Does Texas execute enough murderers?

I keep hearing how Texas executes more murderers than the rest of the states or the entire world for that matter. My question is why ? Does Texas have more murders, more convictions, higher death sentence per conviction, or what?

From what I have read, Texas averages about 10 murders per day but only 1 execution per week. So it doesnt sound like Texas is execution happy.

Well, it’s often noted that the U.S. has more people in jail than just about any other country. Considering we don’t take them out and just shoot them offhand might have something to do with that little nugget of factoid.

What’s the average stay on Death Row? 10, 12 years?

It’s also interesting to note the celerity in which executions used to take place- The attempted assasination of FDR (resulting in the death of Mayor Anton “Tony” Cermak of Chicago, I believe) resulted in the conviction and execution of the killer in about a month.

Today, the trial is often a year or more away, and death sentences are automagically reviewed, etc. etc.,

But, relatively, Don’t Mess with Texas, huh?

Reviewed by wizards presumably.

I’m a Texan.

The Lone Star State executes too many people for me. In fact, I would be satisfied if NOBODY were executed, but that’s just me. It seems we have a little bloodlust in our collective blood.

Bloody Heritage!

-Soup

Are you sure that it’s 10 murders a day? There’s a world of difference between 10 deaths, or 10 homicides a day and 10 murders a day.
Even then, there’s a big difference between first degree and second degree murder.
How many crimes are committed in Texas per day that the prosecution can even attempt to seek the death penalty over?

Also, there’s a question of the innocence of a person on death row. Don’t forget the appeals process as well. And in TX, there’s quite a bit to appeal. Despite numerous warnings, the trial courts still routinely give the wrong instructions to the jury making it much easier to sentence a criminal to death.

I’m not sure what side I’m on in this debate, but there’s a lot more to the numbers than the numbers alone will tell you.

As opposed to countries such as England, Australia, or Canada, where they do just take them and shoot them offhand. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE]
**What’s the average stay on Death Row? 10, 12 years? **/QUOTE]
11.3 years in Florida, according to this:
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/deathrow/

Which is, of course, still relevant today, since nothing has changed in the American criminal justice system during the last 60 years. :rolleyes: Why don’t you tell us what’s happened to the last few people who have tried to assasinate the President?

The murder rate in Texas, was 6.1 murders per 100,000 population in 1999, which is higher than the national rate.

But why limit ourselves to Texas? Here’s the FBI data on every state. It’s pretty clear that the death penalty does not deter crime.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murderrates.html

Ah, where to begin.

Our crime rates are much higher than Great Britain, Australia, etc. America is horrific and legendary in violent behavior. But I’m sure you knew that already. Good try, though. Actually, I was referring to those countries where ‘human rights’ are always an issue- China, for example. I’m sure you knew that as well. Straw man was getting lonely I guess.
Those little smilies are really lame, by the way. Yes, our justice system has changed in the last (70) years. Not all for the better, actually. 11.3 years on death row is ridiculous, and expensive to boot. What’s happened to the last few people who’ve tried to shoot heads of state? Not a damn thing, for the most part. But you knew that already.

I’ll not lose a moments sleep over cop-killers (Free Mumia! barf) car-jackers, kiddie killers, murderers, etc., They are wasting our air.

Here are the stats (Liebman Study):
http://justice.policy.net/jpreport/

I hope you’re being sarcastic. The US may have a higher murder rate, but definitely does not have higher crimes rates. Including violent crimes.

You’re assuming that all these “criminals” were actually guilty of the crimes they are to be executed for. While I support the death penalty in theory, in practice I can not condone it. Prosecutors use the death penalty to bludgeon the uneducated and poor into pleading guilty, as was proven in a recent case in Texas.

And, buddy, you don’t seem to be putting our air to much good use either.

I remeber seeing a documentary about a Briton, opposed to the death penalty, who had agreed to take on all the death cases in a certain state (Penn?)

The most worrying thing is that he has managed to get 106 defendant out of 129 acquitted in only three years.

Prior to that the rate of conviction was far higher.

This could mean several things, the US leagl system has improved so much that it takes very good evidence indeed to convict and that the US has nothing to worry about, or it may also mean that for the first time many of those accused have a chance to avail themselves of decent legal representation, or it could also mean that many cases should never have been brought, or that the police are incompetant at gathering evidence.

In one case an individual was linked to a crime scen by a fibre, but the examination of that fibre used old techniques which had long been discredited, when it was subjected for independant anylysis it was found to be not even the same colour(they prosecution had relied on backlight techniques instead of frontal illumination, and it was not even the same material.

