of them are black or Hispanic.

That's a pretty definitive political statement for me.

Are you saying these people on Death Row are innocent? If they are guilty, race or ethnicity shouldn't matter.

I notice also there is an an extremely disproportionate number of men there. Does this prove an anti-male bias or is it because men are more violent than women?

 

[R. Richard]

I would guess that the percentage of poor, uneducated people on death row is far greater than their percentage in society. This isn't really a matter of politics, but of despair and lifestyle.

A poor man will try armed robbery of a liquor store, rich men very rarely do. In an armed robbery, death is never far away. The kind of people who deal drugs at a retail level use violence, almost as a necessity, if they are to survive. Again, death is never very far away. Poor people often deal drugs at a retail level, the rich almost never do.

In our society, the Negro or the Hispanic illegal are usually disproportionally represented in the lower financial levels of our society. The lower financial levels of our society are where you more often find violence and death. So, the observation that a disproportionate number of 'non-whites' [Hispanics are Caucasions, just as 'white' people are] are on death row can be explained without need to involve racial prejudice or predjudice due to national origin.

When I lived in South Carolina, I lived in what might be described as an upscale redneck area. We were on the West side of town. One night a Negro came looking for the drug dealer who ripped him off. He threatened the older woman who lived next door to me. The noise woke me and Lucrezia and and I investigated. The Negro pulled pistol. I said, "I'll see your pistol and raise you a 10 gauge shotgun, pointed at your head." The woman from across the street chimed in with, "Raise you a .38!" Another voice said, "And a deer rifle." Fortunately, the scumbags arrived and took the Negro and his girlfirend away for an all expense paid vacation on a work crew. [They brought back the 'Cool Hand Luke' road crews in SC.]

 

[john-the-author]

What persons have actually proven innocent after being put to death? I'm not saying it has never happened, but I don't know of any cases, at least not in the last hundred years. I would agree that have been a few whose guilt I would consider to be doubtful, but I would not say these people have been proven innocent.

Can you tell me a case in the last hundred years where a person has been convicted and put to death for political reasons? I don't believe this has happened to an innocent person. I will concede that there may have been times when a person's political beliefs and activities may have contributed to the severity of the sentence, but that would not involve innocent persons. There have also been criminals who were politically motivated, and were put to death for their crimes. This would include Timothy McVeigh and the Rosenbergs, and maybe some others. However, I don't believe there has been a person in the last hundred years or more who has been wrongfully convicted because of a political agenda, and put to death. I would be willing to read any proof you might have that this has happened.

Sacco and Vanzetti. The evidence points strongly to Vanzetti at the very least having been innocent. Certainly, the trial was completely mishandled and their convictions could justly have been overturned on the grounds of gross judicial and prosecutorial misconduct.

 

[cloudy]

Leonard Peltier is as much a political prisoner as Mandela was. He has spent almost 32 years in prison for a crime that the feds never proved he'd committed. In fact, they freely admitted that someone was guilty of it, and that Peltier could serve the time for it, simply because he was there. They admit that they don't know who killed that FBI officer, yet Peltier is still in prison, and likely to be there until he dies.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Leonard Peltier is as much a political prisoner as Mandela was. He has spent almost 32 years in prison for a crime that the feds never proved he'd committed. In fact, they freely admitted that someone was guilty of it, and that Peltier could serve the time for it, simply because he was there. They admit that they don't know who killed that FBI officer, yet Peltier is still in prison, and likely to be there until he dies.

I agree about Leonard Peltier. There are, without doubt, innocent people in prison. You know there are, because we read about them being released after many years of having been wrongfully convicted, or even being proven innocent after death. However, we are discussing death sentences here.

 

[DesertPirate]

I'll post my objections to the death penalty yet again.

1. You can't fix mistakes.

2. It's not going to be carried out fairly.

3. It's usually a political tool, not a judicial one.

I agree with those reasons Rob
I will also add that I am pro life and that means on the death penalty too.
That is the most serious judgement that can be passed and it just isn't our job to do it. How many people have been released from prison on DNA evidence in the last 10 years? Scary that we probably have executed an innocent.

If nothing else, the chance of making a mistake of that magnatude rules it out.