Poor Karla (Tucker)!

[Mishka Zaznaykin]

Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer criticized Gov. George W. Bush for making fun of an executed Texas woman in an interview Bush gave to Talk magazine.
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]"I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death," Bauer said of Bush.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Bush is portrayed in Talk as ridiculing pickax killer Karla Faye Tucker of Houston for an interview she did with CNN broadcaster Larry King shortly before she was executed last year. Just before her execution date, Tucker appealed for clemency on the grounds that she had become a born-again Christian.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]" `Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don't kill me,' "[/FONT]

 

[Mishka Zaznaykin]

http://www.ccadp.org/bushkills.htm is the link for the story. Just add the usual www and http stuff in front of it.

 

[AmateurScientist]

Lewis Black had a much better Karla Faye Tucker joke. He derided her plea for clemency and the support she received from feminist groups as a pathetic double standard. He said, "Shut up and take your injection like a man!"

AS

 

[Darth Rotor]

Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer criticized Gov. George W. Bush for making fun of an executed Texas woman in an interview Bush gave to Talk magazine.
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]"I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death," Bauer said of Bush.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Bush is portrayed in Talk as ridiculing pickax killer Karla Faye Tucker of Houston for an interview she did with CNN broadcaster Larry King shortly before she was executed last year. Just before her execution date, Tucker appealed for clemency on the grounds that she had become a born-again Christian.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]" `Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don't kill me,' "[/FONT]

"In Texas, we have the death penalty (pause for effect) and we use it. (loud applause)" -- Ron White--

Tucker was cynically used, for political purposes, as a symbol of something by the anti death penalty crowd, because they had real problems putting ugly or otherwise White, Black, and Hispanic Death Row men on their posters and evoking sympathetic emotions. So, they used a modestly attractive female murderer.

You consider Bush's response inappropriate? His disgust for that political ploy was mild in comparison to mine, and most rational Texans'.

(I can see the comeback and zingers to that last clause coming from across the panhandle: fire at will.)

DR

 

[AmateurScientist]

"In Texas, we have the death penalty (pause for effect) and we use it. (loud applause)" -- Ron White--

Tucker was cynically used, for political purposes, as a symbol of something by the anti death penalty crowd, because they had real problems putting ugly or otherwise White, Black, and Hispanic Death Row men on their posters and evoking sympathetic emotions. So, they used a modestly attractive female murderer.

You consider Bush's response inappropriate? His disgust for that political ploy was mild in comparison to mine, and most rational Texans'.

(I can see the comeback and zingers to that last clause coming from across the panhandle: fire at will.)

DR

Personally, I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but that's irrelevant.

I didn't see the Karla Faye Tucker thing as being exploited by the anti-death penalty crowd. To me, it appeared she exemplified the hypocrisy and double standards employed by some feminists, and even by mainstream America who supports the death penalty for men. Hey, if you're going to have a death penalty, and it gets meted out at sentencing to a vicious killer who happens to be a woman, then by Ed you should strap her down to that state-owned injection table just like you do any death row convicted killer who's a man. Her post sentencing religious conversion and good works from inside death row aren't terribly mitigating to me. At least not if you have a death penalty.

Again, I don't believe the state should have the power to take the lives of its citizens and other persons under its jurisdiction, but if you apply it to men, apply it to women too.

AS

 

[Darth Rotor]

Again, I don't believe the state should have the power to take the lives of its citizens and other persons under its jurisdiction, but if you apply it to men, apply it to women too.
AS

I agree with you completely.

Equal protection under the law, 14th Amendment, could I suppose be read as the equal destruction under the law.

So, get those women registered for Selective service, now, or no college loan.

Equal protection under the law, right?

DR

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Any reason this is a current thread? Because the real story is the number of convicted murderers who have been cleared by DNA evidence, some of whom were on death row. Put two and two together and you get murder by the State. Of course GW Bush presided over more executions as Texas Governor than any governor in history and statistically that means he likely allowed around 25* or so innocent persons to be killed.

And while Bush claims he didn't have the authority to actually stop an execution, he managed to stop one by contacting the board members that did have the authority. They readily followed his request. In reality it appears Bush used that excuse to not bother himself with having to read any of the condemned persons' case files.

