Texas executes man who raped, killed 93-year-old

Good riddance.

i hope the executioners made it hurt...

I'm kinda feeling that he simply needs to be "put down". It doesn't sound like it was premeditated in any way. However, such a person does not need to be let loose in society, and it doesn't make sense to clothe and feed him for life.

Someone who "goes crazy" and rapes and murders a 93 year old woman has, in my mind, forfeited any claim to basic humanity. I guess I'm comparing him to a rabid dog.

I'm okay if he was killed quickly and humanely.

"Murray blamed drug problems for committing at least a dozen burglaries, including the one in February 1998 where Ratcliff was awakened while he rummaged through her bedroom. The widow hit him with her cane or walker, surprising him, and he said after that he "went crazy."

"I didn't know she was in there," he said. "I messed up. Somebody hit me from behind and I went off.

"I did what I did."


Shit, there are people who think a dog should be put down if it gets startled and gives a child a a nip (that the child will recover from just fine.) I don't agree--a dog has an excuse: it's a dog. And a bite isn't rape and murder.

The rationale is that a dog who's done it once might do it again. OK, fine. But that's even MORE true of a person, who's credited with having the capacity to know better in the first place, and if that common-humanity-based taboo isn't there, then there's something wrong that can't be fixed, IMO.

Some day we may join the company of civilized nations. Some day.

makes the whole world blind." Mahatma Ghandi.

But that particular individual won't be raping and murdering anymore will he? Inhumane people have no right to be treated humanely.Imo

when someone breaks into her home. rapes her. and murders her.

a woman. an aunt, a friend... a person.

someone's wife. someone's mother. someone's grandmother. someone's great-grandmother.

this is not a case of someone falsely imprisoned for the crime. the fuck admitted his guilt.

kill that motherfucker and kill him in a slow and painful way. i feel nothing for the shit stains on this earth like him.

and may you someday will join the company of us folks that don't want pieces of shit like this to exist on our planet...

After all, they are "shit stains on earth" just like this guy.

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You're arguing for the state to allow a slow, cruel, death of someone who has done horrible things. That's exactly the same as what's going on in illegal US torture chambers.

NOT the (mostly) innocent vicitms they're torturing....

Damn, are you *that* dense? Or *that* racist that you think all those brown people are guilty of something other than being a brown person in a country we illegally invaded?

I DO NOT agree with torture. I DO NOT think that all people at our torture centers are guilty just as I don't think all the people on death row are guilty. I was simply pointing out where bloodthirsty thinking can lead to. Our government shouldn't be involved in torture or execution. I made a bad analogy, I guess.

This buy got a trial, was convicted, went through the appeal process and was put to death. My beef with the death penalty is that it's given out unequally to the poor minorities. I'm not going to lose any sleep over this loser. Those in Guantanomo haven't been charged - let alone tried and convicted and to try and compare the two is blatently dishonest.

The torture victim in this case was the 93-year-old woman.


I'm not in favor of being particularly merciful to the people committing atrocities at Guantanamo, no.

This piece of shit was not only convicted, but admitted his guilt. I'm not for the death penalty in all cases, but if anyone deserves it, this fucker did.

As for Gitmo, everyone there should be properly charged, tried before a legitimate court, and then if they're convicted, we can discuss their fate.

And I could never think of another human being as a piece of shit, no matter who or what they are. Sorry, pal.

i think a man that rapes and kills a 93 yo woman and admits to that crime is a piece of shit and should be executed.


you might want to hug him and give him a cookie. i don't know. you don't say.



i have my thoughts. you have yours. its a big tent...

A human being who did an abominally "shitty" thing, to put it mildly. No, I'm not about to give him a cookie, unless that's his last meal request. Nor will I withheld last rites before his execution if he requests them.

Being on Death Row is its own psychological torture.

that the death penalty is not a good thing, but this man (and ones like him who commit such horrific crimes) really test my anti-death penalty feelings.

It's emotion taking over, though. I shouldn't have clicked on this link.

