Texas set to execute its oldest death row inmate – Orange News

AFP, published Monday, April 18, 2022 at 07:36 Texas is due to execute its oldest death row inmate on April 21, Carl Buntion, convicted of killing a police officer more than thirty years ago but who, at 78, does not no longer represents any danger to society, say his supporters. an intervention for a trivial traffic offense in Houston, Carl Buntion shoots policeman James Irby and kills him. Sentenced to the death penalty, he sees this verdict overturned in 2009 by the highest Texas court, which had estimated that could not be properly heard by the jurors. But in 2012, he was again sentenced to capital punishment. In this case, Carl Buntion’s defenders do not seek to prove his innocence. “Every day for the past 32 years, I have regretted what happened,” said the latter during an interview with the KHOU 11 channel this week. who executes the most in the United States, a person can only be sentenced to death if a jury considers that he represents a future danger to others. However, Carl Buntion, who suffers from osteoarthritis, dizziness, hepatitis and cirrhosis, “can no longer be dangerous”, plead his lawyers in an appeal to the Texas Pardons and Parole Board, which will decide two days before the date of the execution.- “Ethical question -Carl Buntion, who has been convicted of just three disciplinary offenses during his decades of incarceration, has been isolated in his cell 23 hours a day for 20 years. are placed in a tiny cell with, at the top, barely a small f ente as a window,” Burke Butler, director of the Texas Defender Service, told AFP. “They can’t see the ones they love except by being separated by glass, talking in a telephone” she adds. Being in solitary confinement for 30, 40 or 50 years constitutes “torture”, assures Burke Butler. Last year, the American Supreme Court refused to reverse the conviction of Carl Buntion , but progressive judge Stephen Breyer said the length of his confinement “calls into question the constitutionality of the death penalty”. execute at all costs, whatever the conditions”, reacts for his part Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan, director of the Association Together against the death penalty. – Firing squad – In Texas, 192 men and six women are waiting in the death corridor. Three are over 70, and five are there for crimes dating back more than 40 years. After that of Carl Buntion, the execution of Melissa Lucio, accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter in 2007, is scheduled for April 27. Sentenced after a controversial trial, she is supported by many elected Democrats and Republicans, as well as reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who helped publicize what her defenders call a miscarriage of justice. Since the 2000s, Texas has seen a marked decrease in executions. From 137 between 2000 and 2004, their number fell to 35 between 2017 and 2021. A total which remains much higher than those of other American states. For Burke Butler, this drop is explained by the awareness, among prosecutors , “that the death penalty is an excessive and cruel punishment”, but also by the fact that “people have better lawyers”. “We end up on death row because we are poor and poorly defended,” says Burke Butler. In Texas, 45% of people awaiting execution are black, compared to only 13% of the population. ethical debate that goes far beyond state borders. In South Carolina, Richard Moore, who is to be executed on April 29, was the first convict to have to choose between the electric chair… and the firing squad. The inmate chose the second option. Introduced there in May 2021, this method exists in three other American states, although it is very little used.