Back to Basics

The poll implies that Canadians support the death penalty in much the same way that it is done in the United States, which requires some type of special circumstances. Of course, despite what might be true in the movies, there has yet to be a case in the US where someone was incorrectly put to death. Even in the provinces with the most opposition, the opposition never rises above 45 percent and the next highest opposition is just 32 percent. From Angus Reid Public Opinion:

The survey conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion in partnership with the Toronto Star found that 63 per cent of the 1,002 Canadians surveyed across the country believe the death penalty is sometimes appropriate. Sixty-one per cent said capital punishment, which was abolished in Canada in 1976, is warranted for murder.

“I think people might be warming to the idea of having it as an option on the table, if anything just as a deterrent,” said Jaideep Mukerji of Angus Reid.

But Mukerji said the poll also reveals that it is “not a black and white” issue for many Canadians. Given the choice of supporting the death penalty or life imprisonment, 50 per cent chose the latter, the survey found. . . .

In British Columbia and Alberta, about seven in 10 support the return of the death penalty; six in 10 Ontarians, or 62 per cent, agree.

The most opposition was in Quebec, with about 45 per cent against the return of capital punishment. Some 32 per cent in Ontario and 24 per cent in British Columbia were also opposed.

“These respondents (about 75 per cent) are primarily concerned over the possibility of wrongful convictions leading to executions, but most (54 per cent) also feel that even if a convicted murderer has taken a life it is wrong to take the murderer’s own life as punishment,” the survey results stated. . . .

Thanks to Mario Canseco for this link to the full poll results.

“Mr. Leal, convicted of murder during a sexual assault, had grossly incompetent legal representation. If he had been given access to a Mexican diplomat, he would have had a chance at better counsel and likely the opportunity to strike a plea deal, avoiding the death penalty.”

So said The New York Times in a June 17 editorial about convicted rapist-murderer Humberto Leal.

Just before his execution, the Times quoted the Associated Press as saying, “In his last moments, Mr. Leal repeatedly said he was sorry, and shouted twice, ‘Viva Mexico!’”

What the AP reported was that he said, “I have hurt a lot of people. … I take full blame for everything. I am sorry for what I did.”

So, in other words, he was guilty as hell. But this had been proven beyond any doubt.  Nevertheless, for Leal to shout this from his death bed was extremely newsworthy and egg in the face of those in the media who had designed their coverage in a manner sympathetic to his well-deserved plight.

The Times story was headlined, “Mexican Citizen Is Executed as Justices Refuse to Step In.” In fact, he was an illegal alien in the U.S., as the shouts of “Viva Mexico!” attest. He was executed in the U.S. not because he was here illegally, but because his crimes were committed here.

This is the killer that the Times wanted to be able to avoid the death penalty. His victim was a 16-year-old girl, Adria Sauceda. He raped and killed her, obliterating her face and head with a chunk of asphalt, and then left a large stick in her that he had used to sexually assault her.

The Obama Administration intervened to save his life, calling it a “stay of execution.” It wanted the Supreme Court to let him live at least until Congress decided to pass Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy’s bill, the Consular Notification Compliance Act. The copy of the bill on Leahy’s website didn’t even have a number, meaning that it was not a serious piece of legislation. Not even listed on the “legislation” page of Leahy’s website, it was subsequently assigned S. 1194 and has no co-sponsors. Clearly, he introduced the bill in order to facilitate the activities of the left-wingers anxious to exploit the case for the purposes of creating a massive miscarriage of justice.

Incredibly, in a move that is even more questionable than the jury verdicts in the Casey Anthony case, the Obama Administration asked for the killer’s life to be spared so that the Supreme Court could preserve “its potential future jurisdiction” in the case. This is actually in the brief.

The Supreme Court ruled against Obama. It said that “…we are doubtful that it is ever appropriate to stay a lower court judgment in light of unenacted legislation. Our task is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be.”

So why would the Obama Administration go to such drastic and absurd lengths to save the life of an illegal alien killer?

The answer provided by crime blogger Tina Trent, an advocate of victims’ rights, is that Obama’s constituency demanded it. This is the part of the story the Times, The Washington Post, and other liberal media refuse to tell.

Twenty years after convicted killer Jeffrey Landrigan was sentenced to death, the state of Arizona was finally permitted to exact justice, and did so, by injecting a lethal dose of drugs into Landrigan’s guilty being on Tuesday, October 26, 2010.

It took 20 years to remove Landrigan from Arizona’s free food, housing and health care system because leftist lawyers and judges obstructed justice for two decades in order to protect a murderer.

Oh, if all of that legal maneuvering and intellect were applied to stopping the wanton slaughter of the unborn!

Landrigan met his maker after the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the defense which had filed suit to block justice because one of the lethal drugs was from a foreign source and might be “unsafe.”

Unsafe? Good grief, the man was a convicted killer who murdered a fellow Arizonan. Landrigan received a fair trial and was convicted based on the evidence.

Have leftist lawyers lost sight of the fact that the sole objective of the death penalty is to inflict an unsafe situation of sufficient magnitude to remove the convicted from our midst, and to the next dimension, whatever that might be?

The whole process is unsafe—at least for the condemned. It’s supposed to be that way!

Of course, Elena Kagan, President Obama’s latest addition to the bench, voted in the minority: In other words, Kagan bought into the scam about the safety of killing drugs and voted to keep killer Landrigan alive.

Lefties like Kagan pound the cement in protest, claiming that lethal injection can be “cruel and unusual,” and, therefore, a no-no according to the 8th amendment.

But hold on a minute and think this through.

The Constitution does NOT prohibit the death penalty outright, although that is what Kagan and other bleeding-heart lefties always try to accomplish with endless and mindless appeals and appeals on appeals, all devoted to denying justice to a deserving killer.

Again, the Constitution does NOT prohibit the death penalty.

Clearly, the Founders were not opposed to the death penalty: They obviously understood the need for death by execution in dealing with very serious offenses.

Yes, the 8th Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishment, but does any serious student of American law believe that death by injection meets the cruel and unusual standard, even if foreign drugs are used?

At the time that the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written, the most common forms of execution were hanging and being shot by a firing squad. Neither was prohibited by the Constitution.

Raise your hands if you really believe that a lethal injection is in the same league with hanging or being shot?

Finally, just who in hell came up with the sick, goofy idea that the death penalty should be a “pain-free” experience?

All who raised your hands: What is the Constitutional basis for such a crazy notion?