Politiks As Usual: In The News 3/9/14

Most Corrupt Town in America in Danger of Being ‘Wiped Off the Map’

Is Ben Carson 2016's Sleeper Candidate?

I Was On Death Row, And I Was Innocent

Former 17 Year Marijuana Addict Urges Other States To Say No To Recreational Pot

No, Atheism and Conservatism Are Not Compatible 
 
Santorum: GOP Should Follow Pope's Example to Gain Followers
 
Obamacare Surcharge Appearing on Restaurant Bills Across the Country
 
George Will: Obama Donor Investigating IRS Scandal ‘Kind Of A Sham’ 
 
NBC Warns: Midterm Election 'Holds the Fate of the Rest of the Obama Presidency'
 
Ed Schultz Goes from Supporting Keystone to Comparing It to 'Vietnam' 

Chick-Fil-A Targeted By Black Mob

Iraqi Bill Would Allow 9-Year Old Girls to Marry, Husbands to Demand Sex

Can a Jew Get Down With Hot Jesus From 'Son of God?'

Koch Industries Responds To Harry Reid Attacks

Politiks As Usual: In The News 1/16/12

Source: Jon Huntsman To Drop Out Of Presidential Race, Endorse Romney

Bain Film Organizer Stands By Claims Against Romney; Holmes Schools Shuster

Horrifying: Obama As Lame Duck

How Progressives Work

NBC Brings More Raunch to Primetime with Launch of 'Chelsea'

Obama on Pace to Borrow $6.2T in One Term—More Than All Presidents from Washington Through Clinton Combined

Haley Barbour: Pardons Represent A Belief In Redemption

Gregory Tells Reid 'Democrats Haven't Put Together A Budget In A Year' - It's Been Almost Three

The R-Word: Hollywood Throws It Around So Effortlessly

Rick Perry Defends Marines Accused of Urinating on Afghan Corpses

Liberal Media Skips Facts, Plays Race Card In Troy Davis Execution

Mind you, I will forever believe that the death penalty is morally wrong and undeniably racist. But that still doesn't the MSM a right to flat-out lie and portray Troy Davis as being some kind of saint:

Good Morning America's Steve Osunsami on Thursday skipped or spun key facts while reporting on the execution of convicted cop killer Troy Davis in Georgia. The ABC reporter also played up the race angle, asserting that "supporters are asking difficult questions about the legal system, whether Davis' case would have gotten a greater re-examination if he were white and not black." However, he ignored the execution of a white man in Texas-- on the same day.


In that state, white supremacist Russell Brewer was put to death for the brutal murder of James Byrd. Osunsami left out other details in the Davis case. He noted that the "murder weapon was never found." However, the journalist didn't mention that Davis' gun had been used in another crime on the same day of the shooting and that the cartridges match.


News anchor Josh Elliott began the segment by claiming, "seven of the nine witnesses whose testimony helped convict Davis have now recanted their stories."


However, there were actually 34 witnesses, not nine. (See page 41 the Georgia ruling.) As Erick Erickson wrote on Red State:


Remember as well that there were 34 witnesses, not the 9 as claimed. The defense claims seven witnesses changed their testimony. That’s actually not true. Only two materially changed their testimony and Davis’s attorneys refused to present those two in federal court in 2010 to be examined in the evidentiary hearing even though they sat outside the courtroom door.


Osunsami has inserted race into his stories before. On the August 29, 2006 World News, he highlighted a conspiracy theory that levees in Lousisiana were blown up by a bomb.

RELATED: COP-KILLER IS MEDIA'S LATEST BABY SEAL

Teresa Lewis Executed in Virginia

NYDailyNews.com:

Teresa Lewis died by lethal injection on Thursday night, the first woman in Virginia to be executed in nearly a century.

Lewis was prounounced dead at 9:13 p.m. as a small crowd of supporters stood outside in protest.

