Comments about ‘Shurtleff urges activism over death penalty appeals’

The story today about Ronnie Lee Gardner seems to be the exact type of appeal that would be prevented. In the appeal, there is a claim that he didn't mean to kill the lawyer, and that the gun may have malfunction, or that he may not have been thinking right because he was hit in the head. None of that really seems to matter when his girl-friend snuck a gun to him and he was attempting to commit another crime by escaping custody. He did shoot, and there was a death as a result of his action.

We need to end this revolving door of appeals. The fact is Ronnie Lee Gardner was found guilty and he was sentenced. If there was an error in the guilt, let it be shown in an appeal, but enough of the never-ending-tales of "but I didn't mean to kill him".

This is an unwise bill that goes against the spirit if not the letter of the United States constitution. A legislative body determining the penalty for a specific individual is essentially a bill of attainder, specifically banned by the constitution for both the US Congress and for use by any state.

^^^ JPL is correct.

The statement in the story that the "bill that gives the Utah Legislature authority to decide death penalty appeals." The bill only restores the legislature's authority to decide when further appeals after the first will be available. This is an authority that Congress and most American legislatures have. Actual decision of the appeals will remain with the judicial branch.

I sure that a bunch of non-legally trained people who can't decide how to run the PTA will do a much better job at life and death decisions.

The punishment does not fit the crime anymore, the system is out of whack. If you go back to the Ogden Hi-Fi murders and knowing that Selby and Andrews had multiple witnesses agianst them (the survivors) yet they sat on death row for 13 and 15 years to run out the appeal process. Due process does not take 13 or even 15 years. It is unethical to allow criminals to get off easy when the families of the victims can get no closure and move on.
Isn't it pathetic what we have become in this society, and more pathetic where we are headed.

The problem is too many appeals. Too many appeals prevents finality. Appeal after appeal after appeal is designed to stall and bog the process down so that the sentence gets years and years of delays. These appeals are designed to manipulate the system and too many judges know this yet go along with them because they personally don't want to see the execution/s take place. The end justifies the means. You've got many judges (not all but many) either actively manipulating the very system that they are sworn to uphold or they allow the manipulation to take place. Reduce the number and kinds of appeals. Reign in the abusive judiciary that makes a mockery of the justice system.

Unfortunately, all this bill will accomplish is moving these cases to the federal system, which will raise the costs of litigation.

"Our current system of endless appeals gives guilty inmates more process than they deserve, and innocent victims much less."

How could there possibly be such a thing as "too much process" when a life hangs in the balance? The emotional pain that the victims of a crime may feel pales in comparison to the pain that is inflicted upon society as a whole when an innocent person is executed, as occurs far too often in this country.

The last thing we need is to grant legislators, who need not have any legal training, the power to interfere broadly in the judicial system - to say nothing of intervention in specific capital cases. I doubt that the victims of crime would gain any measure of closure by having these cases dragged even more into the public sphere - into the open debate of the legislature rather than the closed deliberation of the Supreme Court. Such a measure needlessly politicizes a process that must be dispassionate above all else, and is not in the interest of justice or the legislature itself.

My personal disagreement with capital punishment aside, this is a bad, unconstitutional measure.

Oh boy. Headlines for Shurtleff. Hurrah, hurrah! Justice comes in second place. As usual.

"How could there possibly be such a thing as 'too much process'..?"

Are you kidding me? There can be such a thing as too much process when due process of law is used to abuse the system. At a certain point it becomes a form of manipulation by the condemned, their lawyers, and too many opponents of capital punishment.

If you don't like the law, try to change it, don't game the system.

And you are completely uninformed or lying when you say innocent people are executed far too often in this country. There is not one single proven case of an innocent being executed in this country. Not one, only trumped up claims by death penalty opponents. Yet numerous innocents have been murdered by death row inmates spared death, and therefor allowed to kill again: Kenneth Allen McDuff, Joe Morse, Eddie Wein, Darryl Kemp, Bennie Demps, Joseph Taborsky, Harvey Louis Carignan and the list goes on and on.

If you were concerned for the lives of innocents, you'd support the death penalty.

Ronnie Lee Gardner was handed a single action Ruger, and it took him a minute or two to figure it out. That was in 1983, why is he still on death row.

AM here is a definition for you.

*A legislator (or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people.*

So, wouldn't it be their duty to interfere when these laws are not being upheld?

Death row inmates sit on death row for 15+ years before sentencing is carried out. No wonder it isn't a deterrence.

The Supreme is not a closed deliberation it is a public court that recently has allowed the press in their courtroom with their cameras. Before and after each hearing there is press coverage. That seems pretty "public" to me.

These cases already have federal review.