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.
Thank you for that post. I, too, have been set free (and am in the process of continuing to be set free) by grace from the law.
I feel like the Lord has helped me put together some good reasoning on some of these things and feel like discussing or debating them with those opposed may benefit them (at some point later) and/or those who follow the discussions, not unlike the New Testament where most of what we read are discussions between Jesus and others or discussions via letter from Paul to the churches.
Just because something may create a deterrent and stop recidivism doesn’t make it just. Islamic Sharia Law has all kind of deterrents and anti-recidivism devices.
There are other, effective ways to create deterrence and avoid recidivism. The failure, especially to stop recidivism of dangerous criminals, is due to a broken penal code and prison system that doesn’t place restraint (protection of society against dangerous criminals) at the top of the list of why we incarcerate criminals.
It’s easier to just kill ‘em.
I’ve already met Him, and He said that Jesus took the full punishment for my sins and crimes and that of everyone else in the whole world (2 John 2:2).
...is not enough to justify the act. If it were Islamic Sharia Law would be just law.
Punishing a convicted criminal by death (whether or not he was in fact guilty of the crime convicted (irreversibility really does matter)) is unjust because 2000 years ago Jesus Christ took the full punishment on his body and died for that man’s crime. Being punished for a crime that has already been fully paid for is unjust.
Christ died for that man’s *sin*, not crime. The crime is against society, and if that society has deemed execution to be the rightful result of committing a specific act, then the criminal has chosen to forfeit his life.
Christ did not absolve people of their responsibility to their society, but rather offered a personal mechanism for redemption for each soul.
When Christ was on the cross, he told the thief on the cross next to him “Tonight you will be with me in paradise.” (Sorry if I have the exact quote wrong.)
He did not save the man’s life, but rescued his soul, as his life was forfeit to the state as punishment for his crimes.
You trot out the claim of other deterrents and say taking the life of a murderer is unjust but you offer no alternative, just a lot of left wing pablum.
You have both a right an an obligation to forgive those who have sinned against YOU, but you have no right to forgive a murderer for what he did to the victim. The only person who can forgive the murderer is the victim, but like unborn children, the victim has no voice.
It is because the victim has no voice that it is a moral imperative that the murderer lose his right to live after taking a life.
Your squishy self righteousness to the contrary. Society has an obligation to seek restitution for victims without voices and the only legitimate restitution for a victim of murder is the death of the person who murdered them. Giving them a life of relative leisure away from the obligations of working and providing for themselves is hardly a legitimate punishment for such a heinous act.
Tell me, if a madman had your child by the throat and was ready to stab her in the heart and you had a gun nearby, would you execute the bastard or forgive him in advance and let him go through with his intentions?
Then open up all the prisons because the prisons are filled with people who have violated one or more of the ten commandments.
Per your logic, the punishment has been fully paid and society has no moral right to incarcerate anyone for anything.
Have you actually thought about your position, or are you just spewing out liberal talking points that you heard somewhere when you were young and stupid?
Well said P-Marlowe
Great way to differentiate and clarify between forgiveness between a still living person vs. someone who had their life stolen by a murder and society’s obligation to punish them.
PapNew’s mistake is conflating “crime” with “sin”. Whether something is criminal is a societal question - and the punishment for the crime is also a societal question.
The Bible teaches that “the wages of sin is death”, meaning unrepentant sin. Christ did not absolve every sinner of every sin, but rather created a means for the sinner to repent and thereby avoid eternal damnation for the criminal’s soul.
Salvation does not absolve the need to pay one’s debt to society - even if that debt is deadly.
Liberals have a tendency to do that with all moral acts of indecency. First they eliminated the "crimes" of Adultery and Buggery and legalized them.
Then they took the attitude that since the act is no longer a crime, that it should be considered acceptable behavior or in some cases preferred behavior.
Now in certain countries it is now a crime to call it a "sin."
It is a crime against women to speak out against abortion.
You are now a racist if you believe in the death penalty because blacks and hispanics are disproportionately affected by the death penalty (never mind that they are disproportionately represented in the class of people called Murderers.
When faced with a capital criminal and challenged to condemn her to death, Jesus instead said, “I do not condemn you” (John 8:11).
Responsibility, consequences, and society’s appropriate response to crime are embodied in incarceration for the reasons I’ve mentioned.
The reason people believe in punishment by death is mainly because it seems like justice for the man’s acts. But full justice and the death penalty has already been dealt. So society must look elsewhere for appropriate consequences and rationales to deal with criminals. I have named a few of them.
Go back and read my posts unless you're just trigger-happy. I have offered a number of effective alternatives and valid deterrents.
OK, just for you: effective incarceration itself is a deterrent. Valid reasons for incarceration include restraint (protection of society from dangerous criminals - the #1 job of government), restitution when possible, voluntary rehabilitation, forced productivity to pay for one's stay at the Big House, all of which can serve as added deterrents.
Your rhetorical question is easily answered simply because self-defense and the defense of others, like killing in a war, is quite different from the deliberate sentence of punishment by death by a court of law based on a written penal code.
I have said nothing of the sort - just the opposite. Go back and read my posts on this thread and quit wasting my time.
The full text of John chapter 8 reveals that the crime and sin were adultery, not murder, in this case. Further, the scribes and Pharisees were using the woman as a means to imperil Jesus’s ministry on Earth. He responded by challenging the accusers, who then dissipated.
The lesson was more about the accusers than the accused.
I do find it interesting that you assert to know the minds of those who support the death penalty - asserting that they believe in it because it “seems like justice”. You then assert that the death penalty has already been dealt - despite the fact that all are born sinners, and thus subject to eternal death regardless of what they choose to do in their life. It is only by turning away from one’s sinful nature through Christ that one can avert that sentence.
Having read your posts, I must admit I fail to see the “reasons” you cite for your opinion. What I see is the assertion, as though it were self-evident. That is why I asked for your rationale.
We disagree, FRiend.
I gave you the rationale you asked. Because you don’t like the answer you act like I didn’t offer one or need to offer something else.
Of course we disagree. That’s OK. What I am saying goes against the status quo, popular culture, mode-o-day conventional wisdom, and like many in the past who have done the same, understand that people don’t necessarily like new, innovative ideas that challenge long-held, but unexamined or unquestioned beliefs.
I understand and don’t hold it against anyone. I’m sure I’m the same way when something new comes along that challenges my paradigm. But even though it is uncomfortable sometimes, I know whatever the truth is, I’m better off learning it.
Jesus never said anything about not facing punishment for crimes. Your understanding of Scripture is deeply flawed.
“And as another post said, recidivism is simply more evidence that we have a broken penal Code and Prison System that doesn’t place Restraint (protection of society against dangerous criminals) at the top of the list of why we incarcerate criminals.”
What is it that you are suggesting? That we simply let all criminals run free with no consequences for their criminal actions? Prisons cost money. Too much money.
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