Question of the Day -- On "Pro-Life"

Professor Robert Reich asks a terrific question today.

"Wouldn't it be nice if pro-lifers focused on ending gun violence? Or suicide prevention? Or abolishing the death penalty? Or stopping police killings? Or fighting poverty? Or combating the opioid epidemic? Or ending wars? You know, things that would actually save lives?" --Robert Reich @RBReich

What Capital Punishment Really Is

The father of one of the Boston bombing victims has it right.

"The punishment of the death penalty is nothing more than revenge."

The Death Penalty is Revenge, Not Healing: Father of OKC Victim on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Sentencing

Congratulations, Missouri, on your state murder last week.

Click on link for easier viewing.

The Strip - NYTimes.com

Missouri, the Death Penalty and the Shame it Brings on the State

It seems Missouri hit the New York Times today. Unfortunately, as is so frequently and repeatedly happens lately for Missouri and Kansas, lots of "red", Republican, Right Wing states and even the nation, it's not for anything good. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Just now, Missouri is scheduling the death penalty for this March 17 for a citizen who is 74 years old, who had horrible brain damage and loss, years ago and who now has an IQ of 71, it's reported:

Lawyers Seek Reprieve for Killer Who Lost Part of His Brain Decades Earlier

If ever there were a case of "extenuating circumstances", surely it seems this would be the one. Some of the facts:

In January 1972, Cecil Clayton was cutting wood at his family’s sawmill in southeastern Missouri when a piece of lumber flew off the circular saw blade and struck him in the forehead. The impact caved in part of Mr. Clayton’s skull, driving bone fragments into his brain.

Doctors saved his life, but in doing so had to remove 20 percent of his frontal lobe, which psychiatrists say led Mr. Clayton to be tormented for years by violent impulses, schizophrenia and extreme paranoia. In 1996, his lawyers say, those impulses drove Mr. Clayton to kill a law enforcement officer.

Lawyers for Mr. Clayton, who has an I.Q. of 71, say he should be spared because his injury has made it impossible for him to grasp the significance of his death sentence, scheduled for March 17.

“There was a profound change in him that he doesn’t understand, and neither did his family,” said Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, one of Mr. Clayton’s lawyers.

But wait, it gets worse:

Mr. Clayton is missing about 7.7 percent of his brain.

“If you can prove mental retardation, you can get exempted, but mental illness alone is not an exemption to the death penalty,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

What anyone evaluating this situation needs to understand is what the frontal lobe is responsible for in we humans: "...the part of the brain involved in impulse control, problem solving and social behavior..."

With all this information, it might seem as though the courts and state might take all this into consideration and waive the death penalty for Mr. Clayton.

But you'd be mistaken.

The conviction and death sentence have been upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. His lawyers are now seeking a competency hearing for Mr. Clayton to determine whether he understands his circumstances.

And this is where we stand now with this case:

In a court filing last month, Missouri’s attorney general, Chris Koster, wrote that Dr. Reynolds had “found Clayton’s comments concerning the emotional stress that the threat of execution is causing him are evidence that on a visceral as well as cognitive level, Clayton understands his potential fate.”

And if that's not enough, there's still more,

In Mr. Clayton’s case, two years after the sawmill accident, he checked himself into a mental hospital for 15 months because he feared he could no longer control his temper. After his release, Mr. Clayton decided that he could no longer perform the work required at the sawmill, and instead took a job as a police officer in Purdy, Mo. He quit after nine months.

“He was so unsure of himself and worried about his judgment to the point that he felt he should not be in a position of responsibility,” according to a 2001 filing by his lawyers to the Missouri State Supreme Court.

In 1983, Dr. Douglas Stevens, a psychiatrist, wrote an evaluation about Mr. Clayton that proved prophetic.

“There is presently no way that this man could be expected to function in the world of work,” Dr. Stevens wrote. “Were he pushed to do so he would become a danger both to himself and to others. He has had both suicidal and homicidal impulses, so far controlled, though under pressure they would be expected to exacerbate.”

Surely we Missourians are better, smarter and more empathetic to another soul's situation than to allow this execution go forward.  Surely we're better Christians or Jews or Muslims or atheists or whatever. Surely we're better humans than to go through with this.

Surely.

