George W. Bush
 "Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me." --Talk Magazine |
Republican
presidential candidate George W. Bush is portrayed in his Talk
Magazine interview as ridiculing pickax killer Karla Faye Tucker of
Houston for an interview she did with CNN broadcaster Larry King
shortly before she was executed last year.
"`Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation,
`don't kill me.'"
In fact, during that Larry King-Faye Tucker exchange, Tucker NEVER
asked to be spared.
It must be said
that George W. Bush is not responsible for the increased pace of
executions, nor did he create Texas' arcane clemency procedures. But
it cannot be denied that Bush has steadfastly opposed changing
the clemency
procedures in the face of stinging criticism by the courts.
| Bush has even opposed simple
safeguards like holding open meetings. The Texas
governor has vetoed legislation which would have
provided funding for basic indigent defense. He called
that bill, which had bipartisan support, "a
threat to public safety." Bush also opposed
legislation instituting life without parole and banning
the execution of people with IQ's less than 65. In
general, he has been a leading spokesperson in favor
of the death penalty. As of 7:30pm EDT, December 7, 2000, 152 people have been executed during Bush's tenure as governor. This makes Texas Governor George W. Bush the most-killing Governor, in the history of the United States of America. |
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| A demonstrator portrays G.W. Bush, Serial Killer, pleading for help during the Unity 2000 rally at the Republican National Convention. |
Under the leadership of George W. Bush, Texas continues to rank dead last in virtually every social service area, yet first in executions. Texas has some of the poorest funded programs to help the mentally ill (who account for a good number of the prison population). Bush's response to this dead last ranking was to insist that the legislature pass a $5 billion tax cut.
Bush has been steadfast in his refusal to recognize the significance of international treaty law, specifically the right of foreign nationals facing the death penalty to receive notification of their right to consular assistance. Texas has the second-largest death row population of foreign citizens in the USA (after California). None of these individuals were informed upon arrest of their right to consular assistance, as guaranteed under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Even a personal intervention by the US Secretary of State (in the Faulder case) was ignored by Bush, undermining the viability of international law, outraging nations allied to the USA and endangering the human rights of detained foreigners everywhere, including American citizens arrested abroad.
Texas' criminal justice system as a whole is undoubtedly one
of the worst in the nation. This is pointed out so clearly in
the September 1999 issue of Harper's, in the Index:
"Number of
death sentences upheld by Texas courts since 1990 for men whose
lawyers slept during their trials: 3"
In a 1998 report entitled "Lethal Injustice", Amnesty International stated that "at every step in the death penalty process in Texas, a litany of grossly inadequate legal procedures fail to meet recognized minimum international standards for the protection of human rights."
A more recent article entitled "Death In Texas", in the July, 1999 edition of The Champion, Stephen B. Bright, Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, details how the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals runs the fastest assembly line to the death chamber in the country.
Even more recently, two Texas agencies released reports on the practice of the death penalty in Texas. The Texas Defender Service Report, "A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty," can be downloaded by going to their web page and clicking on "Links and Resources." Also, The Texas Civil Rights Project issued an 87-page report on the death penalty in Texas. Check out "The Death Penalty in Texas: Due Process and Equal Justice or Rush to Execution, Regardless of Innocence."
George W. Bush's record on all of the above issues must be made a major campaign issue. Click Here for more details.