1.) Karla Faye Tucker attempted to reduce her death sentence to life in prison on a “mercy” claim. She claimed she had “found God” .. She and her lawyers claimed that she had proven herself “unlikely to commit future acts of violence”. Her case went all the way to the Supreme Court before ending up on the desk of then Governor Bush. That’s real nice,  but on what grounds can this be validly claimed? 

2.) What about her victims? Did they get multiple appeals? Did they get a chance to ask her for “mercy” ? Did they get to pray to their God to save them from evil? (in this case her) … Why should she get something they didnt have a chance to recieve?  

I don’t claim to be religious at all, but I felt this was worth examining. Please comment and tell me if you think the death penalty in Texas is “unconstitutional” because it doesn’t offer its death row inmates a chance at “rehabillitation and mercy”, especially under extreme circumstances such as these. 

This was taken from Wikipedia :  

Early years, and murder

Karla Tucker was born and raised in Houston, Texas. When she was 13, she began traveling with the Allman Brothers Band. In her early 20′s she started to hang out with bikers and on June 13, 1983, having spent the day doing drugs with her boyfriend she entered the home of another biker with Danny Garrett and James Leibrant to steal a motorcycle. During the robbery, two people were killed, Jerry Dean was hit numerous times with an axe until he died, as was Deborah Thornton. At one point, a witness entered the bedroom to find Tucker attempting to pull the axe out of Dean by using her foot on him as leverage. After she pulled the axe from his body, she lifted it above her head, smiled at the witness, and swung it into Dean again. Tucker and Garrett then used the axe on Deborah. When Deborah begged for the end to her pain, Garrett embedded the axe in her throat. Tucker later expressed satisfaction about her actions when news of the case was broadcast on TV and boasted to others of her actions. Garrett and Tucker were convicted of committing murder with a pickaxe.

[edit] Sexual arousal during killings

During Tucker’s trial, a tape recorded by Garrett’s brother while wearing a wire was played on which she claimed that she had multiple orgasms during the killings. She retorted that this was just big talk to impress her friends. On this point, Florence King (National Review, March 9, 1998) commented that

“The murder occurred in 1983 when the multiple-orgasm craze was going full-tilt, when it was impossible to turn on the TV without hearing feminists talking about the female’s “superior capacity”, or read Cosmopolitan without finding an article on the mighty G-spot. I would bet anything that enough of this pop carnality filtered through to Karla Faye to inspire the trendy lie that sealed her doom.”

[edit] Imprisonment and death

Garrett and Tucker were sentenced to death in 1984. In 1993, Garrett died in prison of liver disease. While on death row, Tucker became a born-again Christian and married by proxy the prison chaplain, Dana Lane Brown, whom she was allowed to see during the marriage ceremony only through an acrylic glass barrier. On February 3, 1998, Karla Faye Tucker was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:45 p.m. Her last words were:

“Yes sir, I would like to say to all of you – the Thornton family and Jerry Dean’s family that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this. Baby, I love you. Ron, give Peggy a hug for me. Everybody has been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I am going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you.”

According to Find A Grave, she was buried at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston. [1]

[edit] Karla Tucker and George W. Bush

Under Texas law, each death penalty case has one chance for a 30 day stay of execution by a governor without the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board must recommend the second reprieve in order for it to be granted. All 18 members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles are appointed by the governor (Clark, 2000). Before Tucker was executed, there were pleas for clemency from Waly Bacre Ndiaye, the United Nations commissioner on summary and arbitrary executions, the World Council of Churches, Pope John Paul II, and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, among other world figures. Unusual pleas came from conservative American political figures such as Newt Gingrich and Pat Robertson, interceding on her behalf. Tucker did not ask for a pardon, only commutation of her death sentence to life in prison. Huntsville Prison’s warden testified that she was a model prisoner and that, after 14 years on death row, she likely had been reformed. Despite these pleas, Bush signed her death warrant. In 1999, during the 2000 Republican Presidential primary race, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson interviewed Bush for Talk Magazine (September 1999, p. 106). Excerpt from this interview is quoted below:

In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them”, he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’” “What was her answer?” I wonder. “‘Please,’” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “‘don’t kill me.’” I must look shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.

Bush denied that he had intended to make light of the issue.

I was working one night last week, and we were on break, and I saw a black cat wandering through the parking lot…basically fur and bones, probably hadn’t eaten for months. It came back for 3 nights in a row … made me think of this song.

I feel horrible that we haven’t spoken in a couple of days, and I know all I am doing is alienating myself from you, (absence makes the heart grow colder) but I need you to know that this isn’t in any way shape or form your fault. This is my doing, and I need to make it right. Because if I let you see me like this, I don’t think you’ll ever want to come back again.