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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| "Cruel and Unusual" To Kill Guy on Death Row After 30 Years? |
| 2007-10-16 |
| The Supreme Court turned down an appeal Monday from an Arizona man, first sentenced to death in 1977, who says he has been on death row too long to be executed. "Yeah, I finally got this cell to just the way I like it....remodeling is a bitch when you have to order all your tiles and grout from the prison canteen!" Joe Clarence Smith Jr. has been sentenced to die three times for his crimes. Smith picked up two teen-age hitchhikers in the Arizona desert, a month apart, and killed them by stuffing their throats with dirt and taping their mouths. He also stabbed them repeatedly. Which, in the warped world view of Mr. Smith and his scumbag lawyers, is not cruel and unusual punishment.... The justices rejected Smith's latest plea to escape Arizona's execution chamber in which he argued that executing him now after so much time on death row would violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Alone among his colleagues, Justice Stephen Breyer said he would have agreed to hear Smith's case. "In my view, Smith can reasonably claim that his execution at this late date would be 'unusual,' " Breyer wrote, explaining his vote. "And whether it is 'cruel' to keep an individual for decades on death row ... raises a serious constitutional question." I thought that the fact that we don't rush to kill someone on death row, but have a long, drawn out, mandated appeals process, was supposed to guarantee their constitutional rights?? I'm so confused.... Smith's first death sentence was thrown out because of a change in Arizona's death penalty statutes. A federal appeals court tossed out second sentence after finding that his lawyers did a poor job at the second sentencing proceeding. In 2004, an Arizona trial court then rejected his claim that he has been on death row too long and sentenced him to death again, a decision upheld by the state Supreme Court. I will give him props for not even bothering with the usual "Ima changed man! I believe in God now!" horsesh*t....but they still need to hook him up..... |
| Posted by:Swamp Blondie |
| #12 I don't mind bein' dead It's just bein' dead so long that gets me [something to that effect] --Lightnin' Hopkins, blues singer |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-10-16 18:02 |
| #11 30 yrs!? WTF.....no more than 3 appeals & a yr waiting to get needled - at the very max is all these jokers rate........what a joke. Our CJ system is broke. Somebody publicly hang this sumbitch & get it over with. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2007-10-16 14:53 |
| #10 "I've got five hundred bucks for the first guy to whack this POS." It'd take about 15-20 minutes. |
| Posted by: mojo 2007-10-16 14:38 |
| #9 It would be cruel to take him out of his death row cell after so many years pondering potential death by injection. The State of Arizona should leave him in his death row cell, mouth taped and full of dirt. |
| Posted by: High Brow 2007-10-16 13:57 |
| #8 He's intentionally dragged out the legal process for this long so that—with both his parents dead of old age—he can finally demand clemency due to being an orphan. The only thing long overdue in this particular case is a thorough revamping of the death penalty process to avoid exactly this sort of horseshit. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-16 13:45 |
| #7 He treated his victims like dirt and then he expects everyone to treat him like a worthwhile human being. Justice is waiting. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-10-16 13:37 |
| #6 It is "unusual" because it was not a speedy execution. It was "cruel" only to the victims' families. Yeah, I'll buy that argument, now take him out and end this farce. |
| Posted by: Xenophon 2007-10-16 12:20 |
| #5 Old Sparky is sick of waiting as well. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-10-16 12:12 |
| #4 C'mon, Joe Clarence. You're sick of waiting, the state's sick of waiting. The hot shot's a win-win for everybody. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-10-16 12:03 |
| #3 dont count on Arizona letting this guy off. |
| Posted by: Cronter de Medici7423 2007-10-16 11:55 |
| #2 Who stretched out the process for thirty years with endless appeals? You got far more years upon this earth than your victims received at your hands. Around 18,000 will be murdered this year, down from a high of 24,000 from the 80's. Where is their 'due process', their appeals, their protection from 'cruel and unusual'? When you fix that, come talk to us again about your plight. Notice how we confine ourselves at night? Notice how we worry about where our children are at when night falls? Notice that there are parts of our cities and communities we do not travel to or through? Now, tell me that a death penalty doesn't alter behaviors. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-10-16 11:39 |
| #1 It may not be cruel but he has a point about it being unusual. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-10-16 11:02 |