24th Texecution Last Night

By Jeralyn, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 01:55:00 AM EST
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Texas executed Willie Shannon last night, it's 24th texecution of the year.

Shannon spoke directly to the widow, two children and brother of his victim, Benjamin Garza, and acknowledged that he "took a father."

"It wasn't my fault. It was an accident," he said of the shooting.

Shannon, 33, smiled and hummed as witnesses filed into the death chamber, and said he was going to heaven. He said if he saw his victim, he would ask Garza for forgiveness: "I'll say when I see him, 'I'm sorry.'" He urged the relatives of his victim to "go home, have fun, smile. I'm happy. Why should I lie now. I have no anger. I have no fear."

Ten minutes later at 6:24 p.m, he was pronounced dead.

I'm not expecting the new Congress to abolish the federal death penalty. When it comes to justice for the criminally accused, we didn't get a progressive Congress yesterday, we got a centrist Democratic one. Believe me, I'm thrilled we got that. It's way better than what we had under the Republicans. But I'm not expecting any major reforms for criminal justice for the accused.

The best we can hope for is the rejection of radical right judges and their covert sponsors, the Gang of 14. Filibustering should be safe now.

More about Willie Shannon is here.

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24th Texecution Last Night | 7 comments (7 topical)

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What a waste (none / 0) (#1)
by HK on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 03:46:46 AM EST

I was lucky enough to hear Renny Cushing, Executive Director of MVFHR, speak at a conference a couple of weeks ago. He said that when his father was murdered, he looked down at his body and remembered his father's own words about an incident a couple of moths previously: what a waste of blood.

Willie Shannon's execution was a waste of blood, a waste of time, a waste of money and a waste of a repentant man.

Shame on Texas.

BTW I am equally sceptical about the extent of criminal justice reform we will see in the US following these elections. But I guess there is somewhat a wave of change that is cause for a small amount of optimism that we may see progress in this area.

i find it interesting.................. (none / 0) (#2)
by cpinva on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 07:13:41 AM EST

that even as he is about to die, mr. shannon still refused to acknowledge any responsibility for his actions, accident or no.

yes, a waste of time, energy, and scarce allocable resources, and not really even a good show. better to have just locked him up for life, rather than make a martyr of him, and force the rest of us to be complicit in his murder.

Congress is likely never where STATE (none / 0) (#3)
by Deconstructionist on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 08:07:24 AM EST

capital punishment will be directly addressed.

I suppose Congress could exert the spending power to coerce states with regard to capital punishment but, constitutionally speaking, it is doubtful whether Congress has the authority to impose a ban on state executions.

Reform or abolition of state capital punishment will most likely come from the state level, or possibly someday from the Supreme Court.

Shannon's last killing (none / 0) (#4)
by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 09:45:29 AM EST

"It wasn't my fault. It was an accident,"

Yes, the gun just fell from the sky and landed by some freak accident on Shannon's trigger finger. The shock of its unexpected appearance caused Shannon to flinch causing the fatal discharge. Accident? What rubbush.

The bottom line is that Shannon will never kill again.

The debate... (none / 0) (#5)
by Deconstructionist on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 11:30:14 AM EST

... about capital punishment (and it should be a debate not self-righteous moralizers on both sides simply self-proclaiming possession of all virtue and wisdom) must look far beyond whether any particular recipient is both guilty and devoid of redeeming qualities.

It is entirely reasonable for someone to say, "some people are unquestionably guilty and I don't have a single good thing to say about them but I believe it is wrong for the government to kill him."

Conversely, it is entirely reasonable for someone else to say, "I believe some people commit acts so atrocious and are so lacking in any semblance of human decency that I believe it is wrong for them not pay the ultimate price."

These are individual opinions based on individual values and conceptions of morality. On some issues it is impossible to reconcile divergnet opinions.

Too many people rather than accepting that in a FREE SOCIETY, policy in areas where there is unreconciable divergence should be based upon REPRESENTATIVE POLITICAL processes choose to cast those who disagree as evil and wrong and view the goal as stifling their ability to influence policy by removing it from REPRESENTATIVE POLITICAL processes.

This site is as prime an example of that as are the ones on the Right. The only difference is that people take different sides on the policy questions. In tone, tenor, self-righteousness, narrow-mindedness and intolerance there is essentially no difference between activist sites on either side.

Progress on this, as for progress on just about everything, does not require abandoning one's conviction but it does require acknowledging the right of other people to have and express different convictions and to be willing to work WITH the reasonable ones among them. When both sides become dominated by the unreasonable we get little but a further coarsening of the dialogue and no progress.

: Well said, Decon (none / 0) (#6)
by Peaches on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 11:49:34 AM EST

24th Texecution Last Night (none / 0) (#7)
by jimmoss on Thu Nov 23, 2006 at 10:31:33 AM EST

To me, the biggest crime in execution is that you can't fix things. If Tim McVeigh had been properly examined, he would likely have shown signs of Gulf War Illness. The problem is, when he was killed, no one knew what to look for (that does not excuse the lack of that defense). Even if the defense had failed, he would have been alive when the science caught up with the law, and could now be examined.

So we deprived him of a legitimate defense, killed him, then burned the evidence in more or less record time. A killing ban would have prevented all this.

Jim Moss