Tennessee prepares to execute blind death row inmate

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Kimberlee Kruesi, Associated Press
Updated 12:36 pm CST, Monday, December 2, 2019

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The state of Tennessee is preparing to execute a blind man this week.

Lee Hall is scheduled to be electrocuted Thursday.

Hall had his sight when he entered death row nearly three decades ago, but attorneys for the 53-year-old prisoner say he’s since become functionally blind due to improperly treated glaucoma.

Hall’s attorneys say he would be just the second blind person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.






Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Tennessee-prepares-to-execute-blind-death-row-14875904.php

[ArizonaLib]

1. Of course, because blind people are violently destroying this country

This should be the billboard for ridding ourselves of the death penalty.

[brooklynite]

2. I don't support the death penalty, but blindness isn't a mitigating factor.

[ArizonaLib]

7. Brooklynite, I am not sure I agree about not being a mitigating factor, but I will think about it.

I see it was due to post incarceration glaucoma onset, and I don't know what his crime was, but as the death penalty is currently a legal punishment, I understand even if I don't agree with it, it is the law until changed, etc. I would think that death punishment for a blind person would not be made priority? I know there are legal procedures for priority, timing, etc. I don't mean to imply there were breakdowns in that process, just that this process should be changed. I know you are busy, and don't need to reply, but like I said I will think it over.

Thanks for all your work on this site.

[Judi Lynn]

3. It woulda been a matter of time before he'd break out & go on a murder spree across the US. n/t

[ArizonaLib]

5. Yes, eminent danger

nm

[Canoe52]

4. How Old Testament of them...

[SCantiGOP]

16. We apparently have to kill people

to show that it is wrong to kill people.

[Canoe52]

17. I like your avatar, I have a sticker of that drawing on my car!

[SCantiGOP]

18. Keep on truckin'

I had to think to remember what the avatar was. It doesn’t show up on my phone which is where I usually cruise DU.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Empathy on parade

[BirdandSquirrel]

8. Improperly Treated Glaucoma

This has to meet the criteria of "cruel and unusual" punishment in and of itself.

[Judi Lynn]

11. I was wondering about that, too. Thanks for your post. Welcome to D.U. n/t

[Boomer]

9. How is his blindness relevant?

Is it somehow more barbaric to execute a man who is blind versus one who has kidney disease or cancer or who is in a wheelchair? Do we somehow feel better about an execution if the man being fried is healthy?

As for not being a danger to society, that's not the criteria for imprisonment. Our system is pretty open about being punitive -- your sentence is focused on "payment" for a crime already committed. The likelihood of committing a repeat offense would be relevant for a parole board hearing, perhaps, but if you're slated for death row, parole isn't an option.

I'm not a proponent of the death penalty myself, but I can think of many more rational and persuasive arguments against state-sponsored murder than "he's blind." That's some weird kind of pity ploy, not a debatable point.

[Jake Stern]

10. Only a person who is seriously fucked in the head can support the absurd idea

that you must kill someone to demonstrate that killing is wrong.

Too bad our governor Jared Polis won't do the right thing and commute the sentences of the three people remaining on death row instead of continuing John Hickenlooper's morally weak "moratorium".

[LittleBunny]

12. Lee Hall was sentenced to death for the murder of his ex girlfriend, Traci Crozier.

He doused her in gasoline and lit her on fire.

He was 24, she was 22. They began dating in high school and had lived together for five years in a trailer until the month before her death, when she left him.

On the night of April 16, 1991, Hall attacked Crozier as she sat in her car. She suffered burns over 95 percent of her body and died a day later of what emergency-room doctors at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, called the worst injuries they'd ever seen.

Crozier's injuries were so severe that the majority of her body was covered in third-degree burns and her internal organs were damaged in the blaze, according to her autopsy.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/crime/2019/12/02/lee-hall-execution-victim-impact-statement-traci-crozier-staci-wooten/4261720002/

[Jose Garcia]

13. Would not executing him because he is blind be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act?

[Codeine]

14. The death penalty sucks

but his blindness has fuck all to do with it.

[Judi Lynn]

15. It's doubtful anyone here thinks he needs coddling because he's blind.

It's probably safe to assume many U.S. Americans don't believe in state-sanctioned murder, in ANY situation and support serious prison sentences.

Some may recall in the "Good Book" of their youth, it was written, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."

Only a worthless trump would imagine himself more worthy of respect, even fear, than "The Lord."