Lurching toward women's equality in the US, in really odd ways

So, here we are, in 2013, in the United States of America and we're still, still trying to get remotely close to one of our founding bedrocks of this nation, that is "...all men..." (read all humans) "...are created equal."

Women have gotten closer in our quest for their rights as have black Americans and Hispanics and other minorities and people of same-sex attraction.

Lately, women have gotten closer and closer to full, equal rights, in spite of the Republicans and corporations and the wealthy who, last year, shot down an equal pay for equal works bill. Those who "have the gold" just absolutely don't want to pay women what they should already be getting and what is fair and just.

This past week, women's equality got two boosts in most unusual and remarkable, if not odd ways.

The first is that the military announced they will give women equal rights by allowing them in combat:

Pentagon Set to Lift Ban on Women in Combat Roles

For better or worse, this only makes sense.

Women deserve even this equality, however insane war is. Equality extends--or should--in all roles, in all cases, everywhere, even in war.

And the fact is, maybe, just maybe it will get us closer to seeing how horrible and stupid and pointless war is and maybe, just maybe we'll get further and further away from our huge, obscene, wasteful defense budgets and the "perpetual war" track we're on now.

The second way women got somewhat closer to equal rights just happened in the last few days when a woman in Texas came very close to being executed for murder:

Texas judge postpones Black woman's execution

Naturally, it's Texas.  Even more naturally, it's a black woman.  But those are different matters.

My point?

Maybe, just maybe, if our nation ever gives women true equal rights, in all aspects, even these, we can arrive at a terrific day we've always told ourselves we already had. That is, that we are a nation of true equal rights.

In the meantime, we have to go through crazy things, as these two are, to lurch toward that equality.

Then, maybe, one day, we can realize how crazy and ugly and stupid both war and capital punishment are, too.

Total wins, all round.

How do you deal with this kind of thinking?

"Republicans are pro-life but pro-death-penalty, for less spending but for more wars, against governmental intrusion but for more governmental monitoring of personal relationships and for States' Rights but for the federal government overriding state marriage laws. For all their policies' collateral damage, the GOP's first target is always consistency." --Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian. Link: www.bettybowers.com

Only in America...

"Only in the USA can you be Pro-Death Penalty, Pro-War, Pro-Nukes, Pro-Guns, Pro-Land Mines, Pro-Torture and still be 'Pro-Life.'" -Roy Kunkle (friend)

Quote of the day

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me." --Troy Davis, executed by the state of Georgia, in spite of 7 of 9 witnesses from his original trial rescinding their original testimony against him. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_davis

Quote of the day

"The last two weeks of the Republican debates have seen audiences boo a soldier serving in Iraq, cheer for executions, and erupt with glee at the thought of an uninsured sick man dying. Every decent American should be ashamed of this, regardless of party affiliation." CD --From "The American Progressive Party" group on Facebook, yesterday. Link: https://www.facebook.com/#!/americanprogressiveparty

Great question for Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Perry

Like now-former Texas Governor George W. Bush before him, it's easy to be certain and sure of yourself if a) you're rather simple-minded and b) you don't care for detail. Or facts. Or hard, conscientious work. (Thanks and another hat tip to Joe My God blog for this link).

Good news out of Iraq

From online news today: Alleged Al Qaeda Members Sentenced To Death BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi court on Thursday sentenced 15 alleged al-Qaida members to death for their role in the 2006 wedding party massacre of 70 people, considered one of the most horrific attacks carried out by Sunni-led militants during the insurgency. Thank goodness. Maybe more countries can see Al Qaeda is no good way to go. Link to original story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/alleged-al-qaeda-members-sentenced-iraq-massacre_n_878144.html

The death penalty to show killing is wrong?

If you've read or seen anything about this Jared Loughner in Arizona who shot and killed the 6 people and wounded Congresswoman Guiffords, you've learned he's not connected with reality.

Some examples of how out of touch Mr. Loughner is:

Lydian Ali, a classmate at Pima Community College, said, “He would laugh a lot at inappropriate times, and a lot of the comments he made had no relevance to the discussion topic.”

 Mr. Ali, 26, continued: “He presented a poem to the class that he’d written called ‘Meathead’ that was mostly just about him going to the gym to work out. But it included a line about touching himself in the shower while thinking about girls. He was very enthusiastic when he read the poem out loud.”



