No way is this guy innocent.

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: ManyBeers
So you accept his explanation that somehow he was able to get out virtually unscathed but
he was unable to save his kids. OK. i don't.

So he had no motive, and there was no evidence. But since he didn't kill himself by trying to crawl through an inferno, then we should just finish the job for him.

This almost has to be a troll thread (unless people from Texas are truly that dense.)

 

[datalink7]

Edit: Deleted. Was getting out of hand/too worked up.

 

[MrPickins]

As a Texan and an American, this article made me very sad.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
First time I began to waver on the death penalty.

Keep reading up on the subject and you might well waver some more.

Perhaps you will finally come to the same conclusion as the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, long a supporter of capital punishment, who in 1994 before his retirement from the court concluded that the death penalty could not be fixed and declared, ?I will no longer tinker with the machinery of death.?

From the OP's article:

In 2000, after thirteen people on death row in Illinois were exonerated, George Ryan, who was then governor of the state, suspended the death penalty.

[...]

In 1993, Ruben Cantu was executed in Texas for fatally shooting a man during a robbery. Years later, a second victim, who survived the shooting, told the Houston Chronicle that he had been pressured by police to identify Cantu as the gunman, even though he believed Cantu to be innocent. Sam Millsap, the district attorney in the case, who had once supported capital punishment (?I?m no wild-eyed, pointy-headed liberal?), said that he was disturbed by the thought that he had made a mistake.

In 1995, Larry Griffin was put to death in Missouri, for a drive-by shooting of a drug dealer. The case rested largely on the eyewitness testimony of a career criminal named Robert Fitzgerald, who had been an informant for prosecutors before and was in the witness-protection program. Fitzgerald maintained that he happened to be at the scene because his car had broken down. After Griffin?s execution, a probe sponsored by the N.A.A.C.P.?s Legal Defense and Educational Fund revealed that a man who had been wounded during the incident insisted that Griffin was not the shooter. Moreover, the first police officer at the scene disputed that Fitzgerald had witnessed the crime.

 

[MrPickins]

Slightly off topic:

Is he reading a Dragonlance book in that picture?

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: dainthomas
So he had no motive, and there was no evidence. But since he didn't kill himself by trying to crawl through an inferno, then we should just finish the job for him.

Worse, he spent the last years and months and days of his life knowing he was going to be executed for the murder of his own family, a societal pariah, a boogeyman to be trotted out by future generations as the epitome of evil. He went to his death never knowing that anyone would ever give a crap about him except to spit in disgust when they heard his name.

Now that's torture.

 

[JDub02]

sad.

 

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: datalink7

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: datalink7

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: ManyBeers
Come on dude. You're a father. Are you telling me you believe he couldn't have at least gotten them babies out whether dead or alive? He had enough time.

Hurst[*] told me, ?People who have never been in a fire don?t understand why those who survive often can?t rescue the victims. They have no concept of what a fire is like.?

*John Lentini, a fire expert and the author of a leading scientific textbook on arson, describes Hurst as ?brilliant.? A Texas prosecutor once told the Chicago Tribune, of Hurst, ?If he says it was an arson fire, then it was. If he says it wasn?t, then it wasn?t.?

I guess it depends on your level of attachment to both your own life and the life of the person you are trying to rescue.

I've seen someone try to rescue a buddy who was being burned alive in a vehicle (with no real chance of rescue) who had complete disregard for himself. Had his hands and arms burnt to a crisp before someone else pulled him back.

The person you saw was OUTSIDE a smaller fire contained within a vehicle. Hurst was talking about "people who have never been IN a fire" not understanding the holocaust inferno that being inside a house fire can be.

Like he said, "They have no concept of what a [house] fire is like." That would be you and me.

I still think my statement applies. If someone feels a greater attachment to the person you want to rescue than your own life, then they might try to rescue them regardless of what a house fire is like.

And while I might not have experience with a house fire, the fire I described wasn't exactly a small fire. It was about as much of an inferno as you could get on a vehicle.

Regardless, you can't stop the reaction of carbon in your body with heat and oxygen by sheer force of will. He did sustain injuries, but was prevented from going back in. Killing a man based (even partly) on that is one of many reasons Texas is a sad joke.

 

[OutHouse]

damn that's fucked up. after reading all of that the evidence really does say the guy did not commit arson. the first two arson investigators were totally incompetent.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: MrPickins
Slightly off topic:

Is he reading a Dragonlance book in that picture?

yes he is

 

[datalink7]

Edit: Deleted. Was getting out of hand/too worked up.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: datalink7

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: datalink7
I guess it depends on your level of attachment to both your own life and the life of the person you are trying to rescue.

I've seen someone try to rescue a buddy who was being burned alive in a vehicle (with no real chance of rescue) who had complete disregard for himself. Had his hands and arms burnt to a crisp before someone else pulled him back.