*Exoneration Facts (pdf file)

In more than 25% of cases in a National Institute of Justice study, suspects were excluded once DNA testing was conducted during the criminal investigation (the study, conducted in 1995, included 10,060 cases where testing was performed by FBI labs).

From the Innocence Project website.

 

[De_Bunk]

Tucker was a murdering bastard who got pleasure in ending the life of others...

She decided to kill...we all have that capability, we just dont act on it, unless we have to.

She had the choice. She chose. She paid the price.

Lesson is...If you kill another person because you're a bastard...And its proven you killed because you're a bastard....You die as well.

The murdering bitch got what she deserved.

DB

 

[AmateurScientist]

Any reason this is a current thread? Because the real story is the number of convicted murderers who have been cleared by DNA evidence, some of whom were on death row. Put two and two together and you get murder by the State. Of course GW Bush presided over more executions as Texas Governor than any governor in history and statistically that means he likely allowed around 25* or so innocent persons to be killed.

And while Bush claims he didn't have the authority to actually stop an execution, he managed to stop one by contacting the board members that did have the authority. They readily followed his request. In reality it appears Bush used that excuse to not bother himself with having to read any of the condemned persons' case files.

*Exoneration Facts (pdf file)
From the Innocence Project website.

Why the hell is that the "real story" in the case of Karla Faye Tucker? The story at the time was that she received an unusual amount of support in her pleas for clemency from a wide array of strange political bedfellows because a) she was a woman; b) she was a fairly attractive woman; c) she claimed to be a born-again Christian; d) she had done some positive social work and ministry during her tenure on death row.

All that did was expose the hypocrisy behind many supporters of the death penalty due to their unusual stance with regard to her special case.

Her case wasn't about George Bush's being a murderer, nor was it about Tucker's being "cleared" by DNA evidence, because she wasn't. There was never a question of identification in Tucker's case. DNA evidence is only relevant as a defense when the alleged killer maintains his or her innocence due to mistaken identity. It is only relevant in post-conviction motions and appeals of a convicted killer when there is overwhelming substantial evidence that exonerates the convicted person because the killer couldn't have been that person -- again, that's mistaken identity.

Tucker didn't claim innocence. She made a plea for clemency (look it up) due to her conversion and good works while in prison. Before her pathetic pleas on Larry King Live, etc., she hadn't been terribly remorseful, and she had attempted to minimize or even ignore her role in the two deaths of her victims.

That you can read this story and seize upon "George Bush" and "death penalty" and claim the real story is about DNA and the Innocence Project is beyond me. You seem to have a knee-jerk left wing response to anything mentioning our President.

Karla Faye Tucker's story was about hypocrisy and cynicism and the gruesomeness of her murders.

By the way, do you even know anything about her murders? She was 23 and high on a combination of drugs at the time, and filled with hate and revenge towards the husband of her best female friend. Tucker was with a male friend when he found and beat the husband to death in bed. Tucker was apparently caught up in the bloodlust, and murdered the girl who just happened to be in bed with him as a casual afterthought. It was particularly brutal. She also took the pickaxe she killed the girl with and impaled the husband's body with it 20 times or so.

She later bragged to her friends that the sensations she got from the thrill of killing caused her to orgasm three times during the killings.

Reaching back into the living room, Karla Faye grabbed the first murderous thing she saw, that pick-axe, three feet long and easy to the grip. Effortlessly, she lifted it, and returned to the chamber already smelling of blood. Danny, his senses satiated for the moment, paused to watch what his girl was doing, followed her curious movements as she circled the bed and raised the axe overhead. Now, for the first time; it was his turn to watch her as she swooped the pick in an arc, tearing the blade through the torso of the cowering female. "Let her have it!" he cheered. Seeing that Dean's skull was thoroughly flattened, Danny stood as spectator to Karla Faye's grand performance.

The girl, whom would later be identified as Deborah Thornton, had screamed only once and began to gurgle. The gurgling annoyed Karla Faye, so she gave it to her again and again in the chest, legs, stomach and shoulders. The more the body seemed to quiver, the more Karla Faye struck to stop its trembling. As the carcass turned to mush, blood splattered upward and across the room, onto the murderess.

