Planning meeting on September 12 at 7:30 PM for Tow Hall/Cheering On the Death Machine

 Fund Our Comunities-Baltimore usually meets on Mondays at 7:30 PM, and the meetings now take place at Max’s residence.  The next meeting will be at 7:30 PM on Mon., Sept. 12.  The focus of the meeting will be to continue planning for the Sept. 26 Town Hall meeting on military spending at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, University Pkwy. & N. Charles St.  To get directions to Max’s residence, call 410-366-1637 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net. 

 

Friends,

 

There is just no way Rick Perry could get elected president.  However, I said the same thing about another guy from Texas, who led the nation in executions.

 

Kagiso,

 

Max

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/opinion/cheering-on-the-death-machine.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

 

 

September 11, 2011

Cheering On the Death Machine

Even supporters of the death penalty used to consider execution a solemn state responsibility, not an occasion for celebration. But the crowd of Republicans who gathered at the Reagan Library last week to watch their presidential candidates debate actually applauded and cheered when a moderator noted that Texas had executed 234 inmates under Gov. Rick Perry, by far the most under any governor in modern times.

Then came Mr. Perry’s blithe denial that he had ever struggled with a single one of those state killings. Texas has a “thoughtful, a very clear process,” he said, which ensures everyone a fair hearing, so there is no need to lose sleep over the possibility of executing an innocent person.

It may not trouble Mr. Perry, but any clear-eyed observer would be shocked at the grim momentum of his state’s death machine, which stops for no suggestion of error. The clearest and best-known illustration of that was the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for the home fire that killed his three children, despite egregious flaws in the forensic science that helped convict him. In the face of serious questions, Mr. Perry refused to grant a reprieve for Mr. Willingham, and years later replaced the members of a state forensic commission that was about to hold hearings on the execution.

That is hardly the only questionable case during his tenure, as shown by a database developed by The Texas Tribune, a partner of The New York Times. In a recent report, The Tribune described the case of Kelsey Patterson, who was executed for two 1992 shootings despite a recommendation to Mr. Perry for clemency by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on the grounds of clear mental incapacity. He has also approved the execution of a man whose lawyer suffered from mental illness and was repeatedly disciplined; a man involved in a fatal robbery who did not kill the victim; and a man who was 17 at the time of a murder and received clemency recommendations from the trial judge and several legislators.

Mr. Perry is well known for being extremely parsimonious with his clemency authority. His attitude about death may make sense in the hard-edged Republican primaries, but other voters should have serious doubts about a man who seems to have none.

© 2011 The New York Times Company

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs