Troy Davis execution

[Warspite]

You bastards, all this talk of steak has made me realise there's no food in my flat. Off to the kebab shop

[crazy canuck]

You bastards, all this talk of steak has made me realise there's no food in my flat. Off to the kebab shop

Dont worry, according to this thread, even if you were to find a decent steak you couldnt find anyone to cook it properly.

[Rasputin]

the proper way to make steak is on the grill subject to the following two exceptions:

1. It is ok to pan fry a steak if it is being served for breakfast with eggs as an effort to increase greese consumption when trying to alleviate a hangover.

2. It is acceptable (and even preferred) when making prime rib, to smoke the bone in rib roast over 4+ hours on a low temp smoker.

[dps]

then ideally that they give their recantation under oath.

An affidavit isnt given under oath?

Perhaps it was poor wording on my part.

We want viva voce evidence.

I read somewhere that all seven of the witnesses who recanted refused to repeat their recantations in court.  Not sure where I read that, or how credible it is, but that would certainly explain why the many courts that reviewed this case didn't find them credible.

[Admiral Yi]

I read somewhere that all seven of the witnesses who recanted refused to repeat their recantations in court.  Not sure where I read that, or how credible it is, but that would certainly explain why the many courts that reviewed this case didn't find them credible.

Couldn't they be supoenaed?

[fhdz]

I read somewhere that all seven of the witnesses who recanted refused to repeat their recantations in court.  Not sure where I read that, or how credible it is, but that would certainly explain why the many courts that reviewed this case didn't find them credible.

Couldn't they be supoenaed?

Yeah, that strikes me as an unreliable report.

[dps]

I read somewhere that all seven of the witnesses who recanted refused to repeat their recantations in court.  Not sure where I read that, or how credible it is, but that would certainly explain why the many courts that reviewed this case didn't find them credible.

Couldn't they be supoenaed?

I'm sure that they could have been, but if the defense lawyers declined to do so, that's suggestive, isn't it?

[Admiral Yi]

I'm sure that they could have been, but if the defense lawyers declined to do so, that's suggestive, isn't it?

Sure.  But I''m also having trouble with the state not supoenaing them.  Seems to me the prosecution would rather dismantle their recantations on the stand rather than just saying "these recantations are hokey."

Or I guess more broadly what I'd like to know is what evidence the courts examined to determine the recantations were not credible.

[garbon]

Everyone knows the black community in the U.S. is insanely clannish

Everyone knows what a "black" person swears to is prima facie unreliable?  Are you sure you really want to take that kind of position.

That's not what I said, you have no acted in bad faith and thus I must treat you in like manner.

Go back and re-read what you said.  I know nothing about this case.  I was however struck that you think we should disregard affidavits sworn by "blacks" because "everyone knows" they are "clannish" and therefore inclined not to tell the truth if someone from their clan tells them not to.

Please explain to me where I have gone wrong.

Just to help you.  this is what you said that caught my attention.

Everyone knows the black community in the U.S. is insanely clannish, and if you have some prominent community advocate types pressuring people to sign affidavits, they will probably sign it even if they don't genuinely believe it.

I'm pretty clannish.

[Razgovory]

Well Otto is in the South where everyone is clannish.

[Razgovory]

The problem with being against the death penalty is that the defendants aren't very likeable.  Even if there is reasonable doubt for the case they are being executed for, there is likely something in their background that makes them terribly unsympathetic.

[viper37]

The problem with being against the death penalty is that the defendants aren't very likeable.  Even if there is reasonable doubt for the case they are being executed for, there is likely something in their background that makes them terribly unsympathetic.

so if you get arrested, we should cheer for you execution?  You don't strike me as very likeable, after all.  I don't like you, so I want you dead   It's a good argument as any for being pro-death penalty

[Viking]

Georgia Executing Innocent men has cause Texas to up the ante. The condemned men will no longer get to choose their last meal.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEXAS_EXECUTION_LAST_MEALS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Texas prisons end special last meals in executions

By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) -- Texas inmates who are set to be executed will no longer get their choice of last meals, a change prison officials made Thursday after a prominent state senator became miffed over an expansive request from a man condemned for a notorious dragging death.

Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed Wednesday for the hate crime slaying of James Byrd Jr. more than a decade ago, asked for two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. Prison officials said Brewer didn't eat any of it.

"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege," Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Within hours, Livingston said the senator's concerns were valid and the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their final meal was history.

"Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made," Livingston said. "They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit."

That had been the suggestion from Whitmire, who called the traditional request "ridiculous."

"It's long overdue," the Houston Democrat told The Associated Press. "This old boy last night, enough is enough. We're fixing to execute the guy and maybe it makes the system feel good about what they're fixing to do. Kind of hypocritical, you reckon?

"Mr. Byrd didn't get to choose his last meal. The whole deal is so illogical."

Brewer, a white supremacist gang member, was convicted of chaining Byrd, 49, to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him to his death along a bumpy road in a case shocked the nation for its brutality.

Whitmire warned in his letter that if the "last meal of choice" practice wasn't stopped immediately, he'd seek a state statute to end it when lawmakers convene in the next legislative session.

It was not immediately clear whether other states have made similar moves. Some limit the final meal cost - Florida's ceiling is $40, according to the Department of Corrections website, with food to be purchased locally. Others, like Texas, which never had a designated dollar limit, mandate meals be prison-made. Some states don't acknowledge final meals, and others will disclose the information only if the inmate agrees, said K. William Hayes, a Florida-based death penalty historian.

Some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple "final" meals, restrict it to one or impose "a vast number of conditions," he said.

Historical references to a condemned person's last meal go as far back as ancient Greece, China and Rome, Hayes said. Some of it is apparently rooted in superstition about meals warding off possible haunting by condemned people once they are put to death.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based anti-capital punishment organization that collects execution statistics, said it had no data on final meals.

Since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982, the state correction agency's practice has been to fill a condemned inmate's request as long as the items, or food similar to what was requested, were readily available from the prison kitchen supplies.

While extensive, Brewer's request was far from the largest or most bizarre among the 475 Texas inmates put to death.

On Tuesday, prisoner Cleve Foster's request included two fried chickens, French fries and a five-gallon bucket of peaches. He received a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court but none of his requested meal. He was on his way back to death row, at a prison about 45 miles east of Huntsville, at the time when his feast would have been served.

Last week, inmate Steven Woods' request included two pounds of bacon, a large four-meat pizza, four fried chicken breasts, two drinks each of Mountain Dew, Pepsi, root beer and sweet tea, two pints of ice cream, five chicken fried steaks, two hamburgers with bacon, fries and a dozen garlic bread sticks with marinara on the side. Two hours later, he was executed.

Years ago, a Texas inmate even requested dirt for his final meal.

Until 2003, the Texas prison system listed final meals of each prisoner as part of its death row website. That stopped at 313 final meals after officials said they received complaints from people who found it offensive.

A former inmate cook who made the last meals for prisoners at the Huntsville Unit, where Texas executions are carried out, wrote a cookbook several years ago after he was released. Among his recipes were Gallows Gravy, Rice Rigor Mortis and Old Sparky's Genuine Convict Chili, a nod to the electric chair that once served as the execution method. The book was called "Meals to Die For."

© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

The last meal and the ritual around the Death Penalty makes it all the more acceptible. But, shitting on the man about to die seems a bit over the top.

[viper37]

So in Texas, fast food is actually more expensive than a gourmet meal?  wow.   

[CountDeMoney]

Without digging into it myself, I'm going to wager there is a reason every single one of those courts has said the recantations aren't credible.

Well, I did some digging, and while I was certainly touched by BB's concerns around the whole issue of the affividavits, I was also reminded that, just like Marti, he's a foreign lawyer from a fucking foreign country, and probably isn't aware of the impact The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 has being shoved up his self-righteous ass.