Two Texas inmates set to die on same night

[rainbow4321]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D89H7ASO0.html

The nation's busiest death chamber could be administering a double dose of lethal drugs on Wednesday with two condemned killers set to die then.

The double execution is unusual but not unprecedented for Texas, where 340 prisoners have been put to death since 1982 when the state resumed carrying out the death penalty after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its prohibition.

Most recently, two prisoners were executed on Aug. 9, 2000. They were among a record 40 prisoners put to death in the state that year. Two executions on the same day also were carried out in 1995 and 1997.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Mike Viesca said a few extra staff and an additional chaplain would be at the Walls Unit in downtown Huntsville, where executions are carried out, to accommodate the second prisoner.

[Zerex71]

1. Culture of Life!

[DS1]

2. Terrance and Philip?

[TahitiNut]

3. Well, that'll give the drunken Texan lying in a pool of his own vomit ...

... next to his pick-up truck with the Bush/Cheney bumper-sticker in the rutted parking lot of the local long-neck swill-and-puke as the sun rises on Sunday morning an ill-deserved woody.

Been there; seen that. :puke:

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[amber dog democrat]

10. Travis County went BLUE.

Just consider us part of the resistance - in a sea of RED goons.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TahitiNut]

14. I've lived in Texas and Alabama ...

... and, while I met and knew PLENTY of very wonderful people (my half-sister is an Alabamian), I just couldn't believe the things I saw going to church or going fishing early on a Sunday morning. These are things I've never seen outside of those states - not in Washington, California, New York, Michigan, or Connecticut. (I've seen a little bit in Arizona and Missouri, though.) When Jimmy Buffett says "There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning," I picture the drunks still sleeping it off in the cowboy bar (line dancing and long-necks) parking lots, some on the ground, some in the beds of their trucks. The smell of vomit was nauseating downwind ... and "downwind" was sometimes the church. No behavior can ever typify or characterize any large group of people, but I sure remember those folks.

TahitiNut's Mailing Addresses: Michigan -> California -> Michigan -> Connecticut -> Alabama -> Michigan -> Missouri -> Texas -> Vietnam -> Michigan -> New York -> France -> New York -> California -> Washington -> California -> Michigan -> ???.

[struggle4progress]

15. You got that right. eom

[Canuckistanian]

4. So what is the benefit for Texas?

Do they have a high murder rate? Did the murder rate go down after 1982?

How does the murder rate compare to a place like Michigan which has no death penalty?

In other words, does killing people for their crimes really acheive their stated goal of deterance or is it just state-sposored vengeance?

[rainbow4321]

8. Dallas' murder rate ranked No. 2 in cities study (2004)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/031905dnmetno1crime.58fae.html

Dallas had the highest crime rate among cities with more than 1 million residents for the seventh consecutive year in 2004, according to statistics released by police departments in the nation's nine largest cities.

The city's murder rate crept up to No. 2 among those cities, while its rates for other violent crimes – rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults – fell in the rankings.


http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/southcentral/2004/06/07/newsbriefs/

"An analysis of crime by volume indicated that the state-wide burglary rate increased 3.3 percent between 2002 and 2003 placing second behind an 8.6 percent increase in the murder rate."

[struggle4progress]

16. Here's another link:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=169

[Mnemosyne]

6. 342 huh? And to think, the Lunatic signed the

death warrant for 152 of them, granting a stay for only Henry Lee Lucas, pedophile/killer and mocked Karla Tucker (a born again christian) on television before her execution.

Now that's compassion?!!! But can it be called conservative also?!!! Figure seems a bit high for that.

Argh!!!

[rainbow4321]

11. TX crime under shrub 1990's regime

Interesting googled factoids:

http://tinyurl.com/79xc4

"Out of every 20 adult Texans you meet, one is under criminal justice
control," stated Vincent Schiraldi, the Institute's Director and report co-author. "The sheer numbers of people in prison and jail in Texas are signs of system fixated on punishment, and devoid of compassion"

The average annual growth of Texas' prison population during the 1990s (11.8%) was not only the highest growth in the nation, but was almost twice the average annual growth of the other US states (6.1%) during the 1990s.

If Texas were a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world, easily surpassing the United States and Russia, the next two finishers, and seven times that of the next biggest prison system in China.

Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at seven times the rate of whites, and nearly one in three young African American men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice control. The incarceration rate for Blacks in Texas is 63% higher than the national incarceration rate for blacks.

[Mnemosyne]

17. How disgusting is that??

Now the bonehead is bringing it to the entire country!!

ArrGH!!!

[AzDar]

7. Wow! a Bush-style double feature.......How perfectly un-Christian. n/t

[Career Prole]

9. Bunkbeds for the death chamber.

They should have practical furniture for the Culture of Life.

[Jack_DeLeon]

13. Cool a twofer...

[NYC]

18. While Bush was governor:

Most recently, two prisoners were executed on Aug. 9, 2000. They were among a record 40 prisoners put to death in the state that year.

That was Bush's last year as Texas governor, wasn't it?

[Moderator]

19. kick

[Up2Late]

20. Texas Set for Two Executions Wednesday Night

(O.K., Tell me again about the "Culture of Life?" And how is it that one of these guys is 26? Why are they in such a rush to kill this guy?)

Texas Set for Two Executions Wednesday Night

Mon Apr 18, 2005 05:53 PM ET

By Jeff Franks

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas, the leading U.S. death penalty state, is set to carry out a rare double execution on Wednesday night, when two men convicted of separate murders will receive lethal injections. Barring intervention by the courts or Gov. Rick Perry, Douglas Roberts, 42, will be put to death first, followed quickly by Milton Mathis, 26, officials said on Monday.

Originally, they said Mathis would go first but later said that was incorrect because Roberts was sent to prison before Mathis. "Witnesses to the first execution will be escorted out and witnesses to the second will be brought in," said prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons. "All the medical supplies and bedding will be switched. When we proceed will depend, as always, on what is working in the courts," she said.

Texas leads the nation with 340 executions since resuming capital punishment in 1982 after the lifting of a death penalty by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the last state to kill two people on the same night. That took place on Aug. 9, 2000 when Brian Roberson, 36 and Oliver Cruz, 33, died 30 minutes apart in the Texas death chamber, which is at a state prison in Huntsville, 75 miles north of Houston.

Texas also did it on Jan. 31, 1995 and June 4, 1997. Before that, it had not happened in the state since Sept. 5, 1951. The most known executions in Texas in one day took place on Feb. 8, 1924 when the state used its new electric chair to put five people to death.

(more at link above)