No system is perfect but something is seriously wrong here.

Okay. Now that I’ve read your post, I’ve changed my opinion 180 degrees. I agree with you completely! Your witty comebacks are what did it for me. (And the smilies!)

Thanks!

Now, back to reality.

Look, anyone who values the life of scum-bag criminals, thieves and murderers over their innocent victims is an idiot, no matter how much mental masturbation and obfuscation cloud the issue.

(By the way, to get this link to work right, I had to remove a blank space that gets inserted…at least by my browser…into the url, perhaps because it is so long.) Interesting article and it accords well with the impression I have had from anecdotal sources that British society is also very violent. The main difference between it and the U.S. appears to be that most of the violent crimes there are committed using less lethal weapons than guns.

I suppose petty concerns over such irrelevant issues as guilt or innocence of the accused qualify as “mental masturbation and obfuscation” in your book. If the people that you describe are “idiots” what epithet should we reserve for those who are presented with compelling evidence of the propensity of this nation’s justice system for sentencing innocent people to death and yet continue to espouse the views that you do?

Looks more like 4 murders a day, on average, according to this site.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm

Why does Texas have more executions?

Some blame Harris County.

The question is who are the murderers and who are the innocent victims.

In fact, it’s far from clear whether or not the death penalty deters crime. The FBI statistics are good, but are insufficient to prove cause and effect. E.g., maybe Texas has a Death Penalty BECAUSE they have a lot of murders.

IMHO a valid study probably could be done, especially because there’s lots of data showing what happened when the USSC ended the death penalty and then what happened after it was re-institutied in some states. However, to the best of my knowledge, a good study has not yet been done.

Once you execute someone its done you can’t take it back. So if you find that person is innocent what are you gonna do just say “Oppsie sorry.”?

Sure, but the same is true of murder victims. You can’t say, “Oopsie, sorry that you were killed by a murderer who got out of prison.”

The real question is whether the number of murders prevented by the DP (by deterrence, etc.) exceeds the number of innocent people executed.

There shouldn’t be any innocent people executed. The death penatly isn’t stoping crime.

C’mon, already! I’m so tired of that lame argument,
the death penalty isn’t a deterrent, that I could just
spit. A sentence that automatically initiates years (yes,
more than just a few at that) worth of appeals, where
any single judge can overturn a jury verdict, obviously
fails to provide any meaningful deterrence, period. In other
words, incentive to appeal regardless of guilt. Here in Washington we’ve had two exectutions in recent years - one a child rapist/murderer (self confessed, by the way) and a rapist/murderer convicted of killing his original rape victim, her 8 year old daughter, and a neighbor. I agree, they breathed too much air. (Kinda makes me favor the ol’
Kill them all, let God sort them out rationale, at least
when it comes to scum like that.) And oh yeah, the second dude I mentioned? He appealed to the very bitter end, and coward that he was, had to be carried to his execution. Now, any anti-death penalty people care to justify their continued existence?

Texas certainly executes the most murderers although they do not seem to be reaping the reward of a lower murder rate as one would think. Iowa doen’t execute anyone and their murder rate is the lowest in the United States and even lower than ours.

The murder rate for Canada (1998) was 1.83, the lowest in 30 years. We do not have the death penalty and crimes involving the use of firearms are also at an all time low.

European nations have even lower murder rates.

The murder rate in industrialized nations has been dropping although there is no firm theory as to why this is happening. Perhaps one of the reasons is that our population is aging and 70% of our murders are committed by persons between the ages of 15 and 34.

This leads me to think that executions do not deter murderers. Perhaps this is due to the fact that criminals commit crimes based on the notion that they will not be caught or punished.

I would conclude then, that execution as a deterrent does not seem to work.

December - The execution of one innocent person would be one too many, especially if you were that one innocent person.

There are tons of data out there concerniing the effect of the reinstatement of the death penalty. I completed a lengthy report some years ago on this very topic and what I found was that law enforcement officials (in general) did not believe that the death penalty had any positive effect on decreasing the murder rate.

Solving the murder problem will take more than strapping someone to a table and injecting him/her with toxic chemicals.

The question that runs through my head is “Why does the US have such a high murder rate?” There is probably a number of threads already devoted to this but if not, it is a question that should be asked.

references:

http://www.dpio.org/executions/By_State.html

http://web.mala.bc.ca/crim/stats/homicide.htm

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murderrates.html