Tennessee man executed 29 years after killing three

AFP on Yahoo ^ | 12/2/09 | AFP

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Tennessee executed a man Wednesday who had served nearly three decades on death row for killing three people during a shooting spree at a Nashville convenience store.

Hours before Cecil Johnson was pronounced dead at 1:34 am (0734 GMT), two US Supreme Court justices engaged in a sharp exchange over whether to grant a stay of execution to the alleged killer 29 years after his crime. Last-minute efforts to grant him clemency or stop the execution failed.

"The delay itself subjects death row inmates to decades of especially severe dehumanizing conditions of confinement," wrote veteran Justice John Paul Stevens.

"There was no physical evidence tying Johnson to the crime," he added, noting that it was not until 1992 that Tennessee finally granted Johnson access to "substantial evidence undermining key eyewitness testimony against him."

Johnson had been convicted for murdering Bobby Bell, the store owner's 12-year-old son, and two men sitting in a nearby taxicab.

[traditional1]

DING! DING! DING!

WE HAVE A WINNAH!

[Jack Black]

30 years on Death row sounds a LOT better than the alternative: execution within a year of conviction. That’s 29 extra years of life!! I’m sure that the vast majority of murdering scum when asked: would you rather be executed this year, or left on Death Row for another 30 years would choose the latter.

The reason we call them Libtards is because their idesas are retarded, after all.

[Still Thinking]

Not good enough. Eyewitness testimony has been shown over and over again to be unreliable. As a jurist, I could possibly send a man to prison on circumstantial evidence alone, just not to death.

Well, if you don't like circumstantial evidence, and you don't like eyewitness testimony, what WOULD cause you to condemn a man? Or are you just saying you oppose the use of the death penalty at all? Not taking any particular adversarial position on it myself, I just can't follow what you're thinking.

[Drew68]

Well, if you don't like circumstantial evidence, and you don't like eyewitness testimony, what WOULD cause you to condemn a man?

Physical evidence when collected properly is pretty hard to defend against. It's not complicated. I take the death penalty seriously. I support it. But when it is used, I want there to be no question whatsoever about the guilt of the man being put to death. The day we execute a man who is later found to be innocent will be a bad day for the death penalty in this country.

[Still Thinking]

Oh, OK, I was lumping physical evidence with circumstantial as “non-eyewitness”. I was thinking “what’s left?”