Though lawyers for Lewis waged a public campaign for the Gov. of Virginia to intervene, there was no 11th hour reprieve for the 41-year-old woman, who was sentenced to death for plotting the 2002 murders of her husband and stepson.

Lewis reportedly spent her last day meeting with her immediate family, a spiritual adviser, and supporters at the prison where she was executed.

For her last supper, she requested a meal of fried chicken breasts, peas with butter, a slice of German cake or a piece of apple pie, and a Dr. Pepper, according to SkyNews.

Of course it irks me that scores of black men killed via the death penalty have received half of the attention (if that) that Teresa Lewis received (wonder why?) from the media, it still goes without saying that the death penalty is wrong. Then too I still don't understand how someone can be pro-life and pro-death penalty at the same time.

Check out the Innocence Project, they're doing great things on this matter.

Texas Judge Says Death Penalty Unconstitutional

FOXNews.com:

A Texas judge in the county that sends more inmates to death row than any other in the nation is apparently taking a stand.

Saying he could assume that innocent people have been executed, state District Judge Kevin Fine ruled in a pre-trial motion in a capital murder case on Thursday that the death penalty was unconstitutional and found himself on Friday facing a torrent of criticism from a string of high-profile Texans including Gov. Rick Perry.

Fine, a Democrat who is heavily tattooed and says he is a recovering alcoholic and former cocaine user, answered some of the criticism during a court hearing Friday.

"To say that I am ignoring precedent or legislating from the bench I think is slightly overreaching," he said.

Fine said there was no precedent to guide him in resolving the issues raised by defense attorneys in a case involving a man accused of fatally shooting a Houston woman and wounding her sister during a robbery in front of their home in June 2008.

Attorneys for John Edward Green Jr. argued Texas' death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it violates their client's right to due process of law under the 5th Amendment since hundreds of innocent people around the country have been convicted and sent to death row and later exonerated.

Good for Judge Fine. Texas has long been the death penalty capital of the country, but enough is enough. Capital punishment doesn't deter crime, it's racist, costs taxpayers more money and it kills innocents.

DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad Seeks To Halt Execution

WaPo.com:

Attorneys for sniper John Allen Muhammad, mastermind of the terrifying 2002 Washington area shooting spree, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to halt their client's execution, saying he was paranoid and delusional during his trial.

Muhammad, 48, who teamed up with Lee Boyd Malvo, now 24, in a series of random shootings that left 10 people dead, suffers from mental illness and brain damage caused partly by childhood beatings, defense attorney Jonathan P. Sheldon and others on the defense team wrote.

As he prepared for his 2003 trial, Muhammad was "amnesic of the events surrounding the crimes" and thought he was being framed in an elaborate scheme, the attorneys wrote. He believed that he was a prophet and said Malvo discovered an herbal cure for AIDS. He also said the military had trained him in "urban warfare" at "secret schools." The attorneys said that because of Muhammad's brain damage, he has trouble following a logical line of thought and "lacks sufficient ability to distinguish truth from falsity."

The argument to the Supreme Court contends that attorneys Peter D. Greenspun and Jonathan Shapiro were ineffective because they failed to object to Muhammad's demand to represent himself at trial. Had the pair argued that Muhammad's mental problems made him unfit to present his own defense, there is a "reasonable probability" that the judge would have found Muhammad incompetent to stand trial altogether, Sheldon wrote.

A bit of irony here in that the same week that Muhammad's asking for leniecy, an alleged serial killer by the name of Anthony Sowell is making news. Regardless, the state-sanctioned murder is always wrong, even when it comes to the likes of John Allen Muhammad.

Sunday School Teacher To Face Death In Killing Of 8-Year-Old Girl

CNN.com:

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a former California Sunday school teacher accused of killing an 8-year-old girl earlier this year.

Melissa Huckaby, 28, was indicted last month in the death of Sandra Cantu, a playmate of Huckaby's daughter. Huckaby lived in the same mobile home park as Cantu and her family in Tracy, California.

Sandra's body was found April 6, stuffed into a suitcase and submerged in a pond at a dairy farm. She was last seen alive March 27 in the mobile home park.