You're anti-DP, but guys like this test that conviction. Good. We should be pressure testing our convictions.

You doing so makes you more humane than someone who simply says good riddance. Was this guy loathesome? Sure! Having ambivalence about killing the most loathesome is healthy, IMO.
The Professor

Kill 'em! Kill them all! Such is the mantra of the coward and hater.

The mantra of idiots who have no sympathy for the victims, and no desire to protect future victims from animals like this.

When you take a life on purpose, you forfeit your right to live.

Either murder the killer, or invite for tea. How fucking sick are you to even think those are the only options. You sure prove my point.

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talk to me when you "gammy" gets got.

i would be really interested in that conversation.

when its not an intellectual argument but a personal experience...

How much "personal experience" do you have with rape?

Let me guess, you work in "corrections".

you have experienced, well, that is understandable. If you support the death penalty in general, then you have a lot in common with those who rule Saudi Arabia, China, Amerikkka and so on. I assume you would regard the French and Scandinavians and Swiss and such as liberal deviants, but the death penalty is generally allowed only in the most evil nations on the planet. You get to pick your friends, but you might want to do a reality check and see what those associations might say about you.

But coward, how so?

death penalty when so many innocent people may suffer?

oh my, there are guilty people?

oh my...

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I know I should. I know the death penalty is, on paper, a bad thing.

A friend of a friend--an 80-year-old woman who was raped, had her glasses smashed so she was completely disoriented--endured what this man's victim endured. She survived, but her ability to live independently did not. I'm sure that her children's lives were also changed forever.

I really don't care what happens to a person who rapes a helpless woman, no matter what her age, from 0 to 100. If it brings her family some comfort, then his death has partially compensated for his crime. If they're okay with letting him live, that's fine with me too. As far as I'm concerned, once he does a vile thing like that, his life becomes the property of those in mourning. It's not for me to judge... but if this is what they wanted, I'm glad they got some comfort from it.

and live a relatively easy life, until the execution date.

i think a more fitting punishment would be life without parole, in the general prison population.

no special treatment. no special protection.

And I have taken the position of being against the death penalty... I basically had to remind my self why I am against it. I know that my response was a deeply seeded emotional one. The desire for revenge is an appropriate response to a heinous crime like this, but it is not appropriate to exercise vengeance in a civilized society. Nor is it beneficial to use the state as our proxy for revenge.

Human beings are not animals that should just be put down. People are capable of remorse and can commit themselves to change and personal transformation. That may not apply to every person who commits a capital crime, but in those to whom it does not apply I would say they are likely insane, even if they don't meet the legal definition of insanity.

Furthermore the justice system is run by people and people can and do make mistakes - even in this high tech age of DNA testing - and the wrong person can be prosecuted. If one person who is not guilty of the crime that they are convicted of is put to death by the state, which serves us, does that not make us all guilty of murder.

I will freely admit that if someone raped or killed a loved one of mine my first response would be to have them tortured and/or killed, but that does not make it right and it is not necessarily just. It certainly would not make up for what was lost, nor correct what is irreparably damaged.

I might also point out that the highest virtue of humanity is not justice it is mercy. Show me a merciless society and I will show you barbarism.

I just cannot get behind the death penalty.

Put people like this killer in isolation, don't give them privileges, and make "life without parole" an absolute, cold, hard fact.

I'm sorry, but the death penalty is justified in this case.

imprisoning someone for life.

And I'm against the dp even in cases like this.

Even though going through all the legal processes for the death penalty (especially if we're doing it right, to make sure we're not executing an innocent person) costs more than a life imprisonment, there are some people for which going through the process is worth every penny.

This person was one of them. Good riddance to him.

Cali is correct - you are wasting MORE money on the person by resorting to death penalties. It costs more than life in prison without parole.

That money could be better spent on health care for the uninsured, or food for people who are going hungry. Those people's lives are worth more, right? Why take resources from them to throw at this guy? Makes no logical sense.

