I wonder a bit about that, too. My best guess is, that after Abu Ghraib wasn’t punished properly (the few pawns sacrificied hardly count), and after the rape/murder of the girl and her family, the Iraquis finally expect the worst of the US soldiers. Why get upset again, if it serves no purpose?
Dozens of people have already been released from death row after being put there by the lawful decisions of judges, juries and appeals courts. That’s exactly the problem. The legal process does not ensure that error is impossible. The refusal to recognize the possibility of error when it comes to killing people is the hallmark of Bush’s personality.
For one thing, governors do not order new trials; courts (judges) do.
I’m unaware of Bush ever allowing an execution to go forth in light of probative DNA evidence to the contrary.
constanze, please…I’m trying to be respectful here. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I never said his job is ‘only’ to sign the execution order; I didn’t say every trial (and what exactly do you have against Texas that doesn’t reveal your own unreasoned prejudice?) was ‘fair and just and correct’; and I didn’t intimate that the appeals process is pretense.
The fact of the matter is that in this country (and in most others) courts have been established to determine whether someone is guilty of a crime. Further, appeals courts on many levels exist here to examine all the facts and determine whether sufficient errors have been made to warrant either a new trial or the overturning to the verdict in the original one. I would imagine that unless some sudden evidence would come to light shortly before an execution, most governors are of the belief that as much as is humanly possible has been done to determine whether or not the death penalty is warranted in a particular case. Given that, I would imagine that unless some dramatic new evidence came forth (which is highly unlikely given the vast amount of time that passes between the time of the crime and the time anyone is executed here), most governors respond exactly as Martin Hyde described above.
It is not the role of the governor to be the uberjudge as to whether someone deserves the death penalty; his role is to carry out the execution in accordance with state law, barring extenuating circumstances.
I have no doubt your view of extenuating circumstances would differ from that of most of those in the legal system here, but it’s the way extenuating circumstances are viewed within the legal system here that is the determinant factor…and the fact of the matter is that Bush and his advisors saw nothing in regard to these executions that rose to the legally defined level of extenuating circumstances.
Governors do not reform the courts. This is another example of how little you understand about how things work over here, and this ignorance has led you to scorn Bush for things he has nothing to do with.
Yes, I’m sure Bush thanks his lucky stars every night before he goes to bed that he has been able to have jobs where he can kill so many people and get away with it. And not only that, he can work to void the Constitution, too! Whatever will he do once he’s no longer in office and unable to kill people and undermine our system of government? Just imagine the feelings of frustration and impotence he will feel.
Seriously, do you have any idea how silly this type of thing sounds?
I agree with you completely, it would be beyond a joke. However I can easily see our sitting President letting it be known to the military, and particularly the soldiers involved, that they just need to bide their time.
On the way out, in two years and change, he will grant Presidential Pardons to all of them, forcing their immediate release with no chance of re-trial. Just as all of the past Presidents have done, Bush will undoubtedly make use of that odd little tradition and pardon all sorts of folks in the waning days of his Administration.
It would shock me if these soldiers, as well as any others convicted of the crimes mentioned in the link were not pardoned during that period of time.
Cartooniverse
You can call 'em anything you want; it means nothing in any real sense.
I rarely do this, but cite?
And cite?
I’m with most others here, I’m opposed to the DP in principle, but if it ever fit a case, it fits this one.
li-ajli tashjî‘ al-âkharîn
In many instances there is absolutely no doubt as to the prospective executee’s guilt, and I would imagine (though admittedly I don’t know it as fact) that virtually all of the executions that took place during Bush’s tenure as governor would fall under that description.
Further, the question of Bush’s so-called “refusal” to recognize the possiblity of error is very much a matter of opinion. To me, he simply didn’t see the liklihood of error and acted accordingly. I have no doubt whatsoever that had Bush been presented with probative evidence that this or that death row inmate was indeed not guilty, he would have stayed the execution and called for a new trial.
Didn’t some soldiers from the unit that raped and killed that girl ( and her family ) get kidnapped and killed ? I remember speculation at the time that it was retaliation.
It makes sense to me;I doubt they would bother to protest to someone as obviously uncaring as us. It’s more likely that they’ll take out their anger by killing some of the enemy, rather than complaining to that enemy.
Leaving aside completely Bush’s attitude toward the condemned, a governor of Texas, by law, may not commute a sentence of death unless clemency has been recommended by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
I believe there was a video that explicitly said that the killings were in retaliation for the rape and murders. If not a video, then some sort of communiqué.