Huckaby is charged with kidnapping and murdering Sandra, according to the indictment, along with lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and rape by instrument. She pleaded not guilty in June, but entered another not guilty plea on Thursday at a hearing, minutes of which were provided to CNN by a court spokeswoman.

Prosecutors said at the hearing Thursday they plan to seek the death penalty.

Huckaby is the granddaughter of Clifford Lane Lawless, pastor of Clover Road Baptist Church near the mobile home park, and she taught Sunday school at the church, police said.

The church was searched as part of the investigation into Sandra's disappearance and death.

I've been following this story for awhile now and can't help but to have noticed the lack of attention given to it by the mainstream press. Makes me wonder if Melissa Huckaby being a woman has played into it, esp. considering how heinous the crime was and how the press, I feel, is biased towards violence against white women. Still, if Melissa Huckaby is found guilty, she should be given a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. The death penalty is forever wrong in my book.

Fire Judge Sharon Keller!

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller's actions may've cost a man his life:

A Texas judge who closed her court before a death row inmate could file an appeal plans to testify at the ethics trial where she faces charges that could end her career.

Judge Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, is on trial herself nearly two years after refusing to keep the court open past 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2007, with Michael Wayne Richard's execution imminent and his lawyers scrambling to file an appeal.

Charged with five counts of judicial misconduct, Keller sat quietly at the defense table Monday, only standing to acknowledge that she planned to testify. She could take the stand as early as Tuesday.

State investigators opened the special hearing by accusing Keller of "willfully" circumventing protocol by ordering the court closed at the normal hour. Her attorney said Keller was simply referring to the time the building closed, and that another judge inside also may have known about the pending appeal.

In the nation's busiest death-penalty state, where Keller has been mocked by critics as "Sharon Killer" for her tough-on-crime reputation, the day began with capital punishment opponents in the gallery and Richard's family members arriving toward the end.

"When the government has a death penalty, it is essential that there be not the perception but the reality that it is administered error-free," said Mike McKetta, the lead lawyer for the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Richard, who was condemned for the 1986 rape and murder of a Houston-area nurse, never had his appeal reach the courthouse that day and was executed hours later.

A Republican who has served on the court since 1994, Keller is the highest-ranking judge in Texas to be put on trial by the commission.

As many people already know Texas has long been the death penalty capital of the world and Judge Keller has a well-earned reputation for helping to keep it that way. But there is no excuse for Keller to close off an appeal because it going to be 20 minutes late. Granted we ask that our judges not have empathy, but this wasn't about deciding a case, it about a judge more interested in protecting her rep, screw all else. Sharon Keller should never be allowed to serve on the bench again.

Paul House Is Why The Death Penalty Needs To Be Abolished

CNN.com:

A former death row inmate in Tennessee has been cleared of murder, three years after the Supreme Court raised repeated questions about his conviction.

State prosecutors on Tuesday asked a judge to drop all charges against Paul House, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in 1986. Special Judge Jon Blackwood accepted the request.

House had been scheduled to be executed next month for the 1985 murder of Carolyn Muncey. He had been on death row for 22 years but was released on bail last year. He has multiple sclerosis and must use a wheelchair.

The high court ruled in June 2006 that House was entitled to a new hearing.

"Although the issue is closed, we conclude that this is the rare case where -- had the jury heard all the conflicting testimony -- it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record as a whole would lack reasonable doubt," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the 5-3 majority.

House's appeal was championed by the Innocence Project, affiliated with the Cardozo School of Law in New York.

"In the three years since the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into this case and sent it back to the trial court, substantial additional DNA testing and further investigation have shown that he is innocent," said Peter Neufeld, the group's co-director. "Each time a layer of this case was peeled away, it revealed more evidence of Paul House's innocence."

If it were up to vengeance-seeking death enthusiasts another innocent man would've been killed thanks to state-sanctioned murder. Paul House is yet another reason why the death penalty needs to be abolished for good.

Check out the Innocence Project, they're doing great things.

Prosecutors To Seek Death Penalty Against Casey Anthony

CNN.com:

In a dramatic reversal, the Florida state attorney's office announced Monday it will seek the death penalty against Casey Anthony, the 23-year-old woman charged in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.

The state had previously said it would not ask for the death sentence for Anthony.

The development could have a major impact on how the case plays out at trial, including whether defense attorney Jose Baez can stay on the case.

Baez has not been certified by the court to defend capital punishment cases.

Prosecutors announced their change in strategy in a letter of intent. Read the letter of intent (pdf)

Meanwhile, Anthony's defense filed a motion on Friday with Orange County Circuit Court, seeking more phone records from a dozen people involved in the case. The motion asks for any and all records for "phone calls, text messages, P2P communications, Internet usage, WAP usage, and cell tower pings."

The defense wants records from the defendant's parents, George and Cindy Anthony; her former fiancé, Jesse Grund; her brother, Lee Anthony; a friend, Amy Huizenga; and Roy Kronk, the meter reader who found Caylee's remains in December of last year.

No More Death Penalty In New Mexico

Good news out of New Mexico:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill Wednesday repealing the death penalty in his state, his office confirmed.

The state legislature approved the measure last Friday. Prior to signing the legislation, Richardson received thousands of e-mails and phone calls weighing in on the matter.

Richardson said the criminal justice system is "inherently defective" in its use of the death penalty, noting that four death-row inmates in New Mexico have been exonerated in the past 10 years.

"Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime," Richardson said in a statement Wednesday.

"If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong."

The bill replaces the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole.

New Mexico is now the second state to repeal the death penalty since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976. The death penalty is wrong and racist. Only God should create and destroy life. Hopefully more states will follow New Mexico's lead.

States To Consider Getting Rid Of Death Penalty

Good:

When Gov. Martin O’Malley appeared before the Maryland Senate last week, he made an unconventional argument that is becoming increasingly popular in cash-strapped states: abolish the death penalty to cut costs.

Mr. O’Malley, a Democrat and a Roman Catholic who has cited religious opposition to the death penalty in the past, is now arguing that capital cases cost three times as much as homicide cases where the death penalty is not sought. “And we can’t afford that,” he said, “when there are better and cheaper ways to reduce crime.”

Lawmakers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire have made the same argument in recent months as they push bills seeking to repeal the death penalty, and experts say such bills have a good chance of passing in Maryland, Montana and New Mexico.

Death penalty opponents say they still face an uphill battle, but they are pleased to have allies raising the economic argument.

I'm for whatever it takes to abolish the death penalty. Capital punishment does not deter crime, it is racist, kills innocents and serves no purpose other than vengeance. The sooner we get rid of it, the better we move towards becoming a civilized society.

Sharon Tate Killer Susan Atkins Denied Parole

In a unanimous decision yesterday the California Parole Board denied a request for compassionate release by convicted murderer Susan Atkins, now 60, and supposedly dying with three months to live:

The petition for Atkins' release ignited debate about what mercy is appropriate, particularly considering the grisly crimes for which she was convicted. With the rejection by the panel, the process is effectively over, making it highly likely that she will die in custody.

In opposing Atkins' release, some family members had to bring back painful memories. Pam Turner, a cousin of Sharon Tate, recalled the pregnant actress' return to the United States, and dreaming of helping her with her baby. Then she spoke about wanting to die after finding out that Tate and her unborn son had been stabbed to death.

"I was a child, but I was so sick with grief that I wished I too could die," Turner said, sobbing. She described how Tate's mother, her aunt, "howled like a wounded animal."

