Missouri Executes Dennis Skillicorn

[ProudDad]

Source: Democracy Now

In Missouri, the death row prisoner Dennis Skillicorn was executed Wednesday after a last failed attempt at clemency. Skillicorn was convicted for the 1994 murder of a commuter who had stopped to help him and two other men. But the court that tried him never got to hear that Skillicorn didn’t actually commit the murder and that the killer claimed Skillicorn didn’t know it was going to take place. I interviewed Amnesty International USA executive director Larry Cox about Dennis Skillicorn on Tuesday’s broadcast.

Larry Cox: "This illustrates one of the central truths about the death penalty, that the person you kill is often not the same person who committed the crime. He has become a model prisoner. He has reached out to the victims of crime, to restorative justice. He’s worked in a hospice. He has helped young offenders. And that’s the reason why you have this incredible assembly of people from the Corrections Department, you have Republicans, you have Democrats, you have people of faith, all speaking out, saying, ‘What purpose could possibly be served by killing this man, who has become, by all accounts, a very good man?’”



Read more: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/21/headlines#16

---

Another State murder...for no good reason...

[Taverner]

1. Another MURDER indeed

Murder is not a word to be tossed around, but his execution was a MURDER

[Freddie Stubbs]

2. How was the execution unlawful?

:shrug:

[WildEyedLiberal]

3. Because if he didn't actually kill anyone, he could not possibly have comitted a capital offense

And therefore was ineligible for the death penalty.

Just because the government does it doesn't mean it is legally justified. See: Iraq war, torture, etc.

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. Committing a felony in which someone is murdered is a capital offence in some states

In Tison v. Arizona, Justice O'Connor concluded that the death penalty would be appropriate for a murder...if it could be shown that the defendant was a major participant in the underlying felony and had acted with reckless indifference to human life.

[WildEyedLiberal]

11. I stand corrected

I wasn't aware the DP could be legally applied to someone who did not "pull the trigger" (barring extreme extenuating circumstances, like the two monsters who tortured that family in Connecticut to death a couple of years ago. If that were a DP state I imagine they'd both get the needle regardless of which one actually killed them).

[struggle4progress]

9. Lots of states have "felony murder" statutes, according to which you can be held liable for murder

if someone dies while you are committing a felony. Under this rule, if you rob the liquor store and the clerk chokes to death on his peanut bar or dies of a stroke, or if the ceiling falls on his head and kills him, you can be found guilty of murder. There have been cases where a group commits a robbery, one member of the group shoots and kills someone but then turns state's evidence against the rest of the group -- and someone else is the group is convicted of capital murder


An Illogical Execution
Christopher Hill, TomPaine.com
August 29, 2007
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/08/29/an_illogical_execution.php

Texas Panel Won't Halt Execution of Accomplice
Jeff Wood, Getaway Driver in Robbery That Led to Murder, Is Scheduled to Be Executed Thursday
By SCOTT MICHELS
Aug. 20, 2008
The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole has unanimously rejected a clemency petition from a man who is set to be executed for the murder of a store clerk, even though he was sitting in a truck outside the store when the murder happened ... http://a.abcnews.com/TheLaw/story?id=5617113&page=1

Jersey City man convicted of final count in Asbury Park murder case
By Kathleen Hopkins • GANNETT NEW JERSEY • April 29, 2009
... The prosecutors said although Andre Dennis was not the person who shot Saahron Jones execution-style, he was guilty of felony murder because he participated in the robbery in which the victim was killed ... http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/B3/20090429/NEWS/90429110/1067/STATE

[edbermac]

16. Charles Manson didn't actually kill the Tate/Labianca victims.

But he planned the whole crime and deservedly got the death penalty.

[WildEyedLiberal]

18. Actually, he didn't

But only because it was illegal in CA at the time, IIRC. Or else he got it and then the DP was made illegal and his sentence has remained life in prison w/o parole.

[RoyGBiv]

19. Sentence reduced ...

He was one of the individuals on death row who benefited from California v. Anderson.

Hell, Manson probably would have been sentenced to death if he'd done nothing more than removed a furniture tag. Getting up and screaming "I am the Devil. I am the Devil" in the courtroom after shaving your head and carving a swastika into it doesn't endear a person to the jury.

Not that this is right, just saying ... the jury in that case wanted to give him the maximum penalty they legally could.

[WildEyedLiberal]

21. Ah, OK. Thanks

I'm gonna shut up as I've been wrong all over this thread :)

[edbermac]

23. He did get the DP originally.

But about a year later the Calif Supreme Court ruled the DP unconstitutional in the state and his sentence was changed to life.

