{"id":36712,"date":"2019-04-25T01:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T01:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36712"},"modified":"2019-04-25T01:00:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T01:00:15","slug":"good-riddance-john-william-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36712","title":{"rendered":"Good riddance, John William King"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=deathpenalty%20%23JamesByrd%20%23TDCJ%20%23capitalpunishment%20%23hatecrimes&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/james-byrd-1-758x397.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-36713\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/james-byrd-1-758x397-300x157.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/james-byrd-1-758x397-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/james-byrd-1-758x397.jpg 758w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is one of those stories that occasionally makes me ponder and take stock of philosophies I usually hold close.<\/p>\n<p>John William King is dead. As the saying goes in Texas . . . <em>he needed killin&#8217;.<\/em> The state of Texas executed this monster for a crime he committed 20 years ago, one of the most heinous hate crimes in recent history.<\/p>\n<p>King was involved in the 1998 death of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, a nice East Texas town just north of where I used to live and work in Beaumont. King and two accomplices &#8212; Lawrence Brewer and Shawn Berry &#8212; chained Byrd to the back of a pickup and dragged him through the Piney Woods, dismembering him.<\/p>\n<p>Byrd was African-American; King and his evil partners were known to be skinheads\/neo-Nazis\/white &#8220;supremacists.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I oppose capital punishment. I do not believe killing inmates who commit these crimes deters them from committing horrific crimes. John William King offers a brutal example of that fact, given that Texas has been the national leader in executing Death Row criminals.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this execution is that it occurred over the objections of the victim&#8217;s loved ones, who reportedly have <em>forgiven<\/em> the three monsters for what they did to James Byrd.<\/p>\n<p>King is the second individual to be executed for Byrd&#8217;s brutal murder; the third individual &#8212; Berry &#8212; is serving a life term in prison and will not ever be released. Brewer was executed in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>I oppose capital punishment, but I am glad that our good Earth has been rid of this hideous monster.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=deathpenalty%20%23JamesByrd%20%23TDCJ%20%23capitalpunishment%20%23hatecrimes&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of those stories that occasionally makes me ponder and take stock of philosophies I usually hold close. John William King is dead. As the saying goes in Texas . . . he needed killin&#8217;. The state of Texas executed this monster for a crime he committed 20 years ago, one of the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36712\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Good riddance, John William King<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[847,2076,8578,4530],"class_list":["post-36712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-capital-punishment","tag-hate-crimes","tag-james-byrd","tag-tdcj"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36714,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36712\/revisions\/36714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}