My BFF
“Texas put to death a man convicted of a 2001 rape and murder by using a sedative that has often served to euthanize animals, becoming the third state to do so. The southern state administered pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental, which is no longer manufactured in the United States, along with two other drugs as the lethal cocktail to execute Cary Kerr, 46. It was the first time Texas had used the drug. Ohio and Oklahoma have previously used pentobarbital for lethal injections due to the nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental. South Carolina plans to use pentobarbital for an execution on Friday. Kerr, who was convicted by a jury and sentenced to death in 2003 for assaulting and strangling 34-year-old Pamela Horton, had claimed his court-appointed lawyer did not represent him properly when appealing his conviction……..”
I shouldn’t be, but I am always surprised and fascinated by the way Texans love to execute people. As do other Red States, but none of them as often and as eagerly as Texas. Especially people who cannot afford good private lawyers, or people whom the governor deems unfit for DNA tests. That also includes mentally handicapped people. There are people in Texas whom the use of DNA has exonerated: I know of two or three who spent twenty years or so in prison before they were found innocent.
Anyway, Texas loves to execute people: it must be something from the days of the Texas Rangers and their special brand of justice for Mexicans and Indians- and horse thieves, let’s not forget the horse thieves who blazed the trails from Tennessee to Texas (FYI: Sam Houston was no horse thief). So the Texans keep on executing, but the homicides keep in increasing.
Texas has some good company in its love for “creative” ways of executions. Iran hangs them, often from cranes. Saudi Arabia beheads then in public squares, in that witching hour between Friday noon prayers and the dinner time: what else is there to do in Riyadh in that desolate hour? The Chinese reportedly shoot them without ceremony. As for the North Koreans, who knows wtf method they use: maybe they either bore them to death or starve them to death.
Cheers
mhg