Everyone under heaven believes my Tao is great and beyond compare

Because it is great, it seems different

If it were not different, it would have vanished long ago.

I have three treasures which I keep.

The first is mercy; the second is economy;

The third is daring not to be ahead of the others.

From mercy comes courage; from economy comes generosity;

From humility comes leadership.

Nowadays men shun mercy, but try to be brave

They abandon economy and try to be generous

They do not believe in humility, but always try to be first.

This is certain death.

Mercy brings victory in battle and strength in defense.

It is the means by which heaven saves and guards.

Tao Te Ching (Ch-67)

Take heed to yourselves; if your brother trespasses against thee, rebuke him, but if he repents, forgive him.

And if he trespass against thee seven times in one day and turns again to thee and repents; thou shalt forgive him.

Jesus (Luke 17-4,5)

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal trial court in Georgia to consider the case of Troy Davis, who is on death row in state prison there for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer. The case has attracted international attention, and 27 former prosecutors and judges had filed a brief supporting Mr. Davis.

Seven of the witnesses against Mr. Davis have recanted, and several people have implicated the prosecution's main witness as the actual killer of the officer, Mark MacPhail. "The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death," Justice Stevens wrote in a concurrence joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, "clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/us/18scotus.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

I found this squib rather compelling for a number of reasons. First the case arose out of a procedure in the lower courts; a procedure involving Habeas Corpus.  You might recall that one of the aims of Renquist was to shut down habeas corpus as an avenue into the federal courts from state court decisions. Always of interest to me, habeas corpus is mentioned IN THE MAIN BODY of our Constitution. Remember most of our 'rights' were 'add ons'. (See Bill of Rights)

Justice Scalia, in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said the hearing would be "a fool's errand," because Mr. Davis's factual claims were "a sure loser." He went on to say that the federal courts would be powerless to assist Mr. Davis even if he could categorically establish his innocence. "This court has never held," Justice Scalia wrote, "that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."

The move is especially troubling, Justice Scalia wrote, because "every judicial and executive body that has examined petitioner's stale claim of innocence has been unpersuaded." (sic & sick)

There is a wonderful set of laws out there called the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a 1996 law that limits death penalty appeals.

To underline how GOOD PEOPLE can make a difference in our nation, the sole dissenter on the lower court level that had ruled against hearing the Habeas argument--Judge Rosemary Barkett-- complained of the 1996 law's "thicket of procedural brambles."  Talk about a voice in the wilderness. This lady stood up and said that she does not care that Congress and the President signed a fascist  bill into law; but that we still had a constitution to consider.  Frankly I would like to learn more about this lady in robes.  http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08slipopinion.html

Democracy Now added further information (as it is wont to do) to the NYT article making the story even more interesting to me.

The Supreme Court has taken the rare step of ordering a federal trial court to conduct a new hearing for Georgia death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis. The high court ordered the new hearing to determine "whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes" Davis's innocence. Since Davis was convicted for the 1989 killing of a white police officer, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony. There is no direct physical evidence tying Davis to the crime scene. Troy Davis's sister Martina Correia recently appeared on Democracy Now!

Martina Correia: "These people were easily manipulated. They built this case around Troy with no physical evidence, no DNA. And what they did is they ran on the excitement and the adrenaline that we have to get somebody for this police officer's murder, we have to appease community. And, you know, it got to the point where they were attacking so many black men that it's like any black man will do. And when Sylvester Coles came and pointed at Troy, everything dropped, and they just built a case around Troy."

In the majority opinion in the Troy Davis case, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing." Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas objected to the court's decision. Scalia criticized his colleagues for thinking that mere innocence is grounds to overturn a conviction. Scalia wrote, "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."   http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/18/headlines

Why of course Tony, I mean who would have thought that a man in this country should be freed JUST BECAUSE HE IS INNOCENT. We as a nation should not be troubled by such things. No wonder Bugliosi thinks this fascist should be imprisoned for life. Ha!!!

Then I remembered the Daily Beast recently told me:

Judge Sharon Keller, known as "Sharon Killer" by her critics, began playing the role of defendant Monday, as she stands accused of improperly blocking a request for a stay of execution in Texas. Keller reportedly rejected lawyers for an inmate on death row who were scrambling to petition late in the afternoon for a delay, telling them, "We close at 5." The inmate was executed later in the evening. Lawyers had sought the stay of execution because the Supreme Court had agreed that same day in 2007 to hear arguments regarding whether lethal injection constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Keller was involved in another infamous execution case in which she denied a retrial for a mentally handicapped man despite claims of new DNA evidence. Keller is a judge for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. 

The beast sent me to the Guardian, but I demurred on the demand for $169.00 by way of a subscription. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/17/sharon-keller-lethal-injection   Still the Guardian noted in the four sentences it would let me read that the Senior Texas Judge was dubbed Sharon Killer by her detractors. hahahahah

See also Democracy Now. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/18/headlines

Just once in awhile, there is justice. I mean you can find a case in Bolivia or Russia or China where there is an outcome that is just plain inexplicable.  Judge Killer is receiving the same fate I think Tony S and Thomas should face. They wont face any such thing, of course.

But this also brought back memories of a Texas Governor, once upon a time.

The reeling Bush campaign is pulling out all the stops to show that George W. is not only a true leader of men, but a warm soul. ``He's had to sit in the chair,'' cries Gov. Carroll Campbell of South Carolina, whose state faces a Feb. 19 primary now touted as crucial for Bush. ``He's had to make life-and-death decisions.'' ``He has a human touch, a personal touch that most candidates don't have,'' an aide whispers to the New York Times. But it's hard to reinvent George W. at this late hour, when most Americans access his warmth through bulletins of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, announcing executions in the months ahead.

See the repubs were lying back then too. Bush never made any life and death decisions because HE ONLY MADE DEATH DECISIONS. That son of a bitch never granted clemency to anyone on death row. Only to little rats in his administration guilty of perjury.

It'll be a busy time in the Huntsville Death House. Feb. 23 sees Cornelius Goss strapped down for his last shot, followed the very next day by 64-year old Betty Beets. March will bid adieu to Odell Barnes, Timothy Gribble and Dennis Bagwell, and Super April will be crueler yet, with lethal injections for Orien Joiner, Victor Saldona, Robert Carter, Robert Neville and Ricky McGinn. Carruthers Alexander goes to his maker on May 3. Such, at least, is the present execution calendar. Six whites, four blacks and one Hispanic. Check it out on www.gwbush.com, carefully described on Yahoo as a ``parody'' site, but as useful a place as any to locate Gov. Bush's leadership skills and decision-making powers. Bush has two vulnerabilities he can't disguise: He's the son of George H.W. Bush, and he's chief executive officer of the Texas death industry. We already know the fatal political consequences when voters are reminded of his parentage. It took but one brief outing by his parents to New Hampshire, one characteristically jaunty throw-away line by the former president about ``this boy, this son of ours,'' probably to double the margin of George W's terrible defeat. The man would do better if he claimed he'd been turned out on a mountainside in infancy and suckled by wolves.

The governor in question, George Ryan, announced last week that he is suspending imposition of the death penalty in his state forthwith on the grounds that he ``cannot support a system which has proven so fraught with error.'' Since 1977, Illinois has executed 12 -- and freed 13 from death row on the grounds that their innocence had been conclusively established. Nationwide, the number of such people spared the execution chamber (sometimes, by as slim a margin as a day or two) on grounds of proven innocence is 85. Ryan's decision is one of huge significance in the unending national debate on the death penalty. Here's a Republican who had been pro-death, now, stating flatly, that the police and judicial system of Illinois cannot be trusted to produce a just conviction in trials on capital crimes.

If Illinois is in this sorry condition, what can we say of Texas, where defendants are denied trained lawyers, appeals are rushed through often as mere formalities, and clemency is almost never granted? In Bush's gubernatorial term, 113 have been put to death, with clemency granted in only one case. In 1995, Bush oversaw passage of a law accelerating death-penalty appeals in state courts, a move defense lawyers have called the ``speed the juice'' law. And even though Texas now has a law prohibiting the execution of mentally ill prisoners, this same law explicitly exempted death sentences handed down before it was passed, and so Bush recently OK'd the lethal injection of Larry Robison, a lunatic who killed six in 1982.

Alexander Cockburn is a syndicated columnist. http://www.commondreams.org/views/020900-105.htm

IN A REVIEW of George W. Bush's schedule in 1997, The New York Times found that the governor of Texas and presidential candidate "has devoted himself remarkably little to policy details," so little that he usually