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Trump's Executions Drive

I think the string of executions is great. I think Bernard should've been put to death many, many years ago.
 
EHocking said:
Sorry - that’s just so ****** up it’s barely fathomable for me, and probably the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had to contemplate.

I mean our politicians treat the general public with utter disdain, but that is just beyond sociopathic.
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Skeptic Tank said:
I think the string of executions is great. I think Bernard should've been put to death many, many years ago.
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OK.
I understand now.
 
EHocking said:
In the real world, I would have thought he would.

I realise that this is still Trumerica, but surely a president needs to justify such actions?
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A normal one would because it's the proper and expected thing to do, but Trump isn't normal.
 
EHocking said:
Sorry - that’s just so ****** up it’s barely fathomable for me, and probably the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had to contemplate.

I mean our politicians treat the general public with utter disdain, but that is just beyond sociopathic.
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Trump is a sociopath. His own niece, a clinical psychologist, has said so.
 
Trump is breaking records for all the wrong reasons.

Donald Trump has added a morbid new distinction to his presidency – for the first time in US history, the federal government has in one year executed more American civilians than all the states combined.

<snip>

States carried out seven executions to the federal government’s 10. Despite the rash of federal killings, that still amounted to the fewest executions in the US since 1991.

Against that downward path, the actions of the Trump administration stand out as a grotesque aberration.

<snip>

Since Trump lost the election on 3 November, the federal government has put to death three prisoners: Orlando Hall, Brandon Bernard and Alfred Bourgeois. The last time a lame-duck president presided over an execution was in 1889, when the Grover Cleveland administration killed a Choctaw Indian named Richard Smith.

All three Trump lame-duck executions involved black men. As the DPIC review points out, racial disparities remain prominent in the roll call of the dead, as they have for decades, with almost half of those executed being people of color.

The review exposes other systemic problems in the Trump administration’s choice of prisoners to kill. Lezmond Hill, executed in August, was the only Native American prisoner on federal death row. His execution ignored tribal sovereignty over the case and the objections of the Navajo Nation which is opposed to the death penalty.

The subjects of the federal rush to the death chamber included two prisoners whose offenses were committed when they were teenagers. Christopher Vialva was 19 and Bernard 18: they were the first teenage offenders sent to their deaths by the US government in almost 70 years.

<snip>

Texas, traditionally the death penalty capital of America, carried out three executions this year, down from nine in 2019. The most recent was on 8 July. Billy Joe Wardlow was 18 in 1993 when he committed robbery and murder.

“The fact that state legislators, juvenile justice advocates, neuroscience experts and two jurors from Wardlow’s trial had called for a reprieve based on what we know now about adolescent brain development make the circumstances of his arbitrary execution even more appalling,” said Kristin Houlé Cuellar, TCADP executive director.
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GUARDIAN

Does the USA really have no means of preventing this type of psychopathic behaviour by its outgoing presidents?
 
Vixen said:
Perhaps focus on why Trump is suddenly putting to death these long-term prisoners now?
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Because the window of opportunity to do so is closing? Is that complicated?

I suspect he's doing it now because he doesn't have too much longer, he feels it's right for it to happen, and doing it last minute means he minimized the amount of time where he'd have to face criticism for it that could have still impacted his presidency.
 
turingtest said:
Which is my main objection to the death penalty as a system- there have been 167 exonerations of prisoners on death row in the United States since 1973 (Wikipedia). It's one thing to say that someone who has killed and not been executed for it could go on to kill "again and again and again," without showing any evidence that it has actually happened; but to use that argument when evidence does show that mistakes in the system can lead to innocent people being killed again and again is just specious. Surely it would be simple enough to make a life sentence an actual sentence for life, no possibility of release without exoneration, which would satisfy the "again and again" objection, and have the benefit of making possible exoneration meaningfully possible.

And remember, these successful and timely exonerations are only the ones we know about. The Innocence Project doesn't really have the time or resources to devote to exonerating dead people; and it's for sure that the system that sent these people to death row to begin with isn't set up for, or has any interest in, exonerating them, dead or alive. The US justice system is an adversarial one, two sides competing for a win; I would say for most cases, that's sufficient- maybe not perfect justice, but usually close enough. But for cases where the penalty for a loss is irreversible, maybe there should be a little more care taken in the name of actual justice than just to make it a contest. (And, of course, when the impetus for the final act is nothing but a loser like Trump trying to score political points, to call that "justice" would be a travesty.)
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Did you even try to find out if your assertion had any validity at all or do you just pray that you are right or that nobody will notice your (insert appropriate word here)?
A quick google search will give you lots and lots of examples of released murderers who killed again.

Here's one:
"One of the eerie similarities in all of the cases on this list of inmates who murdered when they were released is how quickly each ex-con murdered someone. Some waited days, some a few months, but the longest hold out in all of these stories is only a couple of years."
https://www.ranker.com/list/paroled-murderers-who-killed-again/jacob-shelton
 
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Skeptic Tank said:
Because the window of opportunity to do so is closing? Is that complicated?

