There was a lot not to like during the Reagan Library GOP Debate last night, where presidential candidates attacked science, 999, and called Social Security a Ponzi scheme among a host of other insane ideas, but nothing shocked me more than when the audience started cheering Rick Perry's appalling record of executions in Texas.
Republican voters at Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate expressed their approval of the death penalty by giving Gov. Rick Perry's record on executions some of the loudest applause of the night.
"Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times," NBC's Brian Williams told Perry as the conservative audience broke into cheers and applause. "Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?"
"No, sir, I've never struggled with that at all," Perry flatly stated. "In the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is you will be executed."
The audience again cheered at Perry's mention of "the ultimate justice."
"What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?" Williams asked.
"I think Americans understand justice," Perry explained. "I think Americans are clearly in the vast majority of cases, supportive of capital punishment. When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens, and it's a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don't want you to commit those crimes against our citizens, and if you do, you will face the ultimate justice."
These people don't believe in real justice because if they did they would be screaming at the top of their lungs for justice against the corruption Wall Street imposed on the world's entire financial sector after it collapsed because of the mortgage scandal. No, these people were cheering just for blood.
In 2009, the New Yorker published a huge article written by David Grann about the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham called: Trial by Fire... Did Texas execute an innocent man?
And on September 1st, 2011, the NY Times did a piece on the rest of his unsavory record when it comes to the death penalty.
As Gov. Rick Perry touts his tough-on-crime policies on the national political stage, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham will continue to be scrutinized. Scientists have raised questions about whether Mr. Willingham set the blaze that killed his three daughters and led to his 2004 execution. But Mr. Willingham’s execution is not the only controversial one the governor has presided over.
During nearly 11 years in office, Mr. Perry has overseen more than 230 executions — by far the most of any recent governor in the United States — and has rarely used his power to grant clemency. He has granted 31 death row commutations; most of those (28) were the result of a 2005 United States Supreme Court decision banning capital punishment for minors...read on
Ghouls were out last night.
