Do y'all realize that a 77-yr-old man is to be executed next week, too?

All this talk about Tookie---

Well, Mississippi is set to execute 77-year-old John Nixon Wednesday. He was convicted 19 years ago for murdering a woman, in a murder-for-hire scheme. Her ex-husband, who hired Nixon, did NOT receive the death penalty.

Here's a link and a snippet from the article:

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Nixon also sent (Republican Gov. Haley) Barbour a handwritten letter in which he admitted his role in killing the Brandon woman but points out his military service "and other good things" he did.

"If you let me live I will not be a bother to nobody," Nixon wrote. "I will every day regret what I've done, but will be thankful for your kindness."

Defense attorney David Clark of Jackson, at a Friday news conference in which religious leaders and students pleaded for Nixon's life, said that a 1958 statutory rape conviction should never had been introduced as a mitigating circumstance in state arguments for the death penalty.

The prosecution at the time used the rape to show that Nixon was a violent man even before he was hired to murder 45-year-old Tucker.

"It's statutory rape," Clark said. "It isn't necessarily violent. It is a rape which can mean having sex with someone under age."

Clark said the attorney general's office has even acknowledged that the rape case should not have been admitted but maintains, "It's too late. The time has run out."

Jose Simo, a spokesman for (Democratic) Attorney General Jim Hood, said Hood's office would not comment.

"It's all in the Supreme Court opinion," he said.

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Just wanted to let you all know that there's more than one execution scheduled for next week.

Edit: And here's the link to the article. Please read it. http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/state/13369126.htm

Second edit: Nixon's photo: http://cmsimg.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=D0&Date=20051129&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=511290363&Ref=AR&Profile=1002&MaxW=500&MaxH=400&title=1&logo=

And an article about Nixon's son being murdered on November 26. He was not one of the sons who assisted Nixon in the murder-for-hire:

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Charles Nixon’s charred body was discovered Nov. 26 near Mount Vernon, Ill. He and two other men, Howard Dietz, 50, and William Robert Smith, 35, were reported missing the day before by Nixon’s roommate, George Lawton. Lawton called police after he found blood in the bedroom of the home at 5117 Pine St.

Dietz and Smith were arrested Monday in Yale, Va., on warrants on other charges. The pair waived extradition and will be returned to Scott County. Nixon’s death has been ruled a homicide and police believe Dietz and Smith were involved.

“We looked at Charles Nixon’s record in our computer hoping to find a next of kin,” Davenport police Capt. David Struckman said.

“We saw that his father was John B. Nixon and that he was in that penitentiary in Mississippi,” he said. “We did some checking and found out the elder Nixon was on death row.”

Struckman said that police have not been able to locate a relative of Charles Nixon other than his father. But they know some exists.

“We talked to the chaplain at the penitentiary so we can only assume his father knows,” he said.

The chaplain on duty at the prison would not comment Friday when contacted by the Quad-City Times.

According to the records of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, the elder Nixon is being executed for a 1985 murder that he and two of his sons participated in.

“But Charles Nixon was not involved in that,” Struckman said. “We don’t know if Charles Nixon, who according to our records was born in Mississippi, had the same mother as the two people involved in that murder. There’s no mention of any brothers in Charles Nixon’s history.”

More here: http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2005/12/03/news/local/doc439141f16f491901004746.txt

I think that this tookie incident will unfortunately set back progress in the movement to abolish the DP.

When we fight to try to save someone who seems to be guilty, the whole death penalty debate is reduced to whether the individual deserves to die. The bigger question, of whether the state should be allowed to kill, is lost.

be to have opened wide the debate on the death penalty, all over the world.

as he has here.

our work is to provide resources now, immediately, while people are so alert to the enormity of it all.

please do post threads about any resources you know of, and encourage others to do so too. many are seeking that information right now.

thank you


peace

There's no justice in this. Ya think Haley Barbour will give him a stay of execution? Not a chance.

that deserves a 2nd look and a governor clemency:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5558444&mesg_id=5558444

Thanks for posting that yesterday and today.

Those words for some reason, from an elderly man, really just choke me up.

I just wasn't meant for this world, I swear. I'm way too sensitive to handle all the brutality that exists today.

I'm signing out of DU in 30 minutes (2AM central time) and I won't be back until I can work out some of the anxiety that all of these world events are causing me.

:(

It really is sometimes too much to wrap one's brain around. It is so very tragic and sad that we as a society consider taking a life as such an "oh well" kind of thing. But, when we have people who consider the murders of thousands of Iraqis "collateral damage," it really isn't surprising.

I never made my mind up about the death penalty until tonight.

I added another article. Nixon's son was murdered November 26.

It's all so sad. :(

Mob ugliness has a way of making one even more deeply introspective.

