I am pleased to report that a Federal Appeals Court has stopped the state of Texas from killing Robert James Campbell. While the court did duck the issue that using unknown drugs from a secret source runs the rick of depth by slow torture, they did discover that Texas had hidden evidence that he is not mentally competent to face execution.
A little more than two hours before he was scheduled to be put to death here, a convicted murderer was granted a stay of execution by a federal appeals court on Tuesday so the courts could review his claim that he is mentally disabled — a disability, his lawyers argued, that state agencies had long known and concealed.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans granted the request from lawyers for Robert James Campbell, 41, who had been set to be the first inmate put to death in America since a botched execution in Oklahoma last month drew attention to the methods, drugs and secrecy surrounding lethal injections.
The court had refused to intervene in the execution based on Mr. Campbell’s lawyers’ contention that the state was withholding crucial evidence on the drug to be used. But it issued the stay on a second argument made by Mr. Campbell’s lawyers on what the law refers to as mental retardation… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
Rachel Maddow covered this Republican blood lust.
Texas already had three other tests that showed the same results, but had denied that they existed. that’s how desperate these so-called Pro-Life Republicans are to kill. The same Republican executioners lied to a pharmaceutical manufacturer, claiming to be a hospital to get drugs fore execution. That’s how desperate these so-called “Pro-Life” Republicans are to kill. They are a moral stain on the face of this nation.
Republicans define life as something that begins at conception and ends at birth.
14 Responses to ““Pro-Life” Republicans Desperate to Kill!”
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I too am pleased that courts decide to stay the execution. For a state that became very divided over the issue of closing all abortion clinics that did not meet surgical standards, it does seem odd that those who call themselves the protectors of life are so eager to take life. The court states:
The Fifth Circuit panel, in a tone that suggested unhappiness with the state’s actions, wrote: “It is regrettable that we are now reviewing evidence of intellectual disability at the eleventh hour before Campbell’s scheduled execution. However, from the record before us, it appears that we cannot fault Campbell or his attorneys, present or past, for the delay.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/us/stay-of-execution-texas-inmate.html?_r=0
Campbell's disability was not concocted by his attorney's one can not create these scores or as the the New York Times stated, "Mr. Campbell’s lawyers said that information uncovered in state files in recent weeks showed that he was ineligible for execution because of a low I.Q. They said state officials withheld the results of two I.Q. tests given to Mr. Campbell — a 68 when he was a child and a 71 shortly after he arrived on death row at the age of 19. Testing done last month on behalf of the defense produced a score of 69."
I do not know whether his trail was fair or the full extent of his low IQ was even presented to the jury. If it had been what would we as society have to offer this man? Certainly we have allowed the prisons to become the hospitals of the severely mentally impaired.
Prisons are not hospitals, and not able to cope with mental retardation or mental illness. In this the twenty first century we are still responding to mental problems as we did in the eighteenth century and that is inexcusable.
The question of guilt or innocence is not the question, whether or not the individual had the ability to know that what they did was a crime, that is where the question must first be directed.
One more of our mounting numbers of social ills, I wonder when we are as a society going to stop punishing people for problems they have no control over?
Thanks TC, for bringing some sunshine to this dark and dangerous corner of our justice system.
The Reich Wing Nuts only care about protecting the unborn, not the living.
I feel so sorry for decent citizens living in states like these – it must hurt to see laws bent and twisted so!
I'm not sure that any Christian can justify capital punishment from the Bible. Yes, there are some quotes, but for every one there is a counter-quote. In both Leviticus and Deuteronomy there are injunctions NOT to avenge because that is God's job. The three aims of criminal justice are supposed to be retribution, deterrence, and rehabilitation – and retribution is prohibited. Deterrence? Well, sure, if you are dead you won't do it again, but that's not what deterrence means in penology; it means YOUR punishment is supposed to discourage or prevent OTHERS from doing what you presumably did. It also doesn't work. Rehabilitation, then. God does not desire the death of a sinner but rather that he turn from his evil way and live. Execution would appear to prevent God from getting what he wants. How can this be justified?
Ashley (Care2) , good summing up. Under F, though, you left out the parts about Buddhists are "stupid," Muslims are terrorists, Sikhs and Baha'i are just Muslims, etc, etc. Oh, and also the part about not being mentally retarded.
I can justify capital bunishment from the Bible, but I'm afraid I have to move you to the top of the list. Yopu worked on Saturdy. I'm toast too. I put some sour cream in my chicken and rice dish.
Oh, heck, you can nail me worse than that. Almost everything I wear, and almost every yarn I knit with, is mixed fibers, and I don't fool around with just wool with linen – that's for amateurs – or just polyester with cotton, but things like acrylic with nylon, and bamboo with pearl.
I wish our whole country would end capital punishment. How can they cry that we are a Christian nation and still go against the words of Christ by killing?
Edie, don't forget that the US is, by the words of the Constitution, not a Christian nation. The Constitution guarantees the freedom of or from religion, not Christianity. Also, let's not forget that these idiot Republicanus/Teabaggers are not Christians, but they ARE pseudo Christians. They have no idea who the real Jesus was and is.
I agree with you, end capital punishment now!
Personally, I think that any governor that authorised or authorises the execution of a person where evidence clearly shows significant mental incapacity as dictated by law, should be indicted for murder.
I could not have said this better.
This Republicanus/Teabagger immorality is criminal and they need to be held in contempt of the Constitution and the law, and be held accountable.
Thanks all. In the end, murdering strapped-down prisoners isn't really about them, who they are, or what they did. It's about who we are, as a society. When will we evolve to the point that we realize killing is not a just way to say, "Don't kill."
A BIG Amen!
Texas killed a man with an I.Q. of 65… Sad indeed.