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Texas execution - DNA evidence debunked 10 years on

Claude Jones was no saint. Born in Houston in 1940, he was arrested numerous times and spent three stints in prison on robbery, assault and theft charges. While serving an eight-year sentence in a Kansas prison, Jones allegedly doused another inmate with lighter fluid and set him on fire.

But Jones wasn’t executed for his previous crimes. He was put to death for what allegedly happened on the afternoon of Nov. 14, 1989.
Jones and an accomplice named Kerry Daniel Dixon pulled into Zell’s liquor store in the East Texas town of Point Blank, about 80 miles northeast of Houston. They had a .357 magnum revolver given to them by a third man, Timothy Jordan.

Either Jones or Dixon remained in the pickup truck, while the other went inside and shot the store’s owner, 44-year-old Allen Hilzendager, three times and made off with several hundred dollars from the cash register.
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I'll lose no sleep.
 
According to the article, Bush wasn't told by the attorneys in the governor's office that Jones wanted a DNA test. Had the Governor known, he likely would have stayed the execution for the test (Bush having previously stayed executions pending DNA tests).
So what's really infuriating is that the Governor is your last chance, and may not even be given the details to make an informed decision.
 
commandlinegamer said:
Executed murderer may have been innocent of the crime after the only evidence (a strand of hair) linking him to the crime scene was found not to belong to him. This was also the last capital case involving George W. Bush, who was governor at the time:

http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-...a-tests-undermine-evidence-in-texas-execution
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Over all, no harm done.

If it's true that he didn't shoot the store clerk, what does that mean? It means he was guilty of murder and eligible for the death penalty and the evidence didn't dispute that. The only question seems to have been whether he was the trigger puller or his accomplice. Both are guilty of a murder committed during a robbery and both are eligible for death. The biggest argument seems to be that he might have gotten the 60 year sentence, instead of death if the jury had known that the other guy pulled the trigger - but since the jury would know his criminal history at sentencing, that is mainly just speculation.

That doesn't make me even slightly sorry that he was executed.
 
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The Central Scrutinizer said:
We don't know that he didn't commit this crime.
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As I understand it, we know that he DID commit the crime. The only debate was whether he was the actual trigger-puller, but all parties to the crime can be convicted of the same offenses and given the same sentence, so the DNA evidence doesn't even make him ineligible for the death penalty.

Vic Vega said:
So your position is that it's perfectly acceptable to execute someone for a crime they didn't commit as long as they've committed other crimes?
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It is acceptable to me to execute the perfectly inniocent by mistake on occcasion and certainly to execute a criminal who isn't guilty of the exact crime charged. However, there seems to be no dispuite that this guy was guilty of the exqact crime for which he was executed. I understood the speculation to be that a jury might have sentenced him to less than death if they knew the other guy pulled the trigger (and, of course, this evidence doesn't proven the executed man didn't pull the trigger, it just disputes the evidence relied upon to prove he did).
 
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commandlinegamer said:
Executed murderer may have been innocent of the crime after the only evidence (a strand of hair) linking him to the crime scene was found not to belong to him. This was also the last capital case involving George W. Bush, who was governor at the time:

http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-...a-tests-undermine-evidence-in-texas-execution
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After reading what a scumbag he was I have to say this. If he had not chosen a lifetime of violent crime he wouldn't have ended up like this.
 
brenn said:
It is acceptable to me to execute the perfectly inniocent by mistake on occcasion ....
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And you can point to the clear-cut advantages to this system, which occasionally kills the "absolutely innocent" in a horrific manner, in contrast to pretty much every other first world country which doesn't do that?

Rolfe.
 
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Good riddance to him. Hopefully him knowing that he was being executed for a crime that he didn't commit (Well, he did, but he just didn't pull the trigger) made his death that much more painful.
 
Quad4_72 said:
Good riddance to him. Hopefully him knowing that he was being executed for a crime that he didn't commit (Well, he did, but he just didn't pull the trigger) made his death that much more painful.
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I have to agree but, unfortunately, one reason both those for and against the death penalty object to lethal injection is that it is so painless and easy. One side thinks they should suffer more, whille the other side...thinks they should suffer more, to create public outrage.
 
brenn said:
[...]

It is acceptable to me to execute the perfectly inniocent by mistake on occcasion and certainly to execute a criminal who isn't guilty of the exact crime charged. ...
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Look what you wrote.

Edit to add: Folks, no True Amerkins(tm) feel this way.
 
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