A black man convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago was at least temporarily spared from lethal injection when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review his lawyers' claims that race played an improper role in his sentencing.
The court on Thursday halted the execution for Duane Buck, 48, two hours into a six-hour window when he could have been taken to the death chamber. Texas officials, however, did not move forward with the punishment while legal issues were pending.
Buck was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of his ex-girlfriend and a man in her apartment in July 1995. His attorneys had asked both the Supreme Court and Texas Gov. Rick Perry to halt the execution because of a psychologist's testimony that black people were more likely to commit violence. Buck's guilt is not being questioned, but his lawyers contend the testimony unfairly influenced the jury and Buck should receive a new sentencing hearing.
The nation's highest court, without extensive comment, said it would review an appeal related to that testimony. The decision meant Perry did not have to act on a request from Buck's lawyers that the governor use his authority to issue a one-time 30-day reprieve.
All in all, I think capital punishment ought to be prohibited in all civilised countries. Any country wanting to become a member of the EU needs to abolish it before they're even considered.
Are there any initiatives with the Supreme Court to declare the death penalty generally unlawful, bindingly so for all jurisdictions? I think only the SC can do so in the US, due to the independence of states, counties, and Indian territories?
I believe the only crime they execute for is murder. I think.
But many child molestors do murder.
It's interesting because child molestors cannot be rehabilitated; it has been demonstrated time and again that they will repeat the crime if they are left unsupervised. Tragically, almost every case of child murder reveals a pattern of increasingly violent acts leading up to the killing. But the system is so overloaded, the social workers can't deal with it.
Even the guy who shot the Az Senator had a track record of violent behavior. Often times they will discuss their plans on the internet. But we don't have the system in place to prevent these individuals from becoming increasingly violent.
Sad but true. Probably even the attack in Sweden could have been prevented.
On the other hand, we have to make sure our classical law system doesn't descend into total surveillance à la 'Minority Report'.
Real pedophiles, however, have been known to seek therapy voluntarily once they realise what is going on with them. There are pilot projects here in Germany, in Berlin and Regensburg (of all places). Crime prevention has to start on a much wider social scale.
I've been very interested in sociopaths because conventional wisdom is that they cannot be taught to integrate into society, and yet most people with sociopathic tendencies do not kill, so I wonder...
If I had it to do all over again, I would totally study psychiatry! It's my favorite subject.
Real pedophiles aren't sociopaths; they don't really want to hurt children. They are susceptible to therapy and to having safeties installed in their psyche to make sure they never become dangerous.
Sociopaths that only molest children to feel powerful are another thing. Those are the ultimate dickweasels, scared of potential grown-up partners, and not aware (deep down) of doing anything wrong.
Sociopaths cannot feel empathy (or even sympathy). I don't understand the crossed-wiring of the brain, but that is the argument.
My question is -- can the brain be altered with these individuals to help them integrate in society? It's been done with brain chemistry, so I wonder about the potential with other brain processes.
Don't kid yourself -- sociopaths have a mental illness that needs to be addressed. And most child molesters were molested as children. It's a complex problem that requires a complex solution. Unfortunately, with the laws in place to protect the family unit at any costs -- and without a powerful lobby in Congress -- the kids simply don't have a chance. My sister is a social worker and frequently they see kids returned to a bad situation time and again. It's heart-rending and there is no easy remedy. I personally feel the investment in education -- teachers, after all, spent the bulk of the day with the children -- is the key.
But education will never be a priority in the consumer society.
Sorry! I didn't intend to turn your post into a rant. LOL
BTW, purple -- WIN! You should see my lavendar bathroom. <3
There is a case over here where one can see how a victim is being turned into a perpetrator -- a twelve-year-old boy who is 'sexually abnormal' in that he has been molesting other kids in the institution he's in, and overly sexually interested and knowledgeable for his age. People agree that he must have been abused by his drug addict father, but he's considered so dangerous he's now in a closed institution for sexually dangerous minors that is a prison in all but name, 700 kilometres from his grandmother, the only person who can deal with him.
He's being branded a monster, at twelve. Instead of people trying to save him.
There are too many cases like this! But even more alarming are those who grow up in "normal" households and turn out like this. It's just the wiring of their brains. Did you ever see the film (the Dutch version) "The Vanishing"? The end scene where he is eating cheerfully on the grass that now covers the graves of two people. He was a brilliant individual who just wondered what it would be like to kill someone -- much the way children pull the wings off of moths or the legs off grasshoppers. They are merely very curious and do not understand that it is wrong.
