From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Capital Punishment '91 (BJS Press Release)
Summary: Who is working to speed the execution of death row inmates?
Keywords: Vicious; Brutal; Scum
Date: 30 Dec 92 13:50:59 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <199212292048.AA14044@rac1.wam.umd.edu> barreau@wam.umd.edu 
(Deborah Kay Barreau) writes:

>            ALMOST 2,500 PRISONERS AWAIT EXECUTION
>
>     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Eight states executed 14 prisoners
>last year, increasing to 157 the total number of executions in
>the U.S. between 1976, when the Supreme Court reaffirmed the
>death penalty's constitutionality, and December 31, 1991,
>according to a report published today by the Bureau of Justice
>Statistics (BJS).  

>     As of last December 31, 34 states and the federal system
>had 2,482 prisoners awaiting execution--a 5.8 percent increase
>over the number held at the end of 1990.  The most were in
>Texas (340), Florida (311), California (301), Pennsylvania
>(137), Illinois (132), Oklahoma (125), Alabama (119), Ohio
>(111) and Georgia (101).  [Deborah Kay Barreau]

Now, I'm personally opposed to the death penalty, but I wonder:
Has anyone proposed "clearing the air" -- that is, executing 
every one of these 2,482 killers, and giving the criminal justice
system a chance to start afresh?

>     About 70 percent of the offenders on death row for whom
>criminal history information was available had a prior felony
>conviction, and about one in 12 had a prior homicide
>conviction.  [Deborah Kay Barreau]

They sound like a pack of scum to me.  For sure, my opposition
to the death penalty is not based on sympathy for the likes of these.

>     The jurisdictions without a death penalty as of the end
>of last year were Alaska, the District of Columbia, Hawaii,
>Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New
>York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and
>Wisconsin.
>     Single copies of the BJS bulletin, "Capital Punishment
>1991" NCJ-136946) and other BJS information and publications
>may be obtained from the National Criminal Justice Reference
>Service, Box 6000, Rockville, Maryland 20850.  [Deborah Kay Barreau]

Maryland, huh?  For all practical purposes, Miss Barreau could have
added Maryland to the list of "jurisdictions without a death penalty."
That's because Maryland has not executed *anyone*, no matter how
vicious a killer or how heinous and brutal his crime, since the
Supreme Court reinstated the constitutionality of the death penalty.
In fact, the last execution in Maryland was sometime in the '60's.

There was a notable case right around the corner from me.  My house
in Baltimore is on Eutaw Place, between Laurens and Robert Streets.
There was this girl who lived on Laurens Street, and her boy friend
got into an argument with her because he said she owed him money.
She called the police, who warned the guy to stay away from her.
He came back some time after midnight and set fire to the row house
in which she lived, burning her and all the occupants to death.  He
was sentenced to death, but when it comes to finding loopholes in
the death penalty, the Maryland Court of Appeals is as resourceful
as the old California Supreme Court under Chief Justice Rose Bird
and her bleeding-heart, fuzzy-minded, knee-jerk liberal colleagues.
This mass murderer is still alive -- not that executing him would 
bring back his girl friend or the others he burned to death.

>The telephone
>number is 1-301-251-5500.  The toll-free number from places
>other than Maryland and metropolitan Washington, D.C., is 1-
>800-732-3277.   [Deborah Kay Barreau]

There are plenty of organizations working to abolish the death
penalty, and I agree with them.  In States where there is still
a death penalty on the books, there are organizations that work
long hours and lawyers who put in a lot of _pro bono_ time trying
to save the condemned.  By the same token, one would think that
in States where there is no death penalty, there would be outfits
working to get it reinstated -- the editorial policy of the New
York _Jewish Press_ comes to mind.  And one would think that in
States where there is a death penalty but where great numbers of
killers are being spared it, there would be organizations working
to try to bring about the execution of as many of these 2,482 killers
as possible.  How about it?  Are there such groups?  Do any of them
have Toll-Free "800" numbers that interested citizens can call?

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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