"This guy is scum and not worth anything ... so let's divert even MORE of our scarce resources and spend a disproportionate amount of money on him instead of on people who are more deserving."

That doesn't even begin to make sense.

killing someone than imprisoning them.

State-sponsored murder is flat-out wrong. No government should ever have the power of life and death over its citizens.

You sound like one of the "it's my money and i don't trust them pollytishans with it" crowd?

Tax dollars are tax dollars. How they're spent isn't a la carte. If it were, i'd say an awfully large number of folks here would insist they're taxes aren't spent on war.

How would that work out if we could pick and choose how are tax dollars are spent?
The Professor

who are starving to death and freeze to death in the winter with no roof over their head.

I'd rather pay to house and feed an indigent disabled person who's never harmed anyone. This creep isn't worth a fucking baloney sandwich on the taxpayer dime.

One less piece of shit breathing our oxygen.

we've killed innocents, and we'll likely kill more. For instance, a judge in Arkansas just denied a new trial for the West Memphis 3. They have DNA evidence and they want a new trial. They're not going to get one.

Which is why it should be limited to those cases where there is no question of guilt. DNA, other evidence, plus a confession.

In this case, there is no doubt, no innocence, therefore it's a great use of the DP.

Human error and prejudice means that as long as we have the death penalty, we will kill innocents. You will always have the Arkansas judges. You will always have the communities like the ones in Arkansas who are absolutely convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that those 3 weirdos killed those boys. There is no doubt in their minds, you see? Confessions aren't fool proof, either. People confess to things they didn't do. Happens all the time. DNA evidence isn't fool proof either, for that matter. There is a condition called Chimerism that can muck things up. Yes, it is rare, but there have been cases affected by it. And the labs that process DNA and the cops that handle the evidence aren't error proof, either. You can't bring someone back once you killed them.

However, you can make it very rare. DNA evidence, in conjunction with confession, in conjunction with other evidence is as close to perfect as we'll ever get.

It's good enough for everything else, because you can let people out of prison and at least attempt to make restitution. Can't undo dead. If it's you or a loved one affected by the DP, you wouldn't accept it.

How was his confession extracted? Is he being paid by the real criminal?

Answer: almost certainly not; that kind of thing barely ever happens outside of fiction. But even that kind of sliver of doubt is enough cause that there is no such thing as a good use of the death penalty.

The only way to be sure that the state doesn't murder people who don't deserve it is for the state not to murder anyone. Even if this guy deserved it, he should have been kept alive as a safety buffer against executing people who don't.

but you and I are in complete and absolute agreement on something.




Well said!

:)

But it's hard for me to engender much sympathy for this dude.

Like I said just below...

No matter how heinous the crime, it is still wrong for the state to end someone's life.

Sid

Living in the bible belt, I see the word "Wrong" used as a way of not thinking about issues.

Examples of the use of "wrong" I've had:
It's WRONG for gays to marry!
It's WRONG to kill unborn babies!
It's WRONG to eat meat!
It's WRONG to have welfare!

Wrong is a word that has nothing behind it but that person's outrage. There is no reason, there is no logic, there is no point to be made.

Not saying you don't have a better argument, but for folks saying "wrong" they might as well have not posted at all.

He should have spent the rest of his life in jail, maybe working a job and sending that woman's family or a charity a check every month.

:hi:

what getting raped at age 93 is like.

The only way one can avoid the state murdering people who don't deserve to be murdered is for the state not to murder anyone.

Once you've realised that, whether or not this guy deserved to be murdered is a moot point.

If you are not prepared to deal with reality, you can be sure that reality will deal with you.
-Dave Roberts

Capital punishment being a deterrent is BS. It does not work and never will work. Our judicial system is a failure and a disgrace.

Good riddance.

And I don't mean the death penalty.

Why do all these horrendous crimes even happen in the first place? I've heard SO MANY stories like this coming from the Lone Star state.

What is it about Texas that makes crazy people like this?

Who are these people who support the death penalty yet call themselves progressives/liberals?

And why are they allowed here?

The State can't be trusted with that power.