I’m sorry, but I’ve already mentioned that the reports were several years ago - back when Bush was governor of Texas and getting ready for the election battle - so I don’t have cites handy. (Even if I had, they would be paper-editions of German newspapers and magazines.)
I very much doubt they will be sentenced to death. I do not think a jury of military men and women will sentence them to death, but life in prison.
I think the death penalty being sought is a good idea though, if we are going to have it on the books, and don’t seek it for a case like this, then I’m not sure when we would ever use it. Obviously I’d prefer it not be on the books in the first place, but it is.
You focused a bit much on the shortest part of my post when I was talking about how right now he couldn’t involve himself in most death penalty cases in the United States. I went on to explain that even as governor it is considered improper to grant clemency/pardon except in extraordinary circumstances as advised by executive branch lawyers at the state level. Simply put, whenever a governor puts out a clemency or a pardon he is putting his judgement over that of the judge and jury who were involved in the original case. In general even if one morally opposes a death penalty, even if one thinks “it’s just wrong in this case” it still is not proper to stop it unless there is a legal justificatoin that hasn’t been remedied by the court system (as in cases of genuine innocence, for example.)
Thank you for the info on what a governor can’t do, I’ll concede my points there until I have looked up the details of the reports (if I can still find them).
Um, you do know that the Bush admin. has passed things like the PATRIOT act which goes against the Constitution? That they illegaly wiretapped citizens? That the whole Guantanamo prison is illegal (just because Bush says that the detained aren’t Prisoners of War, so the Geneva convention doesn’t apply, doesn’t make it true?) And so on?
As for killing people - I know I’m pretty alone here, but I call the attack on Iraq illegal, and that killed not only a great many Iraqi citizens, many of them civilians, but also (because of bungling and ineptitude by the way the war was led) many American soldiers died unneccessarily. I’m not saying that Bush enjoys this, I’m saying what he has done.
Perhaps because they didn’t violate any actual laws? Just because you wish someone goes to jail is not good enough reason to try them. What would the charge be: “constanze doesn’t like you so you need to live behind bars?”
Since you’ve already tossed stuff out in this thread that you can’t back up, I’m going to have to ask you for this: cite?
Really, now? And what prase-book did you find that translates that into “Let’s torture, rape, and/or kill everyone?”
Um, you do know that the administration cannot pass any leglislation, don’t you? It’s not at all unlike the way it works in Germany. The administration may introduce legislation to Congress, but it is in Congress who passes it.
Again, not unlike the way it is in Germany, laws get passed that go against the Constitution. That’s the reason why both countries have a particular court who has the authority to make the determination if a law is unconstitutional.
Constanze with all due respect you’re misunderstanding a lot of things here. Keep in mind that Texas is a big place, it has a population of almost 30 million, and keeping all partisan politics aside, love/hate of George Bush aside, anyone who is governor of Texas has a lot on his plate. And cannot become personally involved with every single execution or every single capital crime and associated trial that happens in the state.
The job of the governor is a separate matter. Criminal trials are the responsibility of the judicial branch, judges, court officers, the police, prosecutors, and etc. The appeals process is the preferred way for courtroom errors to be addressed.
Most governors, even the ones who were formerly lawyers, are not legally qualified to go over a case and personally make the determination as to whether or not an error of law was made.
Thus, governors have lawyers who are qualified on staff to review pardon/clemency requests. The overwhelming majority of the time, these lawyers do not find any material error of law, any compelling proof of innocence or etc to justify them recommending that the governor grants pardon/clemency. Sometimes, however, it happens.
Pardon/clemency are for extraordinary circumstances where genuine innocence has been proven (for the purposes of granting a pardon) or when a clear and highly compelling reason has been shown for the governor to reduce a sentence to a lighter one (in the case of clemency.)
We’ll have to wait for one of the forum’s lawyers to clear this up, but to my knowledge a governor cannot order a retrial. They can pardon someone of a crime, in which case the person is considered technically ‘acquitted’ of said crime and can never be tried for it again, or they can reduce the sentence. They cannot actually order a retrial, I think an appeals court has to do that.
If there were strong doubts about the legality of the first trial (coerced confessions and etc) then it would have come up somewhere in the appeals process. If there is strong evidence that the first trial had a glaring error, then somewhere in the appeals process the defense would have presented said evidence. Something that would be obvious grounds for appeal aren’t something you deal with through the governor’s office but rather the courtroom.
If new (DNA) evidence or something comes out that demonstrates clear innocence, then that is a case where you may see a governor offer a pardon to expedite the process of getting that person out of prison ASAP.