I suspect he's doing it now because he doesn't have too much longer, he feels it's right for it to happen, and doing it last minute means he minimized the amount of time where he'd have to face criticism for it that could have still impacted his presidency.
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I'm not a fan of Trump but I don't understand the idea that there is some sort of "best before date" that says: You are the president and have all the powers of the president but because there are X number of days/weeks/months/ before you are no longer president - you should not exercise the powers that the electorate elected you to exercise.
 
Skeptic Tank said:
Because the window of opportunity to do so is closing? Is that complicated?

I suspect he's doing it now because he doesn't have too much longer, he feels it's right for it to happen, and doing it last minute means he minimized the amount of time where he'd have to face criticism for it that could have still impacted his presidency.
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But why do it at all?
 
rockinkt said:
I'm not a fan of Trump but I don't understand the idea that there is some sort of "best before date" that says: You are the president and have all the powers of the president but because there are X number of days/weeks/months/ before you are no longer president - you should not exercise the powers that the electorate elected you to exercise.
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Just because you have a particular power, it doesn't mean it is right to use it.

Would you apply the same idea to him just detonating a nuke, because, hey the electorate gave me the power to do it?
 
Skeptic Tank said:
Because the window of opportunity to do so is closing? Is that complicated?
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I was ready to do a whole response where I jokingly characterized your argument as "Because then there would be some living black people who could have been killed and that is totally unacceptable!"

But then I remember who I was talking to and who we're talking about so that's probably just an accurate description of the thought processes involved.
 
turingtest said:
Which is my main objection to the death penalty as a system- there have been 167 exonerations of prisoners on death row in the United States since 1973 (Wikipedia). It's one thing to say that someone who has killed and not been executed for it could go on to kill "again and again and again," without showing any evidence that it has actually happened; but to use that argument when evidence does show that mistakes in the system can lead to innocent people being killed again and again is just specious. Surely it would be simple enough to make a life sentence an actual sentence for life, no possibility of release without exoneration, which would satisfy the "again and again" objection, and have the benefit of making possible exoneration meaningfully possible.

And remember, these successful and timely exonerations are only the ones we know about. The Innocence Project doesn't really have the time or resources to devote to exonerating dead people; and it's for sure that the system that sent these people to death row to begin with isn't set up for, or has any interest in, exonerating them, dead or alive. The US justice system is an adversarial one, two sides competing for a win; I would say for most cases, that's sufficient- maybe not perfect justice, but usually close enough. But for cases where the penalty for a loss is irreversible, maybe there should be a little more care taken in the name of actual justice than just to make it a contest. (And, of course, when the impetus for the final act is nothing but a loser like Trump trying to score political points, to call that "justice" would be a travesty.)
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rockinkt said:
Did you even try to find out if your assertion had any validity at all or do you just pray that you are right or that nobody will notice your (insert appropriate word here)?
A quick google search will give you lots and lots of examples of released murderers who killed again.

Here's one:
"One of the eerie similarities in all of the cases on this list of inmates who murdered when they were released is how quickly each ex-con murdered someone. Some waited days, some a few months, but the longest hold out in all of these stories is only a couple of years."
https://www.ranker.com/list/paroled-murderers-who-killed-again/jacob-shelton
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(Shrug) Ok, evidence accepted. Now would you care to address the whole point I was getting at, in the part I've bolded, but which you apparently decided to ignore in favor of going on your (insert appropriate word here) to score some meaningless internet points? I mean, your evidence shows that some people who are released from death row go on to kill again; my very next sentence said "don't release them unless exonerated." What would be your preferred solution? Just, what- kill them all and let god sort them out?
 
So the next scheduled execution has been delayed by a judge, meaning it is likely it won't take place before Trump's departure now.

A judge has further delayed the planned execution of the only woman on federal death row in the US.

In a ruling that will potentially leave the Trump administration with no choice but to postpone the execution beyond its term in office, a federal judge found that an attempt to reschedule it for January was unlawful.

Lisa Montgomery, 52, was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the north-west Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004.
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GUARDIAN

The prisoner's attorney gave the judge as their reason for delay as corona virus, which was accepted.
 
TheSupermeerkat said:
Three more pardons: border agents who committed a murder and then covered it up

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...t-man-at-border-and-then-tried-to-cover-it-up
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My god, the whole Republican Party has gone Full Burns.

Mr. Burns:
Smithers had thwarted my earlier attempt to take candy from a baby, but with him out of the picture, I was free to wallow in my own crapulence.
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The Texas Tribune reports that Brugman had in his corner both of Texas’ U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Also supporting him was the state’s notoriously anti-immigrant lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick. Think Immigration reports that supporting Ramos and Compean was former Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, himself “recently convicted of stealing campaign funds.”
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