As to be expected, some leftwing loons are howling against this decision by the California Parole Board, arguing in part that Atkins was young and on drugs when she committed her heinous act, has served 37 years in jail, exhibited model behavior in prison, is in deteriorating health and is "no longer a threat to society". Of course, this kind of thinking is typical of so-called "progressives" who care more about the rights of criminals than the victims of violent acts and serves as yet another reminder of the damaging effect liberals are having on society as a whole. Then too, in displaying their compassion for Sharon Tate's killer, the loons fail to mention that most drug users don't join murderous gangs, Atkins didn't show any remorse for her deeds till after she was convicted, she murdered others besides Sharon Tate and she's outlived her victims by 40 years already. This isn't about revenge, this is about Susan Atkins serving a sentence commensurate to her crimes. Our criminal justice already has many serious flaws, releasing Susan Atkins our of jail would only add to the problem and it'd send a very dangerous precedent.

Supreme Court Was Right About Louisiana vs. Kennedy

It's funny to see conservatives still whining about SCOTUS' recent decision in The State of Louisiana vs. Patrick Kennedy, with the justices 5-4 vote letting Kennedy live after it was decided, correctly, that capital punishment should only be considered in cases where someone is killed. I've cited on this blog numerous reasons why the death penalty is wrong: it's immoral, racist, the government cannot be entrusted with the most important decision that can impact a person's life, capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime and it's prime motive is nothing but revenge. Despite these facts, the righteous "kill and be killed!" crowd are now citing slip-ups in Louisiana vs. Kennedy and crying for a do-over. Yet, a fair and balanced response the latest whine in The Washington Post puts them in their place:

For the Supreme Court to grant a rehearing in this case would reward irresponsible parties for what is akin to malpractice. The lawyers for the state of Louisiana could have readily noted the Uniform Code of Military Justice's law regarding rape and capital punishment. They didn't. Justice Department lawyers easily could have caught it, too. They didn't. And the Supreme Court's cadre of law clerks, especially those who work for Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr., could have done some independent research and caught it. But they didn't.

Against this backdrop of professional carelessness, your editorial called for a rehearing. But this would only compound the problem. What precedent will the court set if it allows a second chance every time someone does shoddy work?

As for justice being served: Convicted child rapist Patrick Kennedy, whose case the high court decided, will live, albeit in prison. The union will survive. And the law in this area could be reconsidered in another case, such as one involving a soldier charged with child rape. Meanwhile, any request for a rehearing should be denied. Case closed.

It's the idea that a death penalty supporter can live with themselves when a state sanctioned murder kills an innocent person that scares me the most.

Supreme Court Says No To Death Penalty For Rape

Great decision by the Court in deciding that "the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional if the defendants' acts were not intended to cause death." The decision was 5-4:

Barring the death penalty for any crime that does not take the life of an individual victim, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that it is unconstitutional to impose the death penalty for the crime of raping a child. If the victim does not die and death was not intended, capital punishment for that crime violates the Eighth Amendment, the Court ruled in an opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. The case was Patrick Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343). The broad declaration that death sentences should be reserved “for crimes that take the life of the victim” will apply, the Court said, to crimes against individuals — thus leaving intact, for example, a possible death sentence for treason.

Part of the Court’s rationale for nullifying a death sentence for raping a child was that the child victim gets enlisted, perhaps repeatedly, to recount the crime, forcing on the child “a moral choice” that the youngster is not mature enough to make. “The way the death penalty here involves the child victim in its enforcement can compromise a decent legal system,” Justice Kennedy wrote.

This is an obvious case of the punishment being disproportionate from the crime, even victims' rights groups were against it, correctly arguing that this could as an incentive for rapists to kill their victims.

James Woodward: Another Reason Why The Death Penalty Is Wrong

27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit:

Woodard was convicted of raping and murdering his girlfriend in 1981 and sentenced to life in prison. He was released on April 29, the 17th Dallas County inmate to be exonerated by DNA testing.

In one aspect at least, Woodard and the 16 others are lucky; the evidence that freed them was preserved even after their appeals were exhausted and the courts finalized their convictions. If they had been tried in a county or city that has no preservation laws, the DNA to clear them would have been destroyed long ago.