[ProudDad]

4. Logic Error Police!!!!!

I didn't say "unlawful"...

Waterboarding wasn't "unlawful" (if you talk to Mr. Woo or Mr Bibey)...

I said State Murder -- in cold blood -- for no good purpose...

----------------------------------------------------------------

10 reasons to abolish the death penalty


By 2004, 118 countries had abolished the death penalty, in law or practice. An average of three countries abolish the death penalty every year. The worldwide trend towards abolition of the death penalty is reflected in the Africa region, where 24 members of the African Union had abolished the death penalty, in law or practice, by 1 October 2004.(1) Here are ten reasons for the total abolition of this degrading and inhuman punishment:


1 - the death penalty violates the right to life.


The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) recognises each person’s right to life. Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples´ Rights (ACHPR) states that "human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the physical and moral integrity of his person." This view is reinforced by the existence of international and regional treaties providing for the abolition of the death penalty, notably the second optional protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1989.


2 - the death penalty is a cruel and inhuman death.


The UDHR categorically states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."All forms of execution are inhuman. No government can guarantee a dignified and painless death to condemned prisoners, who also suffer psychological pain in the period between their sentence and execution.


3 - the death penalty has no dissuasive effect.


No scientific study has proved that the death penalty has a more dissuasive effect on crime than other punishments. The most recent investigation into the links of cause and effect between capital punishment and the murder rate, was conducted by the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002. It came to the following conclusion: "...it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."


4 - the death penalty is premeditated murder, demeans the state and makes society more violent.


By executing a person, the state commits a murder and shows the same readiness to use physical violence against its victim as the criminal. Moreover, studies have shown that the murder rate increases immediately after executions. Researchers have suggested that this increase is similar to that caused by other violent public events, such as massacres and assassinations.


5 - the death penalty is discriminatory in its application.


Throughout the world, the death penalty is disproportionately used against disadvantaged people. Some condemned prisoners from the most impoverished social classes would not have been sentenced to death if they were from wealthier sectors of society. In these cases, either the accused are less able to find their way through the maze of the judicial system (because of a lack of knowledge, confidence or financial means), or the system reflects the generally negative attitude of society and the powerful towards them. It has also been proved that certain criminals run a greater risk of being condemned to death if their victims come from higher social classes.


6 - the death penalty denies the capacity of people to mend their ways and become a better person.


Defenders of the death penalty consider that anyone sentenced to death is unable to mend their ways and could re-offend at any time if they are released. However, there are many examples of offenders who have been reintegrated and who have not re-offended. Amnesty International believes that the way to prevent re-offending is to review procedures for conditional release and the psychological monitoring of prisoners during detention, and under no circumstances to increase the number of executions. In addition, the death penalty removes any possibility for the condemned person to repent.


7 - the death penalty cannot provide social stability nor bring peace to the victims.


An execution cannot give the victim his or her life back nor ease the suffering felt by their family. Far from reducing the pain, the length of the trial and the appeal procedure often prolong the family’s suffering.


8 - the death penalty denies the fallibility of human institutions.


The risk of executing innocent people remains indissolubly linked to the use of the death penalty. Since 1973, 116 people condemned to death in the United States have been released after proof of their innocence has been established. Some of them have only just escaped execution, after having passed years on death row. These repeated judicial errors have been especially due to irregularities committed by prosecution or police officers, recourse to doubtful evidence, material information or confessions, or the incompetence of defence lawyers. Other prisoners have been sent to their deaths when serious doubts existed about their guilt.


9 - the death penalty is a collective punishment.


This punishment affects all the family, friends and those sympathising with the condemned person. The close relatives of an executed prisoner, who generally do not have anything to do with the crime, could feel, as a result of the death penalty, the same dreadful sense of loss as the victim’s parents felt at the death of their loved one.


10 - the death penalty goes against the religious and humanist values that are common to all humanity.


Human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent. They are based on many traditions that can be found in all civilisations. All religions advocate clemency, compassion and forgiveness and it is on these values that Amnesty International bases its opposition to the death penalty.


There are other more detailed Amnesty International documents on the death penalty:

- THE DEATH PENALTY Facts and figures,ACT 50/008/2004, 6 April 2004.

- THE DEATH PENALTY Questions and answers, ACT 50/001/00, 11 April 2000.

- WEST AFRICA It is time to abolish the death penalty, AFR 05/003/2003, 10 October 2003.