Now of course killers who delight in their deeds are quite different -- especially since they work so hard not to be caught by the authorities. Clearly they understand that their deeds are wrong, anti-social. My question is -- how do we work with that type of mindset? How do we train it to think along social lines?
Alas we live in a world that is just starting to come to terms with the idea that people can be helped. When I was a technical writer, I worked for researchers in the College of Pharmacy who were studying alzheimer's (which is when I got interested in psychiatry). From their work, I realized how much we still have to learn about the human brain.
I guess these are people either missing something naturally, or having missed one of those windows of opportunity during a child's development, when people learn empathy.
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A black man convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago was at least temporarily spared from lethal injection when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review his lawyers' claims that race played an improper role in his sentencing.
The court on Thursday halted the execution for Duane Buck, 48, two hours into a six-hour window when he could have been taken to the death chamber. Texas officials, however, did not move forward with the punishment while legal issues were pending.
Buck was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of his ex-girlfriend and a man in her apartment in July 1995. His attorneys had asked both the Supreme Court and Texas Gov. Rick Perry to halt the execution because of a psychologist's testimony that black people were more likely to commit violence. Buck's guilt is not being questioned, but his lawyers contend the testimony unfairly influenced the jury and Buck should receive a new sentencing hearing.
The nation's highest court, without extensive comment, said it would review an appeal related to that testimony. The decision meant Perry did not have to act on a request from Buck's lawyers that the governor use his authority to issue a one-time 30-day reprieve.
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Are there any initiatives with the Supreme Court to declare the death penalty generally unlawful, bindingly so for all jurisdictions? I think only the SC can do so in the US, due to the independence of states, counties, and Indian territories?
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I was surprised that the State waited while the SC deliberated. In the past, they have rushed the executions through before they could be stopped.
Which resulted in one very famous case of the execution of an innocent man.
All civilized countries need to focus on preventative solutions and not punishment.
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But many child molestors do murder.
It's interesting because child molestors cannot be rehabilitated; it has been demonstrated time and again that they will repeat the crime if they are left unsupervised. Tragically, almost every case of child murder reveals a pattern of increasingly violent acts leading up to the killing. But the system is so overloaded, the social workers can't deal with it.
Even the guy who shot the Az Senator had a track record of violent behavior. Often times they will discuss their plans on the internet. But we don't have the system in place to prevent these individuals from becoming increasingly violent.
Sad but true. Probably even the attack in Sweden could have been prevented.
no subject
On the other hand, we have to make sure our classical law system doesn't descend into total surveillance à la 'Minority Report'.
Real pedophiles, however, have been known to seek therapy voluntarily once they realise what is going on with them. There are pilot projects here in Germany, in Berlin and Regensburg (of all places). Crime prevention has to start on a much wider social scale.
no subject
I've been very interested in sociopaths because conventional wisdom is that they cannot be taught to integrate into society, and yet most people with sociopathic tendencies do not kill, so I wonder...
If I had it to do all over again, I would totally study psychiatry! It's my favorite subject.
no subject
Sociopaths that only molest children to feel powerful are another thing. Those are the ultimate dickweasels, scared of potential grown-up partners, and not aware (deep down) of doing anything wrong.
no subject
My question is -- can the brain be altered with these individuals to help them integrate in society? It's been done with brain chemistry, so I wonder about the potential with other brain processes.
Don't kid yourself -- sociopaths have a mental illness that needs to be addressed. And most child molesters were molested as children. It's a complex problem that requires a complex solution. Unfortunately, with the laws in place to protect the family unit at any costs -- and without a powerful lobby in Congress -- the kids simply don't have a chance. My sister is a social worker and frequently they see kids returned to a bad situation time and again. It's heart-rending and there is no easy remedy. I personally feel the investment in education -- teachers, after all, spent the bulk of the day with the children -- is the key.
But education will never be a priority in the consumer society.
Sorry! I didn't intend to turn your post into a rant. LOL
BTW, purple -- WIN! You should see my lavendar bathroom. <3
no subject
He's being branded a monster, at twelve. Instead of people trying to save him.
no subject
Now of course killers who delight in their deeds are quite different -- especially since they work so hard not to be caught by the authorities. Clearly they understand that their deeds are wrong, anti-social. My question is -- how do we work with that type of mindset? How do we train it to think along social lines?
Alas we live in a world that is just starting to come to terms with the idea that people can be helped. When I was a technical writer, I worked for researchers in the College of Pharmacy who were studying alzheimer's (which is when I got interested in psychiatry). From their work, I realized how much we still have to learn about the human brain.
no subject
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