Texas Judge Orders Medication for Inmate

[Eugene]

Texas Judge Orders Medication for Inmate

Wednesday April 12, 2006 5:31 PM

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - A judge who halted an execution because the inmate was
mentally ill has agreed to force the man to take anti-psychotic medication
so he can be put to death.

The inmate, Steven Kenneth Staley, 43, has refused to take his medication. A jury
decided he should be put to death for the killing of a Fort Worth restaurant manager
during a botched robbery.

Judge Wayne Salvant issued the forced-medication order Tuesday, while Staley picked
at his unruly hair and mumbled nonsensical phrases in the courtroom.

The order, requested by prosecutors, drew a sharp argument from Staley's attorney.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5751091,00.html

[saigon68]

1. Not as Bad as Clinton

Executing the Mental Midget who wanted to come back and eat his PIECE OF PIE after the Execution

[DUHandle]

2. no, no

judge slavant wants mr. staley to be in the best possible frame of mind to be executed?


sad sick unbelievable

[Phx_Dem]

3. Just like an episode of The Practice n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Seems to me, if he's too insane to be executed

he should never have gotten the DP in the first place.

[saigon68]

5. That Doesn't trouble the RUSTICS on the JURY

Who voted to give him the "LONG DIRT NAP"

[Freddie Stubbs]

9. Apperently the jury didn't believe that he was nuts when

he committed the crime.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Then the judge should be finding a way to overturn the death

sentence, not trying to find a way to kill the guy.

He must be cut from the same cloth as 'proof of innocence is not grounds to overturn a death penalty conviction' Scalia.

[Freddie Stubbs]

18. Perhaps the judge agrees with the jury's assessment

The prosecution had to present proof of guilt to convince 12 jurors to convict and impose the death sentence. But perhaps you know more about this case from media reports.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Guilt schmilt. You can't have guilt without a moral choice.

If the guy is insane, he is not culpable. That doesn't mean cut him loose. It means, put him in an institution, for the rest of his life, if necessary. But if you are insane, if you are sick, you are robbed of choice of action. And we shouldn't kill people who are incapable of choosing NOT to commit the crime.

If the man is too crazy to be executed, then he SHOULD have been found too crazy to be convicted.

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. But if was not insane when he committed the crime

He certainly could be punished if they could make him sane again.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. If that was the case.

Before he was released to the halfway house, where he was living just prior to the crime, the institution was warned that he needed psychiatric care, as well as drug and alcohol counseling.

That speaks to a pre-condition.

Of course, Texas has a very low standard of what is considered 'insane'. You have to literally not know the difference between right and wrong, to not understand that dead is dead - in other words, be so far gone as to be practically incapable of functioning.

As a penniless con, I am certain he got the quality defense that most indigent criminals in Texas get - I've found nothing to suggest that his attorney ever had a competency hearing before his trial, which I would think would be SOP for a capital case. His partner in crime, who apparently also shot the same man (can they know which bullet killed him?) is serving life w/o parole. Is it justice that one should live and the other die?

At some point, it stops looking like justice and begins to look more like vengeance.

[Freddie Stubbs]

22. Apperently the jury thinks that justice is being served

I'm sure that they know a lot more about this case then both of us combined.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. Well, that's why I will never visit Texas.

I don't want to ever take the chance of having to stand before a Texas jury, no matter what circumstances might put me there.

[saigon68]

6. kick

[Judi Lynn]

7. Texas Judge Orders Medication for Inmate (so inmate can die)

(via Raw Story)
Texas Judge Orders Medication for Inmate

Wednesday April 12, 2006 5:31 PM

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - A judge who halted an execution because the inmate was mentally ill has agreed to force the man to take anti-psychotic medication so he can be put to death.

The inmate, Steven Kenneth Staley, 43, has refused to take his medication. A jury decided he should be put to death for the killing of a Fort Worth restaurant manager during a botched robbery.

Judge Wayne Salvant issued the forced-medication order Tuesday, while Staley picked at his unruly hair and mumbled nonsensical phrases in the courtroom.

The order, requested by prosecutors, drew a sharp argument from Staley's attorney.
``The whole idea of holding somebody down and injecting them so that we can then say, with a straight face, this person is now competent so we can kill them, I think that smacks of an Orwellian-Soviet-style approach to criminal justice,'' Jack Strickland told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5751091,00.html

[saigon68]

8. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2223030

[VegasWolf]

11. This has to be one of the most pathetic examples of humanity coming

from Bush's Compassionate Conservative Texas. Fucking assholes.

[Megahurtz]

12. That's Fucking Bizarre. n/t

[rasputin1952]

13. It appears to me that the judge and prosecutor need the meds...

this is not sanity speaking here.

I have known quite a few people from TX, and they are pretty decent people...what is it that makes some Texans go over the edge?

In "Path's of Glory" a movie about WWI, there is going to be an execution, one of the soldiers is unconscious on a litter, The order comes down from the general to "pinch his cheeks, the general wants him to be alert for his execution." Same basic thought process going on here, and a seriously flawed thought pattern that is...:(

[saigon68]

14. Who is the criminal ?

Does the king have any clothes?

[rasputin1952]

17. In all seriousness, I think that the judge and the prosecutor are

the real maniacs here.

caveat: I am anti-DP, and would always be against capital punishment; but it is a story like this that makes me wonder just how much these pro-DP people will suffer before they realize that the DP is just plain ridiculous.

It seems to me, there is nothing of "justice" in a situation like this, and everything of just plain vindictive blood-lust. What they guy did was nothing to that should not be dealt with, but killing an apparently insane man, and having to force meds upon that individual to "make sure" he is lucid before killing him, is beyond the pale. Like the guy w/the 80 IQ they killed in TX, this is just plain disgusting.

[0007]

15. I don't understand the logic of this judge.

Steven Kenneth Staley

[HuffleClaw]

16. what madness

and it WOULD be in texas. this reminds me of a recent case in which ONE juror caused a mistrial because he simply didn't 'believe' that the accused could be 'not guilty be reason of insanity'

[lastliberalintexas]

23. A perfect example of why my state needs a true life sentence

Before you go bashing the juries down here, please keep in mind that 1) they are not told the consequences of voting against the death penalty before they decide the sentence and 2) we do not have a true life without parole sentence. Even the US Supreme Court has chastised us on our death penalty laws, but so far has failed to do anything about them. And with the new version in place, I doubt they will.

The system is set up so that jurors feel like they have no choice but to vote for death, and that system needs to be fixed.