{"id":7261,"date":"2014-11-28T22:02:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T22:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7261"},"modified":"2014-11-28T22:02:23","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T22:02:23","slug":"now-the-judge-opposes-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7261","title":{"rendered":"Now the judge opposes death penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

So, we’re supposed to sing high praise because a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge has declared his opposition to the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Is that what we’re supposed to do?<\/p>\n

I would, except that Judge Tom Price is about to leave the state’s highest criminal appellate court in January, which makes his declaration a mere symbolic act.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2014\/11\/26\/criminal-appeals-judge-price-i-oppose-death-penalt\/<\/p>\n

Price, who’s being replaced by Bert Richardson — the judge presiding over Gov. Rick Perry’s abuse of power court proceedings — wrote this, according to the Texas Tribune: “Given a substantial amount of consideration to the propriety of the death penalty as a form of punishment for those who commit capital murder, and I now believe that it should be abolished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Price’s statement came as he was one of three dissenting votes rejecting an appeal for clemency for death row inmate Scott Panetti, who’s scheduled to die by lethal injection in just a few days. Panetti’s been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia and death penalty foes have sought to have his death sentence commuted.<\/p>\n

Price now is on board with them.<\/p>\n

But he’s leaving the court.<\/p>\n

So what good is his declaration … now?<\/p>\n

Perhaps he can carry his opposition into the private sector and try to talk some reason into his former CCA colleagues who continue to reject other appeals on similar grounds.<\/p>\n

“My conclusion is not reached hastily,” Price wrote in his dissent. “Rather, it is the result of my deliberative thought process from having presided over three death-penalty trials as a trial court judge and having decided countless issues related to capital murder and the death penalty as a judge on this court.”<\/p>\n

Price didn’t seek re-election this year. He’s served on the all-Republican CCA since being elected in 1996. I applaud his coming out against capital punishment. I now hope he carries the campaign forward.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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So, we’re supposed to sing high praise because a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge has declared his opposition to the death penalty. Is that what we’re supposed to do? I would, except that Judge Tom Price is about to leave the state’s highest criminal appellate court in January, which makes his declaration a mere … Continue reading Now the judge opposes death penalty<\/span> →<\/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":[8,18],"tags":[1293,2596,4148,4935],"class_list":["post-7261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-state-news","tag-death-penalty","tag-judge-tom-price","tag-scott-panetti","tag-tx-court-of-criminal-appeals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7261","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=7261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}