Capital punishment is GOOD!! There have NEVER been miscarriages of justice blah blah bullshit…

Interesting story in the Guardian today – one which demonstrates how much of a dick is “Justice” Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court. A few years back, Scalia said “There has not been a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred … the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.” Hope you’re up on the roof right now, Scalia, shouting the name “Carlos DeLuna”.

The Guardian article tells us:

Carlos DeLuna was arrested, aged 20, on 4 February 1983 for the brutal murder of a young woman, Wanda Lopez. She had been stabbed once through the left breast with an 8in lock-blade buck knife which had cut an artery causing her to bleed to death.

From the moment of his arrest until the day of his death by lethal injection six years later, DeLuna consistently protested he was innocent. He went further – he said that though he hadn’t committed the murder, he knew who had. He even named the culprit: a notoriously violent criminal called Carlos Hernandez.

But the police and prosecution made a mockery of that claim: they declared that they’d searched high and low for this “Hernandez” character didn’t exist. And it’s only thanks to the diligence of Professor James Liebman and 12 students (plus the one, repeat one private investigator Liebman hired to find Hernandez, which he did in one day!) that we now know Carlos Hernandez does exist, that he was an alcoholic with a history of violence, who was always in the company of his trusted companion: a lock-blade buck knife. Whereas DeLuna had no history of carrying a weapon.

I’m not going to repeat the entire article here – go read the story in the Guardian (here’s a link for ya) – all I’m trying to do is show that capital punishment is A Bad Thing; people get executed for stuff they didn’t do; and if the truth ever does surface (thanks to folk like Liebman and his colleagues) there ain’t a damn thing you can do to right the wrong. Carlos DeLuna’s dead, and he’s staying dead regardless of what the courts do about Hernandez. Now go see if you can wash that blood offa your hands, “Justice” Scalia and friends.

Sign this petition: get those dodgy Murdochs run out of town!

I got an email from Becky Luff at SumOfUs.org. Not much for me to add, so I’ll just repost what she wrote:

Dear Friends,

Rupert Murdoch is “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.”

This astounding quote from the House of Commons Select Committee — who have been investigating the role James and Rupert Murdoch played in the phone hacking scandal — has been splashed across the headlines.

But it’s not just Parliamentarians who are concerned by the Murdoch’s activities. Ofcom — the UK body responsible for licensing and regulating public broadcasting — began investigating the Murdoch-controlled BSkyB as a result of the News International phone hacking scandal, in order to assess whether BSkyB remains fit and proper to continue to hold its broadcast license.

Ofcom needs to follow the Select Committee’s lead, and deem Rupert Murdoch unfit to hold a UK broadcasting license. A huge public outcry will help show them they need to act quickly to revoke Murdoch’s BSkyB license, before more damage is done.

Sign our open letter to Ofcom telling it to revoke Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB license.

http://sumofus.org/campaigns/murdoch-ofcom/?sub=taf

Despite BSkyB’s best efforts to distance themselves from the illegal activities of its parent company News Corporation, Ofcom has already made a connection by requesting evidence of phone hacking to include in its BSkyB investigation. With the Select Committee coming out strongly against Murdoch, it’s time for Ofcom to act and revoke Murdoch’s BSkyB license.

According to the Select Committee, the illegal phone hacking was merely a symptom of a much larger problem — a “culture permeated from the top” and one which shows a “lack of effective corporate governance”. A company like this should not be allowed to have a UK broadcasting license.

If Ofcom acts to revoke the license, the Murdochs will be forced out of UK broadcast media. What with this, the deluge of bad press News Corporation is receiving in the UK, and the number of politicians now looking to distance themselves from the family, we have a real chance of getting Murdoch’s biased and corrupt media empire out of the UK for good.

Join us in calling on Ofcom to revoke News Corporation’s broadcasting license of BSkyB.

http://sumofus.org/campaigns/murdoch-ofcom/?sub=taf

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Further reading:

“Murdoch: The damning verdict” – The Independent, May 2012

“Ofcom studies phone-hacking evidence in BSkyB ‘fit and proper’ probe” – The Guardian, May 2012

Do us all a favour. Sign the letter. That Rupert Murdoch’s some piece of work, and you know what they about apples not falling far from the tree.