I've always thought that the death penalty was wrong, but there were times when I questioned myself. There are some really evil bastards & bitches (yeah, women murder too) out there who make me want to wring their necks with my own hands. Talk about civil rights -- there's nothing worse than murder to deny a person of of his/her civil rights.

I've wrestled with this for a very long while, and come to the conclusion that -- killing, regardless of motivation, is intrinsically wrong.

Mob rule is unacceptable. Individuals in the "Hang'm High Mob" enjoy the feeling of not being alone. Condemnation becomes an easy virtue. All you have to do is yell the mantra and you're accepted into a larger "loving" group. After all, murder is bad.

What finally turned me totally away from capital punishment was the glee I saw in peoples' words before, during, & (most importantly) after the fact when convicts were killed.

"Finally there is closure" ...said countless politicians with no connection to the bereaved.

Blah Blah Blah and friggin' BLAH...

Mobs seem to like closures that ends with people dying.

:thumbsdown:

...Nicole Kidman's character said that where she was from when a person killed another, they were thrown in a river to drown (or some variation of that). The victim's family had choose between letting him drown (and they believed the family would then spend their whole life in mourning), or rescuing him and finally having peace. I would like to think that if (God forbid) anyone I loved for was murdered, I would not fix one wrong with another. I would hope, but thank God I've never been in that position, and I hope I never am. I would imagine until you've had your wife or child or mother viciously murdered for no reason, it is very hard to say. I pray to God I never have to know what it is like.

But, I disagree with killing anything - even if it is something as small as a bug in my house. I just don't think I can agree with it. Either way, whenever this happens it is an unspeakably tragic situation.

Life and death issues have a way of becoming life and death issues for a lot of us. It can be very difficult to figure out a way to work it all out. Peace to you and hope you get some decent rest tonight, wake refreshed and ready to deal with the world. Sometimes I too despair about the inhumanity of most humans. Sigh. Goodnight and sweet dreams.

:hug:

I've just written.

Might want to write him, too.

msag05@ago.state.ms.us

I'd stop all executions, change the orders into life in prison without parole.

Tookie moves me no more then others, it isn't for them, it's for the rest of us I am always and ever against it.

Now this guy is 77, if they want him dead they could just wait a while. I recall when they saved one after a suicide attempt and then executed him.

Keep killers locked up.
Don't let us stoop to their level. I am surprised by all the supporters of the death penalty. We are right there with the axis of evil dudes who still do it. It is disgusting that it's legal here. more disgusting that so many think it's fine.

For the right wing I am even surprised. If they are so into God (I don't fool myself it is Jesus they are into, it's that OT vengeful god) have they noticed what he did with the first murderer?

He exiled him, stripped him of his profession (When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength) and on him put the Mark of Cain
If any one slays Cain, vengeance shall he taken on him sevenfold." And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him.

Do they think that God was too wimpy too, that they know better? Or that they can handle that sevenfold vengeance?

What possible threat could a 77-year-old man be to anyone, especially a 77-year-old man behind bars for the rest of his life? That is pure bloodthirsty vindictiveness and nothing else.

Of course I'm against the death penalty on principle anyway, but this case sounds even more barbaric and stupid than usual.

What a primitive people we are!

an innocent man:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5558444&mesg_id=5558444

The life expectency in the U.S. now stands at 77. If it takes so long to impost a death sentence that the perpetrator reaches the life expectency, or dies of natural causes on death row, then the arguments against the death penalty become stronger.

It's a barbaric practice that needs to become a past tense in this country.

I'm against the DP but it bothers me that a murderer gets to make the case that "I'm old now" and people fall for it. This guy did a cold blooded murder for hire! The same case has been made for parole of murderers. They are old now and haven't killed anyone in 20 years. BFD!

<<<<<When they entered the house, Nixon brandished a .22-caliber pistol and said, “I brought y’all something.” (meaning the gun I guess. I like it when murders taunt their victims)
The Tuckers offered to buy the men off, but the elder Nixon said that, “the deal’s already been made.”
Thomas Tucker was able to escape despite being wounded.
John Nixon then turned the gun on 45-year-old Virginia Tucker, who was being held on the floor. Nixon put the gun an inch away from her head and fired. She died the following day.>>>>>

The deals already been made? He held her down and shot her in the head??

I think the case against the DP should be made because it unfairly targets the poor and minorities and it's quite possible that we will kill innocent people(see post #19). I'm not going to hold any candle-light vigils for this guy. I guess I'm a little bias though. I'm dealing with a similar situation where my brothers best friend, a kid I grew up with, was killed by his father-in-law in '92. The FIL is now seeking parole based primarily due to the fact that he is old and in poor heath. Big f--ing deal.