by Joe Snyder
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Texans are always willing to express their views on the greatness of their state. In fact it gets rather tiresome at times when one considers the highlights and wonders of all other states – including of course the great state of Missouri – a truly magnificent state occupied by people who are extremely proud of their state but who are far too modest to boast seven days a week about it’s bountiful and treasured features.
I didn’t mean to brag about Missouri… it just sort of drifted in.
In fact, I hope not many Texans even see or hear about this column because I would not want to be hounded for the rest of my life by people who believe Texas is heaven on earth. At the same time, let me make it clear that I believe Texas is a magnificent state and a full of good citizens who rank right up there with Missouri and Kansas.
However, it’s a shameful distinction, but Texas is the undisputed headquarters of capital punishment. At a time when most of America is having serious doubts about the death penalty, more than 60 % of all U.S. executions this year took place in Texas. I’m not the only person here who believes Texas ought to slow down a bit on the rope and trap door. Executions in Texas have gone from 32 % to 62 %. This year, Texas has already executed 26 people. No other state executed more than three.
The authorities involved in Texas’s death penalty appear to be more enthusiastic about moving things along than they are in many other states. Texas’s death penalty process, including the governor and the pardon board, are more enthusiastic about moving things along than they are in many other states. Texas’s system also has some special features, like the power of district attorneys to set execution dates.
Prosecutors are much more eager than judges to see an execution carried out.
While Texas has been forging ahead with executions, many other states have been moving away from it. New Jersey abolished the death penalty recently and other states are considering it. Illinois made the headlines a few years ago when its governor, troubled by the number of innocent people who had been sent to death row, put in place a moratorium on executions.
These states have good reasons for their doubts. The death penalty remains barbaric – and it is subject to error which cannot be corrected after the execution takes place.
There has been a tidal wave of DNA exonerations in which it has been scientifically proven that the wrong people had been sentenced to death. There is also proof that methods of execution considered humane impose considerable suffering on the condemned. The Supreme Court has recently heard arguments about the pain caused by lethal injection because it might violate the Eighth Amendment.
So… if Texas is unwilling to abolish the death penalty, which many lawmakers affirm all states should do, Texas, a magnificent state, ought to reexamine a system that still produces so many executions and is so wildly out of step with the rest of the country.