Posted on 03/16/2016 5:02:35 AM PDT by lowbridge
A man on death row for killing two undercover New York City police officers cannot be executed because he meets the legal standard to be considered intellectually disabled, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
In his 76-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis vacated Ronell Wilson's death sentence and imposed a new punishment of life in prison.
"In reaching this decision, the court in no way minimizes or excuses the cruelty and depravity of Wilson's action," Garaufis wrote. "Having presided over this tragic case for more than a decade, the court quite frankly finds it impossible to muster any sense of sympathy for this defendant."
But the judge said Wilson, who had a history of severe behavioral problems dating back to childhood, had "significant deficits in adaptive functioning" that made him ineligible for the death penalty under new standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court.
"To be candid, the court harbors doubts as to whether Wilson would be considered intellectually disabled by most clinicians," the judge wrote. But, he said, the Supreme Court's decision "strongly suggests" the legal standard is more protective than the clinical standard.
Wilson, 33, was a young gang member on Staten Island in 2003 when he murdered undercover detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews in an illegal gun sting gone awry. The officers were shot point-blank in the backs of their heads.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
What a load of crap.
This will make it impossible to execute any murderer who is a liberal DemocRAT.
In situations like this, it is really up to the police to enforce the law.
I like to point out that though judges hate the death penalty, the public craves it. And with gun liberty, the execution of the death penalty in the *vast majority* of cases has been taken away from judges and given to the public to carry out, in the absence of judges, juries, and the rest of the government.
And the public are killing violent criminals “to who laid the chunk”, as the old expression goes.
In the current circumstance, a vicious criminal has been denied the opportunity to wait 20 or more years on death row awaiting justice that will never be given. Instead he will be “just another prisoner”, as this judge wants.
But what the judge doesn’t imagine is that prison guards actually *do* have something of a relationship with some of the prisoners. The guards can make prisoners lives better or worse, and even make small exchanges, such as some privileges in exchange for information.
So without asking a prisoner to harm this cop killer directly, they can hint that after some brief punishment, a lifer without possibility of parole could have an easier time of things in ways that really matter in prison.
I still say that the families of the victims should be the ones to decide what the punishment should be.
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How very shariatable of you.
Proper interpretation: After letting this drag out for a decade in hopes the dedense could come up with even a half assed argument for setting this sentence aside, I'm sick of waiting and just doing it myself.
You have misunderstood the context of my post.
Hey - I see he wears glasses. Only smart people wear glasses, from all the reading they do. As good a criterium as what the court applied...
Yep— the detailed meaning of my post #2.
Consider post #24.
That’s a good point.
Still, I wouldn’t mind if the job was handled by someone with real animus. And, as someone who was living in New York in 2003 (and had/has friends who were/are NYPD), I can tell you that there are about 35,000 officers who would love to have five minutes alone in a room with this guy—who killed two cops in cold blood, then laughed and stuck out his tongue at their family members—no questions asked.
And now
Acting much?
Well in that case, it would be illegal to execute any liberal.
When you have a bad dog, don’t you put him down? It should not matter what his IQ is. He killed some people and he knew at the time that what he was doing was wrong. What else do you need to know?
This is another trick the sleazy lawyers have pulled to get their clients off. It doesn’t matter to them that these slugs are guilty. A good percentage of lawyers have the mentality that they must get their clients off no matter what. Those lawyers are polluting our legal system.
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