Capital Punishment : Relevance

Read this last week, Injection of Reflection

Here's the first paragraph.

Texas has long been the Hang 'Em High state. In 2000, it executed convicted prisoners at the rate of almost one a week. Gov. George W. Bush seemed to take pride in turning down appeals for clemency. The "Decider" was known for spending as little as 15 minutes reviewing a death case. In a Talk magazine piece, Tucker Carlson reported that Bush mocked the plea of one double murderer on death row, pursing his lips in mock desperation and whispering, "Please, don't kill me." (Bush later said Carlson had "misread, mischaracterized me.")

No matter how much I try not to do Bush bashing in this blog, I can't help it.

In the yesterday's youtube - GOP debate, one viewer asked Huckabee "Capital Punishment : what would jesus do". Huckabee gave his best tap dance performance "Abortion is different from Death Penalty" .When the Host Anderson Cooper insisted for the answer, Huckabee said this "Jesus would be too smart to run for public office". For the record, Huckabee is a Baptist minister and cruising ahead in the popularity with his church credentials

But how come these hard core Christian preachers root for the death Penalty. I mean Christianity is about Compassion, isn't it?. And no offense, but all the jury members are not so intelligent or far from partiality. If they're so perfect OJ and Michael Jackson should be behind the bars now.

Heard one news item recently "man spends 20 years in jail for committing rape, proven not guilty after DNA test". But what if we kill the innocent Guy.

that's what happened in Texas. from the article
..At 9 a.m. on Sept. 25, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear the Baze case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. Michael Richard, convicted of rape and murder in 1986, was scheduled for execution that night. His lawyers rushed to file a new motion based on the high court's ruling, but their computer crashed and they missed the 5 p.m. filing deadline. A judge refused to keep open the state court. Richard was executed at 8:22 p.m.

So this person might be innocent. who knows?

For the record I don't completely rule out the death Penalty. Back in early 90s in India (near Chilakaluripet, AP)two men burned a Bus for the robbery purpose and killed 18 people. Court gave the Death Penalty after so much legal battle. But President of India K.R.Narayanan granted them clemency. Reason, these guys belong to SC/ST. Caste is so BIG in India that, it would rescue people from gallows also. I thought these two men deserve death penalty

My point/Question. Is it still relevant today? And why these Texans were so cruel?

Peace