William Earl Lynd, 53, is slated to die tonight at 1900 hours. He’ll be the first inmate executed since the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection was not cruel and unusual punishment.
How anyone could think it is, is beyond me. Then again, personally I prefer the electric chair. At any rate, the U.S. is finally back to executing those who deserve it. Of course, at the rate we execute, we’ll never actually make a dent in the prison population or the violent felon numbers. I think we’ll know we’re finally executing enough criminals when their deaths don’t make national headlines every single time.
Before you tell me how inhumane I am, consider the actual offense. Lynd was convicted of “kidnapping and shooting his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, 26, in south Georgia in 1988, after the two consumed Valium, marijuana and alcohol. Prosecutors said she suffered a slow, agonizing death, regaining consciousness twice after being shot in the head.” This man deserves to die for his crime.
Jose Medellin, another violent felon, is scheduled to die in Texas in August. What makes this case interesting is that Bush actually overstepped his Constitutional rights and tried to force Texas to reopen his case–along with the cases of 50 more Mexicans accused of violent crimes here in the U.S. This is just another example of Bush putting the welfare of Mexicans over that of the country he’s supposed to be running, but we’ve come to expect this.
Medellin, by the way, is convicted of participating in a gang rape and strangulation of two teenage girls who accidentally stumbled into a gang initiation rite. Pleasant, isn’t it?
