I don"t like having every Texan stereotyped as a drooling minion of what many in Texas call "the white man"s party." So, for the record, some of us are Democrats, anti-war, do not support capital punishment, and would like to see the guilty parties in BushCo prosecuted for war crimes.

In Texas, they kill you back!

There is on thing we know absolutely for certain. None of these 400 thugs will ever harm another human being.

The article says that a federal judge overturned Conner's death penalty in 2005 because his lawyer failed to call any witnesses in his favor, but that ruling was subsequently overturned by another federal judge. Conner may well have been guilty, but everyone deserves a decent defense. There are too many stories of people who have been wrongly convicted who were later released because DNA tests proved their innocence. We must assume that innocent people have been executed. I don't think that's acceptable in a civilized society.

All of them innocent.

How come we don't have death penalty in Europe and yet it is not unsafer over here ?

How come, although the political systems are absolutely comparable, we have so few deaths caused by guns in Europe compared to the US ?

I know you have developed a "prison industry" that is making money. Funny, that in a state like Florida, the crime rate has been rising in a similar way compared to the rising of the police force. What came first, chicken or egg ?

The idea of privatizing everything will leave you with more prisons, a worse infrastructure than today and the biggest police force the world has ever seen.

States which don't have the death penalty have similar murder rates to those which do: It's NOT deterring murder!

Innocent people DO get convicted of crimes: If someone wrongfully bconvicted is executed, as the execution is performed "by the people of the state of...", the people of the state - Every man, woman and child - have committed cold-blooded murder. Will it happen often? No... But how many state-sanctioned murders are acceptable?

BTW, after 400 does the next one go free?

Religion actually has little to do with the death penalty.

The right / wrong - light / dark influences and the actual social bounds of civil discourse with all the transgressions from all quarters will still exist. Granted the burdening influences of an ever-meddling organized religion can be very intolerant. Those for profit religious businesses are intent hell bound on imposing their fundamental single-minded values on others.

The ultra-conservatives are just as warped as the ultra-liberals.

Still some fuzzy bunnies want to make most everything legal so that they can feel better when breaking the laws themselves. They often want lienancy for their own malcontented anti-social behavior. Just listen to Pacifica Radio for a full slate of ever complaining soft under-belly slackers.

Where is the fuzzy boundary between tolerance and acceptance?
How much forced tolerance is too much for the public to stomach? How many times must the public be victimized by the evil deeds of sociopaths and psychopaths before they are finally eliminated from society? How many more twisted dysfunctional groups will go on trying to get acceptance by forcing tolerance on disagreeing parties?
Where are the boundaries of acceptable behavior and civil discourse?

What the ultra liberals and the ultra conservatives do no understand is that you cannot force others to like the extremes of questionable agendas. Both use wedge issues to create an identity to gain voters who sympathize with one side or another of a wedge issue.

The death penalty and its popularity is one such hot button wedge issue. From a practical point of view, it better to have it than not. As a punishment, it should be used often to inhibit the extreme forms of anti-social behavior.

SWEEEEEET!

Capital Punishment as a Deterrent
Many people claim that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. They could not be more wrong. Since their is a 80% recitivism rate for felony offenders, executing the most vile of these will logically prevent thousands and thousands of future crimes. You might argue that the same might be accomplished by locking them up for life. This would only be true if they were locked up by themselves with zero human contact. This approach would be very very expensive.

Is it possible to give Texas back to Mexico ?

You are looking at it the wrong way.
This is not an execution. It is the republican's way of addressing a budgetary crisis in TX.

Only 400. It would be better if it was 400 per year. Only with punhishment will the lawless think twice before committing more crimes. That includes invading our borders and taking dope.

See Johnny run... straight to hell where he belongs. Buh-bye now. Buh-bye.

I've spent a lot of time in Texas on business and used to live there for a few years. My experience is that you can't introduce yourself to anyone without hearing something about their pastor, their church, or how "blessed" they are. These are the same people who talk about the sanctity of life (ala pro-lifers), but the first to want to go to war with anyone and execute the "evildoers". To them, life has sanctity only as long as that life fits their notion of worthiness. I'm not against the death penalty in every case, but there are other options than the death penalty in most cases. If these kinds of people were honest with themselves, they would admit that the death penalty only serves their own bloodlust and desire for vengeance. One does not have to be a (disparagingly) "liberal" to point out the mindless hypocrisy of these people.