They Were on Death Row, Right?

Don't expect me to get all worked up over this story. In Georgia there has recently been two inmates who were on death row who died. Not at the hands of the state, but by their own hand. Well, now it seems that one of the deaths may not have been a suicide, but rather the result of another inmate.

On Dec. 6, condemned killer Timothy Pruitt died at Augusta State Medical Prison after sustaining injuries on Nov. 19. On New Year's Day, guards found death-row inmate Leeland Mark Braley hanging in his cell. Both were housed on death row at the state Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Of course the state will now spend untold thousands of taxpayers dollars to arrive at the conclusion that a) Pruitt is dead, and b) Who cares?

I can't wait for the anti-death penalty but pro-abortion advocates to begin the gnashing of teeth, whining and presenting all kinds of anecdotal evidence that Pruitt was probably innocent and because of his untimely death we may never know and how if he hadn't been put on death row, he wouldn't have been killed by another inmate, if that indeed winds up being the case.

They are probably right. He probably was such a prick that if he had been in the general population he would have been killed a long time ago.

Sorry, you will find sympathy right between shinola and syphilis in the dictionary.

Still Against the Death Penalty?

Read this story and then tell me you are still against the death penalty. If you can sleep at night knowing that scum like this are not fast-tracked to whatever level of hell will have them, then you simply do not have one shred of humanity in you.

Dylan was 9, Shasta was 8.

On June 22, 2005, Duncan left Shasta at the camp, taking Dylan to a cabin, where he videotaped himself sexually abusing and torturing the boy.

"Heinous, cruel and depraved are tough words in the English language, but none of these words ... fully express the outrage of what you will see," Moss told jurors.

After they returned to the campsite, the first thing Duncan did was show Shasta the video, Moss said.

Then, at some point during the next four days, Shasta heard a gunshot and turned to see Dylan clutching his stomach where he'd been hit. She watched as Duncan walked over to Dylan, held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn't fire, Moss said, so Duncan reloaded and fired again.

Duncan wrapped the body in a tarp, threw it on the campfire and let it burn until it was reduced to ashes. He then took Shasta back to Coeur d'Alene, stopping for a meal at a Denny's restaurant, where a waitress recognized the girl and called police.
Dylan "deserves the justice that only you can provide," Moss told the jury.

OK, Then Just Shoot Him

I've seen enough cockamamie excuses from death row inmates and their defenders before, but this one now seems well on the way to becoming a recurring theme.

A death row inmate scheduled for execution says he's too fat to be put to death, claiming executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.

Lawyers for Richard Cooey argue in a federal lawsuit that Cooey — 5-feet-7 and 267 pounds — had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and the problem has been worsened by weight gain.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, also says prison officials have had difficulty drawing blood from Cooey for medical procedures.

Cooey, 41, is sentenced to die for raping and murdering two young women in 1986. His execution is scheduled for Oct. 14.

His attorneys say a drug he is taking for migraine headaches could affect the execution process. The drug Topamax, a type of seizure medication, may have created a resistance to thiopental, the drug used to put inmates to sleep before two other lethal drugs are administered, Dr. Mark Heath, a physician hired by the Ohio Public Defender's Office, said in documents filed with the court.

States could put this nonsense to a quick end by reinstating firing squads and/or electrocution, but of course that's deemed too harsh by some.

It's always something.

Now If They Would Just Ban Corrupt Democrats...

A total joke and just feel-good pap, considering they haven't executed anyone in this state since 1963.

New Jersey will become the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty under a measure lawmakers approved Thursday and the governor intends to sign within days.

Assembly members voted 44-36 to replace the death sentence with life in prison without parole. The state Senate approved the bill Monday, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, has said he will sign the bill within a week.

A special state commission found in January that the death penalty was a more expensive sentence than life in prison, hasn't deterred murder and risks killing an innocent person.

"We would be better served as a society by having a clear and certain outcome for individuals that carry out heinous crimes," Corzine said. "That's what I think we're doing, making certain that individuals would be imprisoned without any possibility of parole."

The measure would spare eight men on the state's death row, including Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender convicted of murdering 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. That case sparked a Megan's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.

Marilyn Flax, whose husband Irving was kidnapped and murdered in 1989 by death row inmate John Martini Sr., said she seethes at the thought Martini will remain alive "while my innocent, loving, adoring husband lies in a grave."

