Georgia & Texas Compete in Executing Mentally Ill Persons

[laserhaas]

Many of you will be too busy to recall, what started it all, of Governor Rick Perry's indictment. We have to go back to the execution of the guy, who still makes me weep - Mr. Cameron Todd Willingham. Be that as it may, Georgia and Texas - So Enjoy/love their ability to do murder by State - that they are now (regularly) killing known persons with I.Q.'s below 80.

Even if your mentally ill, in Texas and Georgia - you fit the bill - for Execution!
[br][hr][br]

[font size=4][center]Amoral Execution of Mentally Challenge - A Stain Upon the System of Justice[/center][/font]
[br]
Not to be confused with "immoral" - the term "amoral" is an adjective that means there are NO moral standards. As is the case in the recent, year of our Lord - 2015, executions of ruled mentally challenged at 13 - Warren Hill by Georgia; and Robert Ladd (I.Q of 67).

Per NBC News "Georgia Executes Warren Lee Hill Despite Low IQ Claim", (that has a regular thread dedicated to "Lethal Injections" and "Full coverage of the death penalty and capital punishment in the United States and breaking news about prison inmate executions and lethal injection protocols" Robert Ladd was executed for the beating death of a fellow inmate.

Attorney at Law, Brian Kammer, as counsel for Warren Lee Hill, said;
"Today, the Court has unconscionably allowed a grotesque miscarriage of justice to occur in Georgia," Hill's lawyer, Brian Kammer said. "Georgia has been allowed to execute an unquestionably intellectually disabled man, Warren Hill, in direct contravention of the Court's clear precedent prohibiting such cruelty."

Georgia simply doesn't care - as it appears blood lust is a state mandate!
[br][hr][br]

[center][font size=5]Texas Quotes Steinbeck to Justify Execution of Mentally Ill[/font][/center]
[br]

As reported by Vice News in its thread "Texas Executed a Man with 67 I.Q." the last remarks of Robert Ladd - were;

"I really, really hope and pray you don't have hatred in your heart.
A revenge death won't get you anything."

Ladd then told the prison warden, "Let's ride."

He died at 7:02 pm CT, 27 minutes after the pentobarbital was administered.

[br]
To the shock of many who monitor the death penalty, Texans are painted as brutal people, who decided constitutional values by a (voting - I guess) majority opinion that the United States Supreme Court's ruling on executions of mentally challenged persons - is subject to the whim of the state. The Judge ruled that Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" applies.

But does such intellect (if that's what you dare call it) - apply in such a case as this?

As can be seen in the history of the case, from the time he was 13 years old, Doctors wrote off Robert Ladd as a guy SO mentally challenged - that he could not count monies and/or remember his clothing size.

In 1970, at 13 years old, Ladd was diagnosed by a Texas State psychiatrist as having an IQ of 67.

Ladd, said the doctor, was "fairly obviously retarded."

Later that year, the psychiatrist said he did "not feel that this boy needs any more follow-up sessions due to his limited IQ and motivation to improve himself."

"He was placed in a mental retardation center as an adult, and he had someone who drove him to work," Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project, which has filed an appeal before the Supreme Court, told VICE News. "He couldn't buy clothes because he didn't know his size. When he tried to pay his bills, he used the wrong amount of money, and someone had to help pay his bills.

This is a person with lifelong intellectual disability."

emphasis is mine
[br][hr][br]

A Texas judge stated that "most" Texans would agree that the mentally challenged guy - in Mice and Men - shouldn't be executed. Then the justice went on to opine that;

"But does a consensus of Texas citizens agree that all persons who might legitimately qualify for assistance under the social services definition of mental retardation be exempt from an otherwise constitutional penalty?"

[br]

I don't know about you - but for me - if a human being CAN"T count money;

then he's too far gone to be held accountable for his actions!

[br][hr][br]

[center][font size=4]Let's all hope & pray that Governor Perry get's his day - in court.

So that we can see what happened to the

Cameron Todd Willingham Commission[/font][/center]

[laserhaas]

1. Here's a note - from a Judge that is one of my heroes. For his being bold in stating

a "personal" note - in his dissent about the NY death penalty case of People v Davis

I find capital punishment repulsive, unproven to be an effective deterrent (of which the James case itself is illustrative), unworthy of a civilized society (except perhaps for deserters in time of war) because of the occasion of mistakes and changes in social values as to what are mitigating circumstances, and the brutalizing of all those who participate directly or indirectly in its infliction.

His Honor, Chief Judge Breitel - "powerfully" added this personal remark that fostered much esteemed discussion.

http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1376&context=plr

[br][hr][br]

In the coming weeks, I'm going to do a thread on the discussion of those who directly/indirectly participate in death penalty

------------------------------------------------------------ infliction!

[laserhaas]

2. Here's a note from a Sister who ministers to prison inmates

In sorting out my feelings and beliefs, there is, however, one piece
of moral ground of which I am absolutely certain: if I were to be
murdered I would not want my murderer executed. I would not
want my death avenged. Especially by government - which can't
be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably
or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.8

[laserhaas]

3. Testing the posting

To see where all the comments went!