Posted on 06/23/2005 6:03:10 AM PDT by tuffydoodle
28 death sentences commuted
By John Moritz
Star-Telegram Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - Almost four months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment cannot be applied to juvenile murderers, Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday commuted the death sentences of 28 Texas inmates who killed before their 18th birthdays.
"While these individuals were convicted by juries of brutal murders and sentenced to die for their heinous crimes, I have no choice but to commute these sentences to life in prison as a result of the Supreme Court ruling," Perry said.
A 29th Texas inmate who was condemned as a 17-year-old, Tarrant County's Mauro Morris Barraza, did not receive a commuted sentence because he is in federal custody, Perry said.
The nation's highest court ruled March 1 that assessing the death penalty for capital murder committed before turning 18 violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The 5-4 decision in a Missouri case involving a man condemned for a killing committed at age 17 compelled Texas and 18 other states that had allowed young offenders to be executed to remove those killers from Death Row.
Texas has executed 13 such offenders since 1985, and lawmakers had resisted several attempts to raise the minimum age for the death penalty before the high court acted.
Barraza was condemned for raping and murdering 73-year-old Vilorie Nelson in her Haltom City home on June 14, 1989.
Another Tarrant County inmate, Eddie C. Johnson, was among those who had their sentences commuted.
Johnson was sentenced to die for the fatal attack on Jeffrey Doolittle, 42.
Doolittle was ambushed March 6, 1996, while getting out of his car.
He was shot dead as he ran toward his garage at his Fort Worth home.
In Texas, inmates serving life sentences are eligible for parole after 40 years behind bars.
Critics of Texas' policy allowing the execution of 17-year-olds had called the practice barbaric and out of touch with the mores of modern society.
Defenders of the practice often pointed out that in Texas, jurors hear testimony concerning defendants' ages and maturity before deciding whether they should be put to death.
The GOOD news is: you get out when you're 57! Just in time for age discrimination.
"If they're old enough to kill, then they're old enough to be executed"
Couldn't agree more.
I didn't know that. What a crock.
Nah...
just give 'em automatic internship in Washington, D.C.!
Watch out for the under 18 crowd Mama! Or at least until 1 Sept. (Texas enacts life without parole).
Since life without parole does not apply to crimes committed before 1 Sept. 2005, the worst somebody committing capital murder today is life with possibility of parole (about 15 years).
And yes, that means the ones that get their death sentences commuted have the possibility of getting out.
Watch out for the under 18 crowd Mama! Or at least until 1 Sept. (Texas enacts life without parole).
Since life without parole does not apply to crimes committed before 1 Sept. 2005, the worst somebody committing capital murder today is life with possibility of parole (about 15 years).
And yes, that means the ones that get their death sentences commuted have the possibility of getting out.
Oops! Pardon my double talk!
Like I told the neighbors who were so concerned that I have their phone number 'In case someone broke in'.
The FIRST people I would call would be the police...........
so they can send the meat wagon!
Not without this:
"This Constitution of The United States recognizes the capital punishment to be appropriate punishment pursuant to the due process of law.
No person in the United States, nor in the several States, shall face such punishment unless above the age of fourteen years and six months."
The United States Supreme Court has ruled the death penalty "unconstitutional" for those under the age of eigtheen. Subsequent to that ruling, there is only _one way_ the death penalty can be reinstated for them.
Would _you_ support such an amendment?
I would.
And I think the majority of Americans would, as well.
Cheers!
- John
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