Texas executes man in murder of liquor store clerk

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

World | Tue Feb 16, 2016 8:16pm EST

Texas executes man in murder of liquor store clerk

AUSTIN, TEXAS | BY JON HERSKOVITZ

Texas on Tuesday executed a man who was convicted of fatally shooting a liquor store clerk in a robbery outside of Dallas in 1990.

Gustavo Garcia, 43, who has spent more than half of his life on death row, was put to death by lethal injection at the state's execution chamber in Huntsville. He was pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m. local time, a prisons official said.

The execution was the 534th in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state.

"To my family, to my mom, I love you. God bless you. Stay strong. I'm done," Garcia said in his final statement, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-execution-idUSKCN0VP1RG

[sir pball]

1. I don't support the DP on the pragmatic grounds that it's impossible..

..to guarantee 100%, absolute metaphysical certitude, that every person sentenced is guilty - rather a thousand guilty go to jail than one innocent die...but there doesn't seem to be a question here, so...what?

[CBGLuthier]

2. So you do then support the death penalty.

When you are super duper sure the fellow is guilty.

Oh well, got in trouble last time I argued about the DP so I will let this one slide.

[sir pball]

5. No, I have no theoretical, moral, issue with it at all.

I do not believe it it morally wrong to execute a person who has killed another. Full stop.

That said, since we can't be literally absolutely sure about it, ever, at all - we should NEVER, at all, have it as a punishment.

I mean - you wouldn't execute Stalin in 1930?

[Jenny_92808]

3. I don't support

the death penalty, period!

[Skittles]

4. if you kill someone, we will kill you.....26 years later

it is sheer insanity

[branford]

7. That's not an argument against capital punishment,

rather it's an argument for expedited appeals and more limited due process for those convicted of capital crimes. Be careful what you wish for.

Many death penalty supporters would be more than pleased if the punishment was normally carried-out far more expeditiously, and it's hardly liberal or progressive to complain that the condemned is afforded nearly limitless appeals to ensure the fairness of the process.

It's one thing to complain that capital punishment is always morally unacceptable or simply inappropriate given the inherent problems of any human-run criminal justice system, but complaining that it's unfair for the condemned to be on death row for years as they file one appeal after another is just disingenuous, unconvincing and absurd.

[CommonSenseDemocrat]

6. This is the first case in American history

Where the final justice who denied the death penalty appeal died before the condemned.