When one is a governor, one is going to be the final say in executions in one’s state. We’ve all seen the movies or TV shows, where the planned execution is getting perilously close and everyone waits to see if the Governor will extend clemency on the (usually in dramas) not guilty convict.
Take a guess who has the record for executions performed in his state? You peeked at the title didn’t you? That’s right Gov. Rick Perry has had more people put do death by the machinery of the State than any other governor, ever.
In his 11 years in the Gubernatorial Mansion the state of Texas has executed 234 people. Gov. Perry has extended clemency to exactly one person in that time. Without a doubt you can call him the Killingest Governor in the Nation.
Let me be clear from the start. I actually support the idea of exacting the ultimate penalty from those who are so dangerous or so depraved and callus that they will only ever inflict harm on their fellow man. However, just because there are people who commit acts that warrant death, I don’t support the death penalty.
We as a society are not careful enough or wise enough to administer this kind of punishment without error. When you have a punishment as permanent as death you have to be able to have surety of guilt and our system is not even close to that.
.
Take the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. Mr. Willingham was executed in 2004 for the murder of his three children by arson. He maintained his innocence of the crime right up to the end. There is a good reason for that, he probably was innocent. The New Yorker had a great and comprehensive run down on this, I recommend you read it.
When the case was investigated by Dr. Gerald Hurst, an incredibly smart and accomplished scientist and arson investigator, he found that the local fire “experts” made mistake after mistake after mistake in interpreting the evidence at the fire.
When this information was presented to the Parole Board and investigation was begun, but Gov. Perry stepped in to quash it. He replaced the Chair and three members of the commission and got the State AG to issue a ruling saying the Board had no right to investigate on its own. As a coup de grace he appointed a former prosecutor to the Chairmanship who had called Mr. Willingham “a guilty monster”.
Not that Gov. Perry seems to care much. In the book that he is now doing everything he can to run away from, Fed Up!, he says;
If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas
Tough talk from someone who is very unlikely to ever face a total miscarriage of justice like Mr. Willingham did. Gov. Perry has been very critical of all efforts to narrow the scope of death penalty cases in his state.
He vetoed a law that would make it illegal to execute mentally retarded people, and was very outspoken when the Supreme Court said that states can not execute children or the mentally retarded.
Perry has also been willing to go against the will of the Federal Government executing two Mexican citizens against the wishes of both the Bush and Obama Administrations. Though I should point out that if either of the Administrations had been truly serious about preventing it the presidential power of Executive Clemency is unlimited and unreviewable (one of the very few powers granted that way) and either of them could have commuted the sentence of the Mexicans.
I understand that the Texas Swagger is de rigueur for Republicans from the Lone Star State. The idea of toughness is something that pervades the West of the United States. However there are things that one should never be proud of, being the governor with the highest execution count ever is one of them.
Perry’s Texas has executed more than twice the number of prisoners in his tenure than the next two highest states, Oklahoma and Virginia, combined. If we are fairly sure (and I am at least) that Todd Willingham was innocent, how many of the other 233 who were executed were similarly innocent of the crime?
All of this goes to character. It is hard to predict exactly how a candidate will act as president, but character is often a good analogue to use as a measuring stick. What does it say about a man if he knows that he has probably been instrumental in the death of an innocent man, but he goes on to defend his actions and to continue them?
Is this the kind of person we want as a president? Toughness without compassion makes a bully. Confidence without reflection makes a zealot. Combine these with ambition and a desire to be seen as the biggest bad ass in the State and you wind up with a Governor who will allow the execution of more people than anyone else, ever.
I am not the best person to suggest that voters consider this very serious character flaw. I’d rather chew off my left arm than vote for any Republican. However, it is worth putting out there that Rick Perry is indeed the kind of man to get a good nights sleep, even knowing that he has participated in the killing of at least one innocent person.
That kind of recklessness combined with his apparent lack of intelligence is exactly the opposite of what a president should be.
The floor is yours.