But more and more counties and states are passing laws for evidence preservation, according to the Innocence Project, practicing what Dallas County has long been doing.

If it were up to the revenge obsessed death enthusiasts another innocent man would've killed thanks to state-sanctioned murder. But James Woodward is yet another reason why the death penalty needs to be abolished for good.

Check out the Innocence Project, they're doing great things.

Supreme Court Needs To Keep Patrick Kennedy Alive

Listen, I have a variety of reasons for being against the death penalty: it's racist, it's about nothing more than revenge, it's morally unjust, it hasn't proven at all to be a deterrent to crime. And in the light of former inmates once on death row, continually having their sentences reversed thanks to DNA evidence showing that they didn't commit the crime they were convicted of, it'd take a perfect criminal justice to fairly impose the death penalty as there is no coming back from capital punishment. But the idea that Patrick Kennedy could be put to death for rape is literally insane because it serves to fortify the agenda of radical feminists who in their hatred of men and "rape is about violence" creeds, want rape to be treated on the same level as murder:

He is not a killer, but the state of Louisiana is determined to execute Patrick Kennedy for his crime.

The New Orleans native faces that reality as he sits on death row at Louisiana's maximum security prison, the largest prison in the nation. The Louisiana State Penitentiary, or Angola Prison, is the size of Manhattan and surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River.

Unlike the 3,300 inmates awaiting execution nationwide -- including the 94 other men at Angola -- Kennedy, 43, is a convicted rapist. The victim was his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

For the first time in 44 years, a state is preparing to execute a man for a felony other than murder. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether Louisiana can use capital punishment in child rape cases.

If the Supreme Court sides with Louisiana (and considering recent death penalty decisions by this court as well as the fact that the Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977, I don't think they will), their decision could have serious consequences that the "we-hate-men" crowd fail to consider or even care about. For starters, since most rapists don't kill, what's to stop a child rapist from not wanting to leave any witnesses behind, thus deciding to murder the child, knowing that if he's caught, he'll be executed? Then too, the door also opens for legislators, to take a look at other crimes, in addition to child rape, that may be repulsive enough to society to warrant capital punishment. Finally, with adult victims of rape already having a hard time proving their cases in court, the emphasis on proving a rape occurred is more difficult for a youngster--can you imagine the added pressure with the burden of proof resting on an emotionally wrecked child shoulders? Indeed Patrick Kennedy committed a heinous act, but he didn't kill anyone. Lock him up for the rest of his without the possibility of parole, but don't give him the chair.

Politiks As Usual: In The News 4/7/08

Billary Chief Strategist And Pollster Mark Penn Steps Down

John McCain To Convene Meeting Of Doctors To Confront Health Concerns

'No Mitt' Campaign Targets Vice-President Slot

While Covering Hillary's Lies, Katie Couric Smears John McCain

MLK Jr's Niece Says Life Is The New Civil Rights Cause

Virginia Governor Halts Executions

Ted Turner Pushes One-Child Policy In PBS Interview

Thandie Newton To Play Condoleezza Rice In New Oliver Stone Flick On Bush

Politiks As Usual: In The News 10/29/07

Obama Supporter, Donnie McClurkin, Cheered Despite Protests By Gay Mafia

Oprah Winfrey Cries For Sex-Scandal Forgiveness

American Bar Association Wants Halt To Executions

Black Liberals Love HillBill More Than Obama

How The Left Funds Global Warming Hysteria

The End Of America As We Know It

Media Myths About The Jena 6

Red Sox Nation Wins Second World Series In Four Years

Politiks As Usual: In The News 6/11/07

Fred Thompson Called Out For His Profession Of Faith

Immigration Bill Isn't Dead Just Yet

Cindy Sheehan Sells Bush Land To Progressive Radio Talk Show Host

"Mom, It's Not Right"

Studies Begin To Suggest That Death Penalty Does Deter Crime

Racism Raises Its Ugly Head On UK's "Big Brother"

"The Sopranos" Ends On A Mysterious Note