"I feel the system has spit on me, has slapped me and I am fuming," Flax said.

Republicans said that's why they would vote against the bill.

Assemblyman Richard Merkt said the bill was "a victory for murderers and rapists."

"It does not benefit families. It does not benefit New Jersey society. It does not benefit justice," he said.

All is does is benefit Democrats, who'll have editorial writers slobbering all over them.

UPDATE: More from Michelle Malkin.

Grim Milestone: Allah-Invoking Fiend 400th Iced in Texas Since 1976

The State of Texas hit the grim milestone of 400 people executed since 1976 by removing Allah-invoking Johnny Ray Conner from society last night, despite pleas from the Euroweenies to spare this piece of garbage.

Convenience store clerk killer becomes 400th executed in Texas

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Condemned killer Johnny Ray Conner asked for forgiveness and said he'd be waiting in heaven for loved ones, including his victim's relatives, as he became the 400th Texas inmate executed since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty a quarter-century ago.

"Shed no tears for me," Conner, 32, said as tears flowed from witnesses on both sides of the death chamber Wednesday evening.

Hey, no problem. I'll respect your dying wish. Not a single tear shed here.

He received lethal injection for the slaying of Kathyanna Nguyen, 49, during a failed robbery at her Houston convenience store in 1998. Conner's two sisters were among people watching through a window as he died. Nguyen's daughter and a sister were among those watching through another window.

"When I get to the gates of heaven, I'm going to be waiting for you," he told them. "I will open my arms for you."

He had asked the warden for permission to speak longer than the usual alloted two to three minutes, specifically wanting to talk to his victim's daughter, and spoke slowly and with emotion.

"What's happening now, you are suffering," he told his family. "I didn't mean to hurt y'all.... This is destiny. This is life. This is something I have to do."

He ended by saying what was happening to him was "unjust and the system is broken," then invoked Allah. "To Allah I belong and to Allah I return," he said.

One wonders how much notice his tribute to Allah will get from the media.

Eight minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow, he was pronounced dead, making him the 21st condemned killer executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. Three more executions are scheduled for next week.

The 400-execution milepost prompted an outcry from death penalty opponents. Only a handful of protesters, however, gathered down the street from the prison entrance Wednesday evening. The first in Texas was carried out in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed executions to resume.

"I know it's just a number, but 400," said David Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Sometimes when I think about it I'm numbed, but still shocked. I'm very sad we're still doing this.

You won't have long to wait for No. 401, so get the sobbing out of the way now.

Scheduled to die next is DaRoyce Mosley, set for lethal injection Tuesday for his part in the slayings of four people in the robbery of a bar in Kilgore in East Texas in 1994.

Listening to radio this morning, a discussion about the Yankees was interrupted by moonbat author John Feinstein, who went on a rant about George W. Bush killing people in Texas and Iraq. Give it a rest and stick to sports. He also yukked it up about how his nine-year-old daughter wants to impeach Bush and Dick Cheney.

I wonder where she got that idea?

Heresy! Heresy! An Inconvenient Truth

Studies Say Death Penalty Deters Crime.

Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the past few years, with a moratorium in Illinois, court disputes over lethal injection in more than a half-dozen states and progress toward outright abolishment in New Jersey.

The steady drumbeat of DNA exonerations - pointing out flaws in the justice system - has weighed against capital punishment. The moral opposition is loud, too, echoed in Europe and the rest of the industrialized world, where all but a few countries banned executions years ago.

What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument - whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.

So far, the studies have had little impact on public policy. New Jersey's commission on the death penalty this year dismissed the body of knowledge on deterrence as "inconclusive."

But the ferocious argument in academic circles could eventually spread to a wider audience, as it has in the past.

"Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it," said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. "The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect."

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. "The results are robust, they don't really go away," he said. "I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) - what am I going to do, hide them?"

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory - if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forego apples or shy from murder).

To explore the question, they look at executions and homicides, by year and by state or county, trying to tease out the impact of the death penalty on homicides by accounting for other factors, such as unemployment data and per capita income, the probabilities of arrest and conviction, and more.

Among the conclusions:

- Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

- The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

- Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

Martin Sheen was unavailable for comment.