Attorney General Pam Bondi is still not fessing up to her mistake of delaying the execution of Marshall Lee Gore. Bondi can't take responsibility and blame her staff for the rescheduling of the execution.
Bondi said the execution delay was done "through staff," and reiterated: "I was wrong. I'm sorry. It will not happen again." Asked if the episode has compromised her public image as a victims' advocate, Bondi said: "I made a mistake. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I asked that a killer's date be changed and he was given 20 more days. It won't happen again. I'm sorry." Asked who on her staff made the request for the delay in Gore's execution, Bondi referred questions to her press office.
The execution of Gore was rescheduled so Bondi could attend a campaign fundraiser in Tampa. Bondi would have us believe that her staff scheduled the execution and fundraiser without her knowledge. If true then that means Bondi is too incompetent to know when an execution takes place or what is going on with her campaign. Hardly a vote of confidence. Bondi's excuse doesn't pass the laugh test.
I noted that Gov. Rick Scott is usually tongue tied when dealing with tough questions from the media. Scott has had enough of taking hits for Attorney General Pam Bondi. Scott is throwing Bondi under the bus for the delay in the execution of Marshall Lee Gore.
Asked what information he had when he made the decision to postpone the execution and whether it was a proper decision, Scott replied, “My office had a request from the Attorney General’s Office to postpone the execution, and so they made a decision to postpone it, and anything else you’d have to ask the attorney general.”
As governor, Scott is the only state official with the power to move Gore's execution. Scott does bear responsibility but he has figured out that he has his own bad poll numbers to worry about. Scott isn't going to take the hit for Bondi.
Bondi asked that Gore's execution be delayed. Bondi's reason was so she could attend a campaign fundraiser in Tampa. Local and national media came to the realization that many others have. Bondi is unserious about her duties as a public servant.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn is no fan of Charlie Crist. Part of Buckhorn's displeasure with Crist is that the former governor used to be a Republican.
"I'm frustrated that our bench is not deeper than it is, the fact that we could conceivably wind up with a candidate who one or two years ago was saying something entirely different than where he is today," Buckhorn said. "Clearly Rick Scott is vulnerable. I wish we had a pro-business Democrat, a centrist, because I think that person could win."
There are many Democrats that doubt Crist's loyalty to the party's core values. If Democratic values are so important to Buckhorn than why he is attending a fundraiser for Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi?
Among the members of the event's host committee are House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Sens. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, Tom Lee, R-Brandon, Wilton Simpson, R- Trilby, and Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. Gore's death warrant is for the murder of Robyn Novick, whose nude body was found in March 1988 in a rural area of Miami-Dade.
You may notice that Buckhorn is the only Democrat listed as attending the fundraiser for Bondi. In what is now a PR disaster for Bondi, she had the execution of Marshall Lee Gore postponed so she could attend the fundraiser. Does Bondi even take her job seriously.
A spokeswoman for Bondi said Friday that the Sept. 10 fundraiser had been planned before the execution date was set. Scott had scheduled two earlier execution dates for Gore this summer, but both were scuttled because of legal battles about Gore's sanity. Gore was convicted of killing two women in 1988 in Miami-Dade and Columbia counties.
Bob Buckhorn has a problem with his party's likely gubernatorial nominee. Yet, Buckhorn has no problem helping a Republican Attorney General, who blows off her duties, to fundraise. Unbelievable.
This is a disturbing graph. Texas has more executions than Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida and Missouri combined. Texas is set to execute its 500th inmate. The details of the murder committed by Kimberly McCarthy are gruesome. I am not arguing that she is a saint. However, the reinstatement of the death penalty was suppose to lower the murder rate. There is no evidence that the death penalty prevents murder. There is also the question of how many innocent men are women have been executed. Anthony Graves is the perfect example. Grave was wrongly sentenced to death by the state of Texas. His charges were dismissed in 2010.
Graves wrote this op-ed. Graves details the brutal conditions in the Texas prison system.