********

(1) Abolitionists in law: South Africa, Angola, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Guinea Bissau, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and São Tome and Principe. The following countries have not applied the death penalty for at least ten years and have shown they have the political will to no longer use the death penalty and are therefore considered to have abolished the death penalty in practice : Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Togo, Tunisia.

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. Murder is the unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

http://www.answers.com/murder

[jsamuel]

6. Are you using a US Law dictionary or just a plain old English dictionary?

Plain definition says it means "to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously." Words can have different meanings in different contexts.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/murder

[Freddie Stubbs]

22. Legal

[IndianaGreen]

8. Rounding up the Jews and stripping them of their citizenship was legal

under German law, but it was morally and ethically wrong.

An injustice under the color of law is still an injustice.

[Pacifist Patriot]

17. Unlawful and Murder are sometimes mutually exclusive terms.

[bluesmail]

10. I flashed on Karla Faye Tucker and that creep who tried to impersonate

her last pleas. Remember, that's how our last 'president' was. No doubt in my mind his behavior patterns haven't changed. ** A Texas Psycho from Skull & Bones.** Of course this is just my opinion based on facts.

[superconnected]

12. More info:

Case Facts: In late August 1994, Dennis Skillicorn, Allen Nicklasson, and Tim DeGraffenreid headed east from Kansas City to obtain illegal drugs. On August 23, 1994, during their return trip to Kansas City, the 1983 Chevrolet Caprice in which they were traveling broke down twenty-two miles east of the Kingdom City exit on I-70. An offer of assistance by a state trooper was refused. The next day they traveled 17 miles to the JJ overpass. They burglarized the nearby home of Merlin Smith, stole some guns and money, and used the stolen money to pay for a tow to Kingdom City. A garage in Kingdom City was unable to repair the extensive mechanical problems.

They drove back toward the site of the robbery and the car stalled again. Between 4 and 5 p.m., Richard Drummond, a technical support supervisor for AT & T saw the stranded motorists and offered to take them to use a phone. He was driving a white company car.

Skillicorn and Nicklasson were both armed. They loaded the booty from the Smith burglary into the trunk of Drummond’s car. While Nicklasson held a gun to Drummond’s head, Skillicorn asked Drummond questions in order to calm him down, including whether Drummond’s "old lady" was going to miss him. As Drummond drove east, Skillicorn "got to thinking...if we let this guy off, he’s got this car phone." So they disabled the car phone. Skillicorn stated that he later determined they would have to "lose" Drummond in the woods. At some point during this time, Nicklasson and Skillicorn discussed what they should do with Drummond. Skillicorn, in his sworn statement, claimed that Nicklasson said "he was going to, you know, do something to this guy. I tell him -you know, now, we’re trying to talk on the pretenses that-that, uh, this guy in the front seat don’t hear us too. Right? Right. ‘Cause, uh, I didn’t want him panicking."

They directed Drummond to exit I-70 at the Highway T exit. They proceeded four miles on to County Road 202 to a secluded area where they ordered Drummond to stop his vehicle. As Nicklasson prepared to take Drummond through a field toward a wooded area, Skillicorn demanded Drummond’s wallet. Knowing Nicklasson had no rope or other means by which to restrain Drummond and that Nicklasson carried a loaded .22 caliber pistol, Skillicorn watched as Nicklasson lead Drummond toward a wooded area. There, Nicklasson shot Drummond twice in the head. Skillicorn acknowledged hearing two shots from the woods and that Nicklasson returned having "already done what he had to do." Drummond’s remains were found eight days later.

From here:
http://websolutions.learfield.com/deathrow/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=8BC019F1-8A21-4596-9D38ADD54F9BB50B

[Gator_Matt]

14. He facilitated the murder

Did he make any attempt to prevent what was obviously going to happen? No.

Was he horrified, and did he immediately go to the police? No.

This guy was a criminal who enabled a murder. Imagine if it were one of your family members being kidnapped and murdered by these bums. As far as I'm concerned, they're all responsible for the murder. I can understand objecting to the death penalty, but this guy's guilt regardless of the sentence is not in doubt.

[mitchum]

15. What a lovely group of gentlemen

[RedCloud]

13. Thou shalt kill. Missouri Bible Hour at its finest.

Proof the state cannot do anything other than kill more of its people. Reform? no. Milk the prison industrial complex of its last dime. that they will do.

[ProudDad]

20. 10 reasons to abolish the death penalty

Most of the Civilized world has already abolished it. Too bad USAmerika isn't civilized...