At the Y.M.C.A. where Mr. Loughner worked out, he would ask the staff strange questions, like how often they disinfected the bathroom doors. Once he asked an employee how he felt “about the government taking over.” Another time, he sat in the men’s room for 30 minutes, leaving front-desk staff members to wonder what he was doing. When he emerged, he asked what year it was.

David Brooks writes, in The New York Times, that it seems clear Mr. Loughner is schizophrenic: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/opinion/11brooks.html?src=me&ref=general.

Check out the 2nd link, below, for more on his state.

His videos on YouTube made no sense at all, just as his writings were completely, totally and utterly incoherent.

So a couple things come to mind.

First, there is no way possible he could remotely get a fair trial in Tuscon, at least, if not in all of Arizona.  No way.  The trial needs to be moved out-state, let's put that up right away.

Second, killing this guy--giving him the death penalty--would be just like his writing in that it would make no sense at all, either.

If the guy weren't patently crazy--and while it hasn't been proven in a court of law yet, I think that seems to be only a matter of time--I'd say sure, there may be a point to executing the guy.  Maybe. 


But he would have had to show he was more in touch with reality, to begin, and then they would have to show that it was part of some diabolical plan he had, for whatever reason.

Yes, the fact that they found that, at his home, he wrote he "planned ahead" goes against him but the fact is, the guy, it has been shown already and in at least a few ways, is just out of his head.  This would be like executing someone with an IQ of 25.

The only thing that can be claimed is that people don't want to pay for this guy to be in prison for the rest of his life.

Okay, no one can take that away from you but the fact is, the humane thing to do is to put this guy away with an unbreakable, unbeatable life sentence.

It's not like that will be pleasant for him.

Links:  http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/jared_lee_loughner/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/10shooter.html?ref=jaredleeloughner

The latest on the California death penalty and Catholic silence

Court ruling may stall California execution (CNN) -- A federal appeals court has ordered a judge to rethink a ruling that would have led to the execution of a California inmate. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, released late Monday night, says a U.S. District Court must now set a hearing to determine the fate of death row inmate Albert Greenwood Brown. Back to me: Silence, still, from Catholics in the area and the Catholic Church, more generally. Link to original post: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/28/california.execution/index.html?hpt=Sbin

State-ordered suicide?

There was a small but very provocative one-paragraph article in The Kansas City Star yesterday about a man who "fatally shot two children and wounded a third as they sat in a gas station parking lot."

The man had been found guilty and made it clear he wanted to be executed for these crimes.

It happened in far-right wing Oklahoma so you'd think it would be a foregone conclusion that they'd grant his wish, wouldn't you?

But no.

The judge came to the contrary, rather extraordinary and, to me, surprising conclusion that "the death penalty for a man who asked to be executed" would be "akin to 'state-ordered suicide'."

The judge gave him 3 life terms--but only 2 without parole--instead.

Hmmmm.

That is pretty remarkable.

This could be the basis of discussion for an ethics class into the next century, I should think.

Really, this is pretty fascinating.

Three things seem true here:

First, my initial reaction was that I thought the guy should absolutely be executed since a) he killed people (children, in fact, making it more gruesome and ugly) and b) he requested being killed.

Secondly, I think it's doubtful that this guy intentionally murdered these children with the plan of being killed by the state. Possible, sure, but not likely.

Finally, if the judge is thinking of keeping other would-be murderers from doing this--creating their own state-sponsored suicide--I just can't see very many people lining up to doing such a thing. I mean, I just don't see some large group of people thinking they'll go out and gruesomely kill others, just so they can be executed by the state. If the judge thinks he's running a deterrent here, with his ruling, I think he's mistaken.

So, while I'm against the death penalty, per se, this may be a case where the guy did the crime, requested his own execution and it seems difficult to me not to grant his request. And that's the conclusion I would have come to but it's said that the guy's sister "would have testified that his childhood was riddled with physical abuse, sexual trauma, poverty and religious indoctrination at the hands of his father." He's also said to be psychotic and that he hears "messages from God."

Yeah, this is a tough one, not cut-and-dried, so to speak, at all.

I go for not granting his wish but who knows? You'd sure have to have a lot of information to call this one.