The jury had already convicted me of murdering six people and burning their house down to cover up the crime. I was completely innocent: they had the wrong guy. I was scared of dying for a crime I did not commit, but I knew I was innocent and hoped someone, somewhere would make it right.
What I didn't know then was that this wrongful death sentence was only part of the torture I would experience for the next 18 1/2 years. I didn't know that I would be forced to live in an 8-foot, by 12-foot cage. I didn't know I would have to use a steel toilet, connected to my steel sink, in plain view of the male and female corrections officers who would walk the runs in front of my cell. I didn't know that for years on end I would have no physical contact with a single human being.
I didn't know that guards would feed me like a dog, through a slot in my door. Instead of providing basic nutrients, the food sometimes contained rat feces, broken glass or the sweat of the inmate who cooked it. This diet caused me health problems that continue today.
The prison gave me no phone to call my loved ones, no television to keep up with the world and local events, and no real medical care. I lived behind a steel door, with filthy mesh-covered windows looking out to the run.
Ask yourself if wrongly imprisoning Graves and sentencing him to die prevented one murder.
U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez has ruled that Florida's death penalty is unconstitutional.
The ruling Monday by U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez applies only in the case of convicted murderer Paul H. Evans, who is on Florida's Death Row. The ruling means that Evans will get a new sentencing hearing.
Martinez said Florida's system violates the Constitution because jurors are not required to announce specific findings on aggravating factors required to justify the death penalty. The jurors make only a general recommendation of death or life by majority vote. The final decision is up to a judge.
I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. I didn't shed any tears when Ted Bundy was executed or Osama bin Laden was executed in Pakistan. I don't believe that President Obama wanted to go through the legal nightmare of having to put bin Laden on trail.
I do find it disturbing that other Western countries have abandoned the death penalty. America is still stuck with a 19th century mentality of justice. I don't buy the argument from death penalty supporters that it is about justice. Killing Ted Bundy is about revenge. Pure and simple. I also can't stand the hypocrisy of politicians who are against abortion and euthanasia because of the sanctity of life. Yet these same people execute prisoners and swear that an innocent person has never been wrongly executed.
Conservatives constantly argue that only strict constructionist Justices should serve on the Supreme Court. Republicans argue that the courts are filled with too many activist liberal judges. It is painfully obvious that Justice Antonin Scalia took an activist role in his dissent of the Court's Lawrence et al. v. TEXAS decision. Scalia made the bizarre argument that sexual actitity is not a Constitution right. Scalia supported Texas law enforcement officers continuing to arrest consenting male adults for engaging in anal sex in the privacy of their homes.
Chief Justice John Roberts interpretation of the Eighth amendment shows a deep contempt for the Constitution.
“A slightly or marginally safer alternative” would not suffice, the chief justice said. He added: “Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of ‘objectively intolerable risk of harm’ that qualifies as cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment.
Roberts is creating such a huge loophole to continue executions. I get that Roberts supports the death penalty. That doesn't give him the right to disregard the Eighth amendment.
Justice John Paul Stevens urged for abolishing the death penalty. That is a state policy decision. Governors know the death penalty is popular with constituents. They aren't about to fuck up their re-election chances.
The Eighth amendment protects prisoners from assault from undue assault and torture from law enforcement and guards. Without the amendment, citizens would be at the mercy of their captors. Conservatives believe it is patriotic to toss the Eight amendment and habeas corpus out. Alberto Gonzales went as far as to argue against habeas corpus.
Conservatives lack the courage to come out and say that they could care less if people suffer when they are executed. Instead, they frame their arguments and make weird analogies. Republicans candidates and op-ed columnists use Dred Scott to talk about abortion. Nevermind, that slavery and abortion have little to do with each other. The majority of voters will reject overturning Roe v. Wade. That is why the GOP uses weird talking points.
A political party has activist judges, but it isn't the Democrats.
