Murderer Saved By Bureaucracy

[GregM]

TEXAS DEATH ROW INMATE WILLING TO DIE, BUT CAN'T
November 18, 2007

LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) — The first letter, neatly handwritten on lined paper, arrived nearly a year and a half ago at the federal courthouse in Dallas with a simple address: U.S. District Clerk's Office.
"I am a college graduate and have no delusions what will occur as an end result of these proceedings," death row inmate Michael Rodriguez wrote in the first of a series of notes to the courthouse.

Rodriguez, one of the notorious Texas Seven, a group of inmates who escaped from state prison in 2000 and killed a police officer while on the lam, has dropped his appeals and wants to die.

He can't.

A federal judge signed off on Rodriguez's request on Sept. 27, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review the constitutionality of lethal injection in a Kentucky case. But now a state judge won't set an execution date for Rodriguez until after the high court rules on the Kentucky case.

"We probably won't be able to set the date for the first time until probably late next year at the earliest, even though he has volunteered and is otherwise good to go," prosecutor Lisa Smith said.

Rodriguez and six other inmates overpowered workers at a southern Texas prison on Dec. 13, 2000. They took the workers' clothes, grabbed 16 guns from the prison armory and fled in a stolen truck.

On Christmas Eve, while robbing a sporting-goods store in a Dallas suburb, they shot Officer Aubrey Hawkins 11 times. Police caught up with the gang a month later in Colorado.

Because of publicity surrounding the case, Rodriguez's murder trial was moved 100 miles northeast of Dallas to Franklin County, where a jury sent him to death row in May 2002 for his role in Officer Hawkins' slaying. Rodriguez admitted pulling the 29-year-old officer from his patrol car.

At the time of the escape, he was serving a life sentence for hiring a hit man to kill his wife.

One of the escaped inmates killed himself before he could be captured. The five others are on death row but still are appealing their sentences.

Officer Hawkins' widow declined a request from the Associated Press for comment. Rodriguez also declined to talk to the AP.

In the Kentucky case before the Supreme Court, justices will consider whether the mix of three drugs used to sedate and kill prisoners and the way they are administered can cause pain severe enough to violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Arguments in the case will take place early next year and a decision should come by late June.

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Reprinted from the Washington Times, Sunday 11-18-07

[cmj685]

This bureaucracy is the United States Justice system, not perfect but the best in the world. It is meant to ensure that every possible precaution is taken, that every appeal is exhausted, that every presumption of innocence is examined, and even that every criminal is protected against himself and his own impulsive, bad or ignorant decisions. The "bureaucracy" gets even more thorough in decisions of life and death. Sometimes that process can get tedious, but under what other system of justice would you rather live when your life and freedom depend on it?

[BRIT_in_the_weeds]

Why can't they learn from Gary Gilmore. He led by example.

[goalie]

Well, FWIW, I am personally against the death penalty.

It's not that I don't think people should die for committing certain crimes, it's just that I am morally opposed to the government having the power and authority to kill it's citizens.

Of course, if I were in charge, prison would likely be a whole lot different than it is currently.....

[GregM]

This bureaucracy is the United States Justice system, not perfect but the best in the world. It is meant to ensure that every possible precaution is taken, that every appeal is exhausted, that every presumption of innocence is examined, and even that every criminal is protected against himself and his own impulsive, bad or ignorant decisions. The "bureaucracy" gets even more thorough in decisions of life and death. Sometimes that process can get tedious, but under what other system of justice would you rather live when your life and freedom depend on it?

Good point. And I wouldn't trade our system for any other in the world.

But, as you say, it isn't perfect. And sometimes it gets in its own way. Rodriquez is quite ready to die. And I'm sure his victim's widow is ready for him to die as well. But the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a claim that Kentucky's method of execution is not sufficiently humane. Who knows --- maybe Kentucky botched a certain execution and the condemned man suffered before he died. But coming up with a configuration of drugs than can kill a man without causing him the slightest discomfort sounds more like a case for doctors than for lawyers.