Twenty cent bullet

Homicide victim Deborah Ross

Nathan Burris was pissed. His girlfriend, a Richmond Bridge tollbooth attendant named Deborah Ross, had broken off their relationship and started dating a bus driver, Ersie Everett. So he showed up one rush hour at her toll booth and killed Everett as he sat in his truck and then turned his gun on Ross, killing her as well. Nathan was obviously very angry.

He told the jurors to hurry up with their deliberation and do what they had to do so that he could get back to watching Monday Night Football.

After finding him guilty, he turned to one of his victim’s families and said laughingly, “I blew your brother’s brains out. Nothing you can do about it. Ha. Ha.”

Homicide victim Ersie Everett

*
The jury in Burris's case could have given him a life sentence without possibility of parole. They didn't. They gave him the death penalty. And I agree. Would even offer to pull the switch.

*
It goes against the grain of my anti capital punishment liberal brethren when I advocate for the death penalty. I understand that there is a disproportionate sentencing that tends to execute minorities. I know that with DNA testing the Innocence Project has cleared a lot of people on Death Row who have been wrongly charged. It is an imperfect system and needs to be streamlined, improved and where applicable, corroborated with mandatory DNA testing.

Knowing that, I still think that the Nathan Burris's of this world do not deserve to share our planet's oxygen with the rest of us. I don't want him walking back to his cell so that he can watch Monday Night Football. He simply deserves to die. There are too many murderers walking around cell blocks with smiles on their faces. Their victims don't get the luxury of worrying about insanity, or bad childhood or parenting or anger issues. They are simply dead.

*
It bothers liberals to think that some people are beyond redemption. Unfortunately there are a lot of Nathan Burris's out there. Unrepentant killers and baby killers. Working a system, then out after a too short stretch to prey and kill again.

*
I was glad to see the Supreme Court disallow an insanity defense case in Idaho today (12/26/12).

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to evaluate a modification Idaho adopted for criminal defendants who claim insanity to avoid the death penalty.    The three-page dissent notes that Idaho is one of several states to have modified the traditional insanity defense, which holds "that criminal punishment is not appropriate for those who, by reason of insanity, cannot tell right from wrong."

"Indeed, Idaho provides that 'mental condition shall not be a defense to any charge of criminal conduct,'" Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

He added: "the difference between the traditional insanity defense and Idaho's standard is that the latter permits the conviction of an individual who knew what he was doing, but had no capac­ity to understand that it was wrong." (Emphasis in original.)

Breyer's dissent was sparked by the court's refusal to entertain the petition for certiorari submitted by Idaho prisoner John Delling, who said that Idaho's modification of the insanity defense conflicts with the due pro­cess clause of the 14th Amendment.

Quoting briefs submitted to the court by amici curaie, or friends of the court, Breyer said that "the American Psychiatric Association tells us that 'severe mental illness can seriously impair a sufferer's ability rationally to appreciate the wrongfulness of con­duct.'"

"And other amici tell us that those seri­ously mentally ill individuals often possess the kind of mental disease that ... [in which] they know that the victim is a human being, but due to mental illness, such as a paranoid delusion, they wrongly believe the act is justified," he added. 

Why do I hate the insanity defense? Because the way it works, they send the murderous perp to a nuthouse. When an equally nutty psychiatrist declares that they are now sane and cleared, the state has no option but to release them and unfortunately, the cycle usually just starts again. It is a sad fact of life. Some people are nuts. And when they exhibit sadistic and evil behavior and take other people's lives, they forfeit the right to their own.

*
They just gave a guy named Stutzman 417 years in prison for a local rape. He had already done a ten year stretch for rape and just couldn't get it out of his system. He blamed the victim, who testified that he held a knife to her throat like the earlier rapes, he says it was all consensual.

I don't want to pay for 417 years of incarceration for this sicko. I say fry him and better luck next incarnation, Stutzman. Some guys just can't be fixed.

*
Death row inmate Ronald Post, an Ohio inmate who weighs more than 400 pounds, is asking the courts to stop his January execution on the grounds his weight could cause him to suffer severe pain during the procedure. Anybody crying for him? Buy him a week of Jenny Craig and then flambe his corpulent ass. Post toasties.

Post, 53, was sentenced to die for the 1983 shooting death of hotel desk clerk Helen Vantz in Elyria. His execution is scheduled for Jan. 16.

*
Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik is  complaining that conditions in his three bedroom suite are intolerable.  Breivik has been given a box to store his designer sweaters after he complained to prison chiefs that his human rights were being derived. The neo-Nazi, who slaughtered 77 people in a shooting spree in Norway last year, claimed that the Lacoste jumpers he wore at his trial were losing their shape because he had nowhere to keep them in his cell.

According to the Mirror, Breivik, 33, will also be given a CD player and have a bookshelf installed in his maximum security cell. His lawyer, Tord Jordet, called the isolation and ‘deprivation’ of recreational and social activities inhumane and said that his client's freedom of speech is being violated. Being deprived of this freedom of expression breaches the constitution and human rights.'

His victims, now dead, have no voice or advocate to complain about their loss of human rights.

And of course there is the matter of Breivik's pen:

In his letter to prison officials Breivik protested that the censorship of his letters was so strict that his freedom of expression was being impinged upon, Jordet said.
Norwegian tabloid VG, which said it had acquired a copy of the letter, quoted Breivik as saying he was allowed to use only a soft and bendable safety pen described by its manufacturer as "stab-resistant" because it yields at the slightest pressure and cannot be used as a weapon. Breivik was seen making avid notes with it during his 10-week trial at the Oslo District Court that ended in August.
He has said he wants to write books in prison, but claims the special pen cramps his hand, describing it as "an almost indescribable manifestation of sadism," VG reported.
Prison officials would not comment on the letter as they were still considering the complaint. 

*
Justice Brennan started the liberal bleating in his 1976 dissent Gregg v. Georgia."Death is... an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity... The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats 'members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded. [It is] thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the Clause that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.' [quoting himself from Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 257 (1972)]

Sorry Justice Brennan, some people's actions are so heinous and vile that they no longer qualify for "human" status. Incarcerate them at your pad for a while. Maybe they can babysit the grandkids.

*
I like Thomas Jefferson's thoughts on the subject; Fair trial on Sunday, hang them on Monday. All this talk about the millions of dollars spent keeping prisoners on death row seems so misplaced. Twenty cent bullet. A.M.F.