Posted on 08/29/2007 4:40:34 PM PDT by Santa Fe_Conservative
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Kenneth Foster has never killed anyone. But the 30-year-old Texan still faces execution this week, despite protests at home and abroad, for his complicity in a drug-fueled murder.
Foster was arrested in August 1996 with three other young black men, all of whom were said to be high on marijuana, following the deadly shooting of Michael LaHood, 25, in the southern Texan city of San Antonio.
Foster was driving the car being used by his three passengers, including Mauriceo Brown, to rob passers-by. Brown got into an altercation with LaHood, who was white, when he started to follow LaHood's girlfriend.
Shooting LaHood at point-blank range in the face, Brown then returned to the car -- meriting Foster's execution under a Texan law that can impose the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred.
Foster, who was 19 at the time of the San Antonio crime spree, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 2300 GMT on Thursday, at the state's execution unit in Huntsville, 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of Houston.
Brown himself was executed last year. The two other black men involved in that night's crimes are serving life behind bars.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
No one should have any problem with this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule
If one doesn’t like the felony murder rule, in principle, then one is free to seek to alter the law through the proper legislative channels.
And even with the rule in place, every convicted felony-murderer may ONLY be put to death if 12 jurors unanimously agree, having had a chance to hear any mitigating evidence, that death is a more suitable punishment than is life imprisonment.
Certainly he should have received the death penalty. Perhaps something happened at the trial that dictated the jury to select capital punishment?
I recall a jewelry store robbery in Michigan in which the owner successfully defended his life by shooting one of the men dead. The other criminal was charged with the death of the man because the death happened during the commission of a felony. Life is tough when you are stupid.
The Texan clowns were robbing people and driving on to rob others. I have no sympathy for the 4 men. Someone died.
Known as "art and part" or "accessory before/after the fact" or "parties to a crime". Everybody who participates in a criminal scheme that results in a death is guilty as a party to the crime or an accessory, or as a co-conspirator if conspiracy is charged. Robbers and getaway car drivers are routinely charged with murder when one of their number is shot and killed by the victim of a crime.
If this isn't common knowledge on the street, they are even dumber than I think. And I don't believe for a moment that the author of this article doesn't know that simple fact. Just trying to stymie justice in every possible way.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I know Texas is not the only state with such a law; I suspect that's the case in most states with the Death Penalty.
there are problems with some TX criminal statutes as far as I understand them, but providing for the death penalty for felony murder is not one of them. It sounds to me like the author wants the reader to believe that TX is outside the mainstream, but I don’t believe that is the case. Usually Felony Murder carries the same potential sentence as First Degree murder.
Notice in the article how they describe the perps (i.e. the “victims” of that “evil” death penalty) as black men in an effort to drive home the point that black men are being executed, but they fail to identify the true victim of the murderers by race. Conjecture on my part, but there is a strong statistical likelihood that the true victim here was also a black man. It’s amazing. The left wing media doesn’t even try to pretend to be objective.
Great minds travel the same channels. < g >
No not guilty by association, guilty by accomplicey. Big difference.
He was just driving the care and encouraging his doped up friend to commit murder. He is obviously just a choir boy hanging out with the wrong crowd. (/heavy sarcasm)
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
My, FreeRepublic is really getting more openly racist.
I say it’s been building over 3 years. Oh, for the old days...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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