Before this was even written, I'd decided I needed to name this post after a Metallica album, but I just couldn't choose one:
Kill 'Em All?,
Ride the Lightning?
Master of Puppets?
..And Justice for All?,
St. Anger?
Death Magnetic?
You see my dilemma. They're all just too perfect when describing a blog about "justice" in my home state. Welcome to Texas, where we Kill 'em All and let the Lord Almighty sort it out. dadinleftfield.com/2010/11/texallica.html
Before this was even written, I'd decided I needed to name this post after a Metallica album, but I just couldn't choose one:
Kill 'Em All?,
Ride the Lightning?
Master of Puppets?
..And Justice for All?,
St. Anger?
Death Magnetic?
You see my dilemma. They're all just too perfect when describing a blog about "justice" in my home state. Welcome to Texas, where we Kill 'em All and let the Lord Almighty sort it out.
I'm not referring to Hunting Season, although that too has arrived in Texas with tremendous fanfare. No, I'm talking about the philosophy of our Texas Leadership (Judge Sharon Keller, Rick Perry, George W before him, et al), and our Department of Corrections that has resulted in the execution of (literally) God-only-knows how many innocent people in Texas.
Lest you think Cameron Todd Willingham, was somehow extraordinary, allow me to encourage you to Google the stories of the men below; each, "put-down" like rabid dogs by the State of Texas; each proved innocent* posthumously:
Carlos DeLuna Texas Conviction: 1983, Executed: 1989; Ruben Cantu Texas Convicted: 1985, Executed: 1993; Larry Griffin Conviction: 1981, Executed: 1995; David Spence Texas Conviction: 1984, Executed: 1997; or Gary Graham Texas Convicted: 1981, Executed: 2000.
This list is by no means exhaustive. These are just a few of the higher profile, obvious, execution-of-the-innocent cases in Texas. Of course there are lots of terrible tales in Florida and Virginia and Missouri, too. Pretty much anywhere there are medium-to-high-volume state-sanctioned-executions occurring, you can count on there being at least a few innocents slaughtered. That is simply a consequence of swift, low-cost and final "justice". Just as surely as eating a little bit of shit is a consequence of your double cheeseburger being, swiftly delivered and costing only 99 cents.
Today, through the miracle of DNA evidence, we learn of another victim: "Claude Jones always claimed that he wasn't the man who walked into an East Texas liquor store in 1989 and shot the owner. He professed his innocence right up until the moment he was strapped to a gurney in the Texas execution chamber and put to death on Dec. 7, 2000. His murder conviction was based on a single piece of forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene--a strand of hair--that prosecutors claimed belonged to Jones.
But DNA tests completed this week at the request of the Observer and the New York-based Innocence Project show the hair didn't belong to Jones after all. The day before his death in December 2000, Jones asked for a stay of execution so the strand of hair could be submitted for DNA testing. He was denied by then-Gov. George W. Bush.
A decade later, the results of DNA testing not only undermine the evidence that convicted Jones, but raise the possibility that Texas executed an innocent man. The DNA tests--conducted by Mitotyping Technologies, a private lab in State College, Pa., and....continued at
http://dadinleftfield.com/...