----------------------------------------

By 2004, 118 countries had abolished the death penalty, in law or practice. An average of three countries abolish the death penalty every year. The worldwide trend towards abolition of the death penalty is reflected in the Africa region, where 24 members of the African Union had abolished the death penalty, in law or practice, by 1 October 2004.(1) Here are ten reasons for the total abolition of this degrading and inhuman punishment:


1 - the death penalty violates the right to life.


The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) recognises each person’s right to life. Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples´ Rights (ACHPR) states that "human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the physical and moral integrity of his person." This view is reinforced by the existence of international and regional treaties providing for the abolition of the death penalty, notably the second optional protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1989.


2 - the death penalty is a cruel and inhuman death.


The UDHR categorically states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."All forms of execution are inhuman. No government can guarantee a dignified and painless death to condemned prisoners, who also suffer psychological pain in the period between their sentence and execution.


3 - the death penalty has no dissuasive effect.


No scientific study has proved that the death penalty has a more dissuasive effect on crime than other punishments. The most recent investigation into the links of cause and effect between capital punishment and the murder rate, was conducted by the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002. It came to the following conclusion: "...it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."


4 - the death penalty is premeditated murder, demeans the state and makes society more violent.


By executing a person, the state commits a murder and shows the same readiness to use physical violence against its victim as the criminal. Moreover, studies have shown that the murder rate increases immediately after executions. Researchers have suggested that this increase is similar to that caused by other violent public events, such as massacres and assassinations.


5 - the death penalty is discriminatory in its application.


Throughout the world, the death penalty is disproportionately used against disadvantaged people. Some condemned prisoners from the most impoverished social classes would not have been sentenced to death if they were from wealthier sectors of society. In these cases, either the accused are less able to find their way through the maze of the judicial system (because of a lack of knowledge, confidence or financial means), or the system reflects the generally negative attitude of society and the powerful towards them. It has also been proved that certain criminals run a greater risk of being condemned to death if their victims come from higher social classes.


6 - the death penalty denies the capacity of people to mend their ways and become a better person.


Defenders of the death penalty consider that anyone sentenced to death is unable to mend their ways and could re-offend at any time if they are released. However, there are many examples of offenders who have been reintegrated and who have not re-offended. Amnesty International believes that the way to prevent re-offending is to review procedures for conditional release and the psychological monitoring of prisoners during detention, and under no circumstances to increase the number of executions. In addition, the death penalty removes any possibility for the condemned person to repent.


7 - the death penalty cannot provide social stability nor bring peace to the victims.


An execution cannot give the victim his or her life back nor ease the suffering felt by their family. Far from reducing the pain, the length of the trial and the appeal procedure often prolong the family’s suffering.


8 - the death penalty denies the fallibility of human institutions.


The risk of executing innocent people remains indissolubly linked to the use of the death penalty. Since 1973, 116 people condemned to death in the United States have been released after proof of their innocence has been established. Some of them have only just escaped execution, after having passed years on death row. These repeated judicial errors have been especially due to irregularities committed by prosecution or police officers, recourse to doubtful evidence, material information or confessions, or the incompetence of defence lawyers. Other prisoners have been sent to their deaths when serious doubts existed about their guilt.


9 - the death penalty is a collective punishment.


This punishment affects all the family, friends and those sympathising with the condemned person. The close relatives of an executed prisoner, who generally do not have anything to do with the crime, could feel, as a result of the death penalty, the same dreadful sense of loss as the victim’s parents felt at the death of their loved one.


10 - the death penalty goes against the religious and humanist values that are common to all humanity.


Human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent. They are based on many traditions that can be found in all civilisations. All religions advocate clemency, compassion and forgiveness and it is on these values that Amnesty International bases its opposition to the death penalty.


There are other more detailed Amnesty International documents on the death penalty:

- THE DEATH PENALTY Facts and figures,ACT 50/008/2004, 6 April 2004.

- THE DEATH PENALTY Questions and answers, ACT 50/001/00, 11 April 2000.

- WEST AFRICA It is time to abolish the death penalty, AFR 05/003/2003, 10 October 2003.


********

(1) Abolitionists in law: South Africa, Angola, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Guinea Bissau, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and São Tome and Principe. The following countries have not applied the death penalty for at least ten years and have shown they have the political will to no longer use the death penalty and are therefore considered to have abolished the death penalty in practice : Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Togo, Tunisia.

[saigon68]

24. They are going to start making fun of you in a few posts

I am however, NOT

A little sanity (thank you)