The person you saw was OUTSIDE a smaller fire contained within a vehicle. Hurst was talking about "people who have never been IN a fire" not understanding the holocaust inferno that being inside a house fire can be.

Like he said, "They have no concept of what a [house] fire is like." That would be you and me.

I still think my statement applies.

Of course you do. :roll:

And while I might not have experience with a house fire...

Yes, again, as this preeminent expert points out, and I quote:

?People who have never been in a fire don?t understand why those who survive often can?t rescue the victims. They have no concept of what a fire is like.?

...the fire I described wasn't exactly a small fire. It was about as much of an inferno as you could get on a vehicle.

And, again, a fire contained in a vehicle and approached from the outside is NOT the same as you being IN a house being consumed by a fiery inferno. It's not even close!

Tell me, did this guy save or even pull his friend out of the car. No?

Or did he just burn his hands on the hot metal of the outside of the car and then retreat?

Well?

I mean, did he pull his friend out of the car or not before he allowed himself, still OUTSIDE of the MUCH SMALLER fire, to be pulled away?

 

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: MrPickins
Slightly off topic:

Is he reading a Dragonlance book in that picture?

yes he is

Stormblade, I believe. One of the better non-Weiss Hickman books.

 

[datalink7]

Edit: Deleted. Was getting out of hand/too worked up.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: datalink7
And my statement was simply pertaining to risking or even throwing away your own life in situation where you have a great deal of danger to yourself (even a hopeless amount of danger). This is something which I have a lot of experience with and I'm sure you have little or none, so please get off your soapbox.

Bullshit that you do. And I happen to have a ton of such experience, how about that?

 

[zinfamous]

From first-hand accounts of being in a house fire, there is a serious suffocation factor due to the CO (this is why firefighters where masks, oxygen tanks).

So it's like drowning + burning to death. I can't imagine that is any fun. There is literally no human instinct that draws people towards a drowning death; let alone drowning + BBQ. Now, I think this is something that you can train yourself to do (I think of deep free divers), but not anyone's first reaction with a house fire.

 

[nerdress]

Originally posted by: ManyBeers

Originally posted by: jjsole
cliffs? no tiempo ahora.

Basically a 24 year old father awakes to his 2 year old daughter's cries of "Daddy! Daddy! realizes his 975 sq. foot house is on fire and he gets out alive and unhurt but his 3 infant daughters are killed. In my mind--- unless he wanted his daughters dead--his story is impossible for a father.

True. I'd die for my kids to live.

 

[ManyBeers]

Wow! turned out to be a lively thread.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Perknose

Originally posted by: datalink7
And my statement was simply pertaining to risking or even throwing away your own life in situation where you have a great deal of danger to yourself (even a hopeless amount of danger). This is something which I have a lot of experience with and I'm sure you have little or none, so please get off your soapbox.

Bullshit that you do. And I happen to have a ton of such experience, how about that?

uhhhhh, wtf?

settle down, maybe.

 

[ManyBeers]

Originally posted by: nerdress

Originally posted by: ManyBeers

Originally posted by: jjsole
cliffs? no tiempo ahora.

Basically a 24 year old father awakes to his 2 year old daughter's cries of "Daddy! Daddy! realizes his 975 sq. foot house is on fire and he gets out alive and unhurt but his 3 infant daughters are killed. In my mind--- unless he wanted his daughters dead--his story is impossible for a father.

True. I'd die for my kids to live.

I'm not suggesting he should have died. He came out empty handed. Why? Then he stands in the front yard and apparently does nothing until a neighbor finally shows up and then he tells
her to call for help. he doesn't run to get help himself.

 

[datalink7]

Edit: Deleted. Was getting out of hand/too worked up.

 

[Phokus]

The state that gave us George Bush also executed an innocent man? Give Texas back to Mexico.

 

[JulesMaximus]

There is no way I'd leave a burning house with my son trapped inside. Honestly, I'd rather fucking die than have to live with the grief that would cause.

 

[a123456]

Maybe he came out empty handed because he was about to pass out from the smoke inhalation? Who knows since none of us were there. I skimmed the article and didn't really get the fine details. The witness accounts seem highly conflicting, with the daughter disagreeing with the mom about how hard the guy tried to get back in after they arrived. It's not unheard of to get a panic attack and have your mind freeze up, especially in really stressful situations.

Only that guy knows whether he did murder or not but the arson evidence is lacking so the most probable conclusion is the fire was accidental. To me, I don't think he deserved the death penalty since it's not beyond unreasonable doubt that it's Murder 1 from Arson. Maybe Murder 2 if that for X years in jail while they review the evidence some more.

 

[MrPickins]

Originally posted by: Phokus
The state that gave us George Bush also executed an innocent man? Give Texas back to Mexico.

Lest you forget, we kicked Mexico's ass for independence.

Also, George Bush is a Connecticut yankee as far as I'm concerned.