You are going to have to offer cites about the cases you’re talking about where it has been objectively proven that people who were executed while Bush was in office had been shown to be innocent prior to the signing of the death warrant. You’ll have to offer cites showing that these facts were made known to Bush/his office and etc. Just going off of some story you heard about some law professor just isn’t proper evidentiary support for this particular forum.
The appeals process is there to fix errors in the original trial… No, the appeals process isn’t pretense. If it has been clearly shown that there was a major problem with the first trial then what happens is a defendant’s lawyer makes that known to the appellate court, the appellate court then rules that the results of the first trial are thrown out and a new trial must be conducted. The governor is generally not involved in these things at all, which seems to be where your confusion lies. The government/executive is never involved in the normal appeals process, only for extraordinary circumstances where a defendant’s lawyers feels the appeals process has already failed and is making a latch ditch effort to try and have the problem rectified.
Bush has to my knowledge never killed anyone with his own hands. Nor do I think he ever administered an execution personally. People were found guilty and convicted of capital crimes during Bush’s governorship. Those people were sentenced to death and then after an exhaustive appeals process they were executed by the state, not by any one individual.
Again, I’m not pro-death penalty. However, I don’t say things about the death penalty that are not true. The state is the actor that performs the killing, not any one individual.
You can call whoever you want a murderer, but you would be wrong to call anyone a murderer who has not actually committed a criminal homicide.
As to the cases where the evidence was clear that the person was innocent, I will need citations.
I don’t know if there are such cases or not, where Bush knew beforehand and refused to act on the evidence. My gut feeling is, no, and I say that because if there really was clear cut evidence that someone was innocent the appellate courts would have found that before it ever got to the stage where the defense was relying on a gubernatorial pardon. Pardons are an extraordinary last ditch effort, not a part of the regular appeals process. Although in most death penalty cases I think the attorneys do make that final pardon request, it’s mostly a hail mary play and is not how problems with a trial are normally repaired.
That isn’t his primary or even tertiary responsibility as governor. I wouldn’t want it to be his responsibility, either. I’d want it to be handled by the people it IS handled by, namely the appellate justices of the state courts and eventually the higher federal courts. I would however like that the lawyer’s that are on staff with the executive branch (be it state/federal) to take a look at appeals submitted to their office, because that is their responsibility.
No, I wouldn’t analyze each and every case in depth because I am not a lawyer, I would be out of my depth. I would do my best to make sure the attorneys who worked for me and were responsible for analyzing pardon requests did do their jobs thoroughly though, and I’d have to trust in their judgement. As an executive you have to delegate authority and rely on others for advice and help, even on the state level it is far too big a job to do alone.
If I was governor would I do everything in my power to abolish the death penalty in the commonwealth? That, I do not know. It would depend on many factors, some political, some legal, some practical and etc. I would try to keep my personal reasons for opposing the death penalty out of it (which are based in my religious beliefs.)
Whether or not the UN and its declarations have binding status on the US or anyone is a whole other thread (many other threads.) My point however was, as a Governor a U.S. State you have to govern under laws of the land and the constitution of your state. That’s the way our system is set up.
The vast majority of people who are wrongly convicted/sentenced and later released are released by appeals courts, not by executive pardons. The executive pardon obviously isn’t something that never happens, but it is quite rare.
That’s an interesting cite, in light of that it makes these particular complaints against Bush as governor even more ludicrous.
I know that many state governors have virtually unlimited pardon/clemency power (much as the president does) and they sort of delegate that power to an executive office staffed with a few lawyers who analyze the individual pardon requests. But given that Bush actually was bound by law as to who and how he could perform pardons it’s really a bit ridiculous for these kinds of complaints to be levelled against him.
Quote:
I meant, if torture is illegal under the Geneva convention (maybe even under UCMJ), then ordering soldiers to torture the prisoners is also illegal, yes? I mean, it was pointed out several times in our media, when the scandal broke, that soldiers should know not to follow illegal orders, and that the order to torture prisoners was illegal should be pretty obvious.
I’m sorry, I don’t have a cite, because I thought you knew this, from when the media reported this, it made several headlines for how long they had sat on the story.
No, that black guy who’s in charge of … darn, I can’t remember clearly at one AM.
Well, the meaning of the phrase, given the previous experiences with the Afghanistan prisoners at Guanatanmo, pointed already in that direction: Human rights were to be ignored, due proceedings of the law were to be ignored, only the results, not the means used would matter … business as usual, in other words. At least, that’s how many people over here interpreted that phrase when it was first said, before we heard of actual torturings.
Okay, here is general on the problem with Texas justice:
For the other cites I will need some time to dig them up.