"Yuck!" she mimicked, but delighted in the sensation. Danny threw a blanket over her head, daring her to hit the target blindfolded. "Like a pinata!" he rooted. And the killing became a game. Under the darkness of the cover, Karla Faye's senses became more acute; she could hear the whoosh of the axe as it fell, could hear the squish-squish of the blade penetrating soft, wet flesh. Ecstasy! Although she denied it later, she would tell friends that the excitement generated a triple orgasm, the likes of which she had never before experienced.

Karla Faye Tucker had busted loose.

When she had finished with Thornton, empowered by the deviancy, she finished off Dean with another twenty blows.

Before they left the scene of the crime, Danny left the pickaxe impaled in Deborah Thornton's heart.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/women/tucker/1.html

AS

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

AS, the OP was about Bush's attitude toward Tucker. Aren't Christian's supposed to forgive when asked to?

Regardless of the woman's crimes, putting someone to death is not some joke one makes fun of before carrying it out. And I think the idea Bush was too lazy to review over a hundred death penalty cases when we know by the rate of false convictions almost certainly included innocent people is just what his making fun of Tucker reflects.

 

[AmateurScientist]

AS, the OP was about Bush's attitude toward Tucker. Aren't Christian's supposed to forgive when asked to?

No, but then I'm not a Christian, so I'm not the best authority to ask. My recollection is "To err is human, to forgive divine."

Anyway, I don't think Bush's being a Christian requires him to forgive Tucker by granting her clemency and commuting her sentence simply because she petitioned for it. Forgivenness in the Christian sense I think means not to hate her soul or something.

Jeez, if it were as simple an analysis as you suggest, then every death row inmate could simply petition for clemency and have it granted. No more death penalty! Ask and ye shall receive! Just make sure your Governor is a Christian before asking.

Governors reviewing clemency requests are supposed to consider all the facts and circumstances surrounding the offense, including victim impact evidence, subsequent behavior of the inmate in prison, etc. It's a balancing test, and one well within the discretion of the Governor to grant or deny.

Regardless of the woman's crimes, putting someone to death is not some joke one makes fun of before carrying it out. And I think the idea Bush was too lazy to review over a hundred death penalty cases when we know by the rate of false convictions almost certainly included innocent people is just what his making fun of Tucker reflects.

I do agree with you that it is inappropriate for a Governor to mock the death row inmate facing imminent execution. I agree that that is a grave matter for him, as Governor, and an awesome responsibility. Nevertheless, he didn't sentence Tucker to die. A jury recommended it, and a judge sentenced her, and at least two levels of appellate courts reviewed her case. Never was there any DNA evidence, or any other evidence, to suggest that she was not guilty of the murders.

You make an impermissible leap of logic when you conclude that Bush's inappropriate (for a Governor in his position) mocking of Tucker reflects a disregard in general for the possibility of innocent persons being convicted, sentenced to death, and executed. Tucker's case simply didn't fit the criteria. Your inference that Bush's lack of sympathy for Tucker somehow suggests a disregard of the possible innocense of someone, somewhere on death row is unreasonable and unwarranted in this particular case.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with comedians like Lewis Black employing gallows humor and mocking Tucker's plea, and especially mocking the feminist crowd's support of her simply because she was one of the few women on death row, with his quip. I find his joke to be one of the funniest I've ever heard, and I am an opponent of the death penalty. I believe the state should not have the authority to take the lives of its people.

AS

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I do agree with you that it is inappropriate for a Governor to mock the death row inmate facing imminent execution. .... Your inference that Bush's lack of sympathy for Tucker somehow suggests a disregard of the possible innocense of someone, somewhere on death row is unreasonable and unwarranted in this particular case. ...
AS

The inappropriateness of Bush's comments was my point.

Lack of sympathy wasn't the issue regarding the rest of Bush's actions as Gov of Texas in regards to his obligation the review death penalty cases. Bush, according to a number of sources, didn't spend more than a few minutes looking at most of the execution cases he was charged with the final review of.

There is very good evidence a fair number of people have been wrongfully convicted of serious crimes including murder. Considering the percentage of people who were and still continue to be found innocent when DNA is analyzed, it isn't a stretch to think that out of the more than 100 cases Bush had the obligation as governor to serve as a final reviewer for, at least some of them were innocent.

Sympathy is not the issue. One's duty as governor to do one's best to make sure an innocent person is not put to death is the issue. Bush did not fulfill that duty by most standards.