Posted on 03/17/2015 9:02:00 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Missouri cop killer Cecil Clayton was executed Tuesday night after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments he should be spared because he was missing a piece of his brain.
Clayton, who at 74 was the state's oldest death-row prisoner, was pronounced dead at 9:21 pm CT, eight minutes after his lethal injection was administered, prison officials said in a statement.
"They brought me up here to execute me," he said in his final statement.
Clayton was convicted of murdering sheriff's deputy Chris Castetter after a domestic disturbance in 1996. His case drew extra attention because of his brain injury, the result of a 1972 sawmill accident that forced doctors to remove one-fifth of his frontal lobe. His lawyers contended the damage not only sparked a massive personality change that may have turned him into a killer, but also rendered him mentally incompetent and therefore ineligible for capital punishment.
"Cecil Clayton had — literally — a hole in his head," his attorney, Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, said in a statement after the execution. "Executing him without a hearing violated the Constitution, Missouri law and basic human dignity.
"He suffered from severe mental illness and dementia related to his age and multiple brain injuries," she added. "The world will not be a safer place because Mr. Clayton has been executed."
Missouri had argued that medical experts found Clayton understood why he was being executed and that meant he was competent to face the needle. They argued that his intellectual deficits had to be present before he turned 18 to let him escape execution and that he waited too long to raise his claim.
Castetter's brother said in a statement that he had no doubt Clayton was in his right mind.
"We know this execution isn't going to bring Chris back," he said. "But it destroys an evil person that would otherwise be walking this earth."
Clayton's 11th-hour appeals delayed his execution for several hours. But ultimately, none of the U.S. Supreme Court justices accepted his claims arguments for a stay based on his brain injury.
Four justices from the liberal wing did say they would have granted a stay based on his claim that Missouri's secrecy-shrouded process for obtaining the lethal dose of pentobarbital could lead to an unconstitutional death.
Gov. Jay Nixon also denied him clemency in the final minutes, saying he agreed with the state's assessment that Clayton was competent.
"This crime was brutal and there exists no question of Clayton's guilt," he said in a statement.
No actually I have not said that. You are lost and confused in your blind anger...possibly hatred. May the Lord of peace enter in and bring you peace and trust in His way.
All His paths! You are adding your own paths because of fear, being under law, fear of punishment. Examine yourself by His Words of truth.
Ps 25:10 All the paths of the Lord are love, kindness and truth to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
All His paths!!
Amen! Thank You for your grace and freedom Lord.
Get it guys?
If we disagree with the consensus, we’re liberals and every other name the consensus chooses to call us.
Unlike many who claim to be well versed in the scriptures, I claim to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
That same Jesus that was found guilty of a crime, in a legal criminal procedure and given the death penalty. They could and did kill Him but couldn’t keep Him dead. Praise God.
Now let the name calling procede, that’s always a winner!
No I am not implying, I am saying straight out to follow Jesus you follow His way...His commands ...you obey Him not the law which failed to provide salvation and a full redemption for sins. Your choice! I take it you own a bible and can read, we will not have an acceptable excuse for failing to understand the covenant with Jesus Christ. All the law ever written will not save you. The only way to the Father is through the Son. Who are you following Moses?
You and your buddies appear to be saying that because Christ died for your sins that the punishment for those sins was paid on the cross so criminals should not be subject to the civil punishment for murder.
You are conflating sin with crime. Christ paid the price for our sins. He did not pay the price for our crimes.
Sins are committed against God. Crimes are committed against people.
Only those people to whom a crime has been committed can legitimately forgive the person for their transgression against them. A victim of murder has no voice in whether or not they forgive their murderer. Hence it is up to society to meet out the punishment for the crimes and the forgiveness of the sin is up to God.
Your conflating of Christ's sacrifice as a justification to eradicate the death penalty for the crime of murder has no justification either in the Bible or in Law. It is an entirely new concept brought to us by the same people who are pushing Abortion, Homosexual Marriage and social justice. It has no historical roots.
The death penalty was consistently enforced for 2000 years after the death of Christ and for 2000 years before that and yet somehow you and your friends have discovered that God prefers life in prison without parole as the biblical punishment for murder and you have the audacity to question the faith of Christians who are not in agreement with your new found biblical concepts.
If you are basing your opposition on the death penalty on the grounds that Jesus somehow paid the price for our CRIMES, then you cannot escape the reality that your position, in order to be internally consistent, would require that we do away with jails and prisons altogether.
The peace of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit or dust of my sandals to you mama. So nice conversing with you dear.
I have been walking in Christ for over 30 years dear and have never hidden it here.
True we can choose to follow the ‘go stone him crowd’ or Jesus. Not really any contest is it?
I’m against the death penalty, but not for religious reasons. I’m simply not convinced that our justice system always gets it right, and I fear that some of those who are not guilty may be convicted and executed in error.
I do believe that prison should be punishment, and murderers should receive life sentences without parole.
You didn’t actually say anything we said, as you claim. Pretty sad. Present your law at the judgement seat of Christ. And on earth we do have just solutions for law breakers other than killing them.
As PapaNew said way back nobody hardly ever changes their position on capitol punishment. I did over 30 years ago and it was Jesus Christ not some political view that changed me through and through.
Peace...this has become futile.
Kind of off topic but I want to take it a step further. I believe that felons who have served their time should have their 2A rights restored. If they would present a danger to society, they shouldn't be released to begin with.
I agree and I have found much to support that view.
Having just finished law school, I find the argument about punishment by death already executed on Jesus more of a legal argument about double jeopardy - more factual and judicial to me, less religious.
I’m not sure that I agree with that, but I am willing to consider it.
I don’t see this as a religious issue.
Me neither. I see it as a legal and factual issue.
It’s clear that there are strongly held opinions regarding this issue, which is understandable. At one time, not so long ago, I was a proponent of the death penalty, so I am sympathetic with those who still believe in it.
Please explain Jesus’s words about a millstone and the sea, please.
Your understanding of Scripture is deeply, deeply flawed.
L
Oh, I used to be all for the death penalty because I saw justice in it. But as the years went by, about 50 of them, I began to see more and more that if something were true it should hold together, and the death penalty with all its irreversible flaws, mistakes, and lack of hope, did not hold together for me. More recently, and as a support of that view, I saw the mercy and grace of judgment, punishment, and justice already executed. I also knew that if the death penalty was a false choice, there had to be true, viable, and workable alternatives which I found and talk about.
I hear you.
You’ll find that the strongest and most vitriolic voices opposing abolition of the death penalty have deep religious roots. Although I agree it’s not really a religious issue, religion plays a big part in views regarding the death penalty and our penal code. I think that’s one reason why we’re stuck.
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