U.S. military inching to resumption of executions

[maddezmom]

Languishing cases, including 1 in Texas, may show Army's reluctance
By ANDREW TILGHMAN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

After more than 40 years without an execution, the U.S. military could soon resume capital punishment as two death row inmates at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are exhausting their final appeals and their cases move toward the Oval Office for a death warrant signed by the commander in chief.

The two death sentences — both affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court and under review by the Department of Defense — have languished in recent years, and some say the war in Iraq and domestic politics render authorities reluctant to send two former active-duty soldiers into the death chamber.

"These cases are potential hot potatoes, and this administration may be in no hurry to approve the first military execution in over 40 years," said Eugene Fidell, a Washington lawyer and military-law expert.

The U.S. military prison at the Kansas base houses five men on death row, and military prosecutors are seeking to send a sixth.

Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was convicted last week of killing two comrades and wounding 14 others in a grenade attack on his own camp in Kuwait at the start of the Iraq war. A military jury in Fort Bragg, N.C., sentenced Akbar on Thursday to death.

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more: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/3162337

[YusefHawkins]

1. If there is one thing Monkey Boy will do it is sign a death warrant (nt)

[warrens]

2. Everything is politics with these punks

They keep claiming they don't read polls, they don't use focus groups, etc. but it is the complete opposite. Just like everything else with these Nazis. Lies are truth, up is down, black is white, strength is weakness and on and on and on.

These people studied Goebbels and Mein Kampf and absorbed every lesson. And I use the term "people" advisedly.

[grytpype]

3. Yep, gotta have a military death penalty if you want...

... conscription.

Otherwise, all the young men will avoid conscription to save their lives. I'd take my chances in Bolivia before I'd let my ass get shipped to Iraq. People are dying over there.

[Demeter]

4. That Will REALLY Boost Recruitment!

Go for it, boys!

[HereSince1628]

5. The Death Penalty In The Military (another story from Jan '05)

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/deathpenalty/113771

With the majority of the debate focused on legislation at the state level, the death penalty in the military is quite often overlooked; even some of the most fervent capital punishment supporters and abolitionists have only a vague knowledge of the death penalty’s application in all branches of the armed forces. Currently, seven inmates are on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Two of those inmates are awaiting retrial or re-sentencing and all seven are on death row for felony murder convictions.

Since 1916, 135 people have been executed by the United States Army, although no one has been put to death since 1961. Eleven years after the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1972 through the Furman v. Georgia decision, the Armed Forces Court of Appeals ruled that the military death penalty violated the Constitution (U.S. v. Matthews, 16 M.J. 354). However, one year later in 1983, President Ronald Reagan reenacted the death penalty in the military when he signed an executive order that adopted detailed new rules for capital courts-martial. Recently, an amendment to the Uniform Code of Military Justice was adopted which allows for a life sentence without the possibility of parole, thus lowering the number of death penalty sentences sought by the military.

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[ConcernedCanuk]

6. Letsee now - they train (brainwash) young people to kill and maim

.
.
.

some of them go "over the edge"

so we kill THEM?

interesting - -

should not the people who TRAIN these people have responsibility for their actions?

A few slip through the psychiatric tests, or are LET through because of enrollment demands . .

Some slip through because they WANT people a little on the "bent" side to perform some of the atrocious thing the US military demands . .

I think execution in the military, if endorsed at all, should be reserved for those in the higher command levels,

Generals and up wards - :shrug: