Under no circumstances must the United Kingdom capitulate to U.S. Justice Department pressure for Gary MacKinnon be handed over to a nation that murders disabled people in cold blood, permitting this shameless barbarity to take place on its own soil whilst hypocritically grandstanding throughout the world as the champion of human rights in our supposedly ‘free world’ where all are punished except Banksters and their neoliberal tools!
The suggestion that, if an accused is poor, black and/or disabled he can get a ‘fair’ trial when up against the ghoulish criminal justice system industry of that country is, frankly, RISIBLE!
We don’t need lectures on tyranny from people such as these!
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
FREE GARY MACKINNON AND HIS FAMILY FROM U.S. TYRANNY – NOW!!!
NO TO THE UNEQUAL TREATY!!!
Texas Execute a Man with an IQ of 61
In 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that the execution of so-called “mentally retarded” people was unconstitutional, a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Yet Texas, which executes far more people each year than any other state, is set to kill Marvin Wilson by lethal injection tomorrow unless the Court steps in.Thus, barring a last-minute intervention, a man who has been diagnosed with an IQ of 61 and who sucked his thumb well into adulthood, now faces the prospect of being strapped to a gurney and injected with lethal chemicals until he is pronounced dead. “It doesn’t usually get to this point when you have an Atkins claim this strong,” his lawyer, Lee Kovarsky, told me over the phone on Sunday. “This claim is really sort of the worst of the worst.”
Kovarsky grew up in Texas and has seen his share of death row injustices. Yet, clients like his are hardly exceptional. “If getting the death penalty is like getting struck by lightning,” he says, drawing on Justice Potter Stewart’s famous quote about the arbitrariness of capital punishment, “then it seems to strike offenders with MR a lot. Because their disability prevents them from effectively disputing guilt or culpability, they end up on death row for some of the least aggravated first-degree murders that are tried to verdict.”
The evidence against Wilson, Segura notes, is murky at best–he was convicted on eyewitness testimony that has proved shaky, the testimony of his accomplice and his accomplice’s wife that he was the primary gunman in the murder of police informant Jerry Williams.
But no matter what Wilson is guilty of, the law of the land states that people with severe intellectual disabilities cannot be executed. So why is Texas getting away with this?
Segura again:
While most death penalty states have passed legislation to define what qualifies as intellectual disability, based on similar clinical standards as the Atkinscourt, Texas has not.
Instead, it focuses on a dubious set of invented criteria that are known as the “Briseño factors.” Named after another Texas death row case, these seven non-clinical measures are meant to show whether a given defendant displays a “level and degree of mental retardation at which a consensus of Texas citizens would agree that a person should be exempted from the death penalty.”
The standards? Include comparing a defendant to the character Lennie from John Steinbeck’s (fictional) Of Mice and Men. Not exactly stellar scientific advice, relying on the average Texan to discern whether a man is disabled enough to not be executed.
Update at 9:12 p.m. Tuesday 7th August 2012 Eastern Time (3:12 a.m Wednesday 8th August British Summer Time): Wilson Executed
“Marvin Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead 14 minutes after his lethal injection began at the state prison in Huntsville,” Associated Press (AP) reported.
8 Responses
Justice in the US has always depended on the size of your wallet. Frankly they disgust me.
Disgusting, we should have a non extradition treaty with this two faced shame of a nation. At the once the worlds policeman as well as being one of the biggest abusers of human rights on the planet. The USA is a disgrace and the sooner the morons in charge of this country understand that the better. To claim this nation has anything to offer the world is nothing more than sheer idolatry based on fear and monetary power, nothing else. Greed is good said the man in the film wall street, and the world agrees with him.
Barbaric is this method of execution as was the electric chair and the gas chamber or hanging of which this country was fond of maybe we should go back to stoning to death or beheading all achieve their aim,during the second world war spies or sabotures each had a cyanide pill to take if caught this was extremely affective,causing death in under three seconds.much more humane way of execution and less cost effective…
There was not enough information given on this execution of the person with a IQ of 61 to pas comment on . However I for one am in favour of a death penalty. So long as the verdict given was given every care as to whether the murderers was given a just and fair trial with no corruption by any of the accusers.I can not see how the justice system finds that 15 years in prison means life, the persons murdered do not get a second chance to relive their lives, so why should murderers that have had the luxury of 3 meals a day and a roof over their heads of which many people of good character do not get. the prisons are full of this scum which cost rate payers the earth to keep alive thus causing government cut backs on oap, disabled, and unemployed people. shame on our justice system …
Murderers Do Not take into Consideration the Right of People Not to be Victims of
Murder and as the UK Shows Murderers have had a Free Run since the Abolition of
the Death Penalty for Murder by the Politicians in 1965 in Disregard of Public Opinion
as more Emphasis is upon their ” Human Rights ” and to Hell with the Human Rights of
the Victim of Murder
Of Course Trials Need to be Fair and Self Defence is Not Murder However when
Poor and Vulnerable People are being Hammered by the Millionaires Clique
and Public Services are Going to Pot I do Not see why a Brutal Murdering Thug
should have Housing and 3 Meals a Day whilst a Homeless Person who has Not
Committed Murder or Attempted Murder is Left to Freeze and Starve in our
” Caring Society ”
Human Rights is Important like the Human Right Not to be a Murder Victim
How this sends an icy chill through my veins. That poor poor man. My grandmother taught Timothy Evans in primary school- who as a man was hung for Christie’s crimes.
If only my grandmother could have testified at Timothy’s trial- she knew he had learning difficulties and that he simply always agreed with whatever was said to him in order to please people.
Texas is a racist disablist state. They are a scourge on the human race.
Wow this subject has proved more controversial than i thought it would be! Yes Hanging was stopped in the UK in the 1960’s although technically it remained on the statute books until very recently for the crime of High Treason (although it was never used” and YEP we’re all sick at the likes of Ian Huntly who has managed too manipulate the system after killing all those girls and managed too be kept in a mental hospital for a fair amount of his sentence (HOWEVER Huntly says he would have rather Hanged I Believe”
. MY VIEWS ON THE DEATH PENALTY?
If someone was shown too have committed the most barbaric of crimes BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT, AND BY THAT I MEAN MASS MURDER OR TERRORISM, OR UNPROVOKED HOMICIDE, AND BE OF FULL MENTAL FAULTY AND SIMY OF AN EVIL CHARACTER then I WOULD PROBABLY SAY YES TOO THE DEATH PENALTY!
However there have been SO MANY MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE IN THIS COUNTRY, Before and After the scrapping of the Death Penalty, NOW for those that have been cleared after the late 1960’s they have been able too come out of prison and try and have some resemblance of life, THE PRE 19660’S GET A FLORAL TRIBUTE AND THEIR FAMILY A POSTHUMOUS PARDON, A LOT OF USE THAT IS THE STATE MURDERED AN INNOCENT PERSON!!!!!!
The Guildford 4, The Birmingham 6 WOULD ALL HAVE BEEN EXECUTED!!!
AND PLEASE DONT LET US FORGET DEAR OLD STEFAN KISZKO, WHO DIED FAIRLY SOON AFTER HE WAS ALLOWED OUT AFTER BEING WRONGLY CONVICTED FOR THE MURDER OF LESLEY ANN MOLSEED AND SERVED 16 YEARS IN PRISON!!! WHILST THE REAL KILLERS WASNT CONVICTED UNTIL I BELIEVE UNTIL 2007, 32 YEARS AFTER THE CRIME!!! THIS MAN CONFESSED TOO POLICE SO EASILY BECAUSE F HIS MENTAL CONDITION AND WANTING TOO PLEASE HIM, AND IT WAS ONLY AFTER THE DEVELOPMENT OF BETTER SCIENTIFIC TESTS THAT IT WAS PROVED THAT HE COULDNT POSSIBLY HAVE COMMITTED THE MURDER!!!
SO YEAH, surely those of us who are Differently Abled EITHER MENTALLY/PHYSICALLY OR BOTH should be asking why people who have these severe conditions are slipping through the net and the option is even possible for them too commit Horrific Crimes? Where are the drs during their childhoodOR whenever the problem becomes apparent?
AS for this PARTICULAR EXECUTION CAN WE REALLY SAY THAT BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT THIS MAN COMMITTED THIS CRIME AND THAT HE WASNT MADE A PATSY BECAUSE OF HIS LEARNING DIFFICULTIES? DID HIS DEFENCE TEAM DO ALL THEY COULD IN COURT TOO EXPLORE HIS MENTAL CAPABILITIES, AND IF THE MAN WAS GUILTY AND WAS NOT IN FULL POSSESSION OF HIS MENTAL FACULTIES SHOULDNT WE BE WONDERING WHY HE WASNT BEING LOOKED AFTER PROPERLY IN THE FIRST PLACE AND WHY VIOLENT OFFENDERS WERE ABLE TOO GET A HOLD OF AND MANIPULATE HIM???? ITS ALLL ACADEMIC HERE NOW MIND COS ITS BEEN REPORTED THAT THE MAN HAS NOW BEEN EXECUTED, SO LETS PRAY THAT HE ISNT ANOTHER INNOCENT PATSY!!!!!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/miscarriage-of-justice-corrected-as-jury-finds-man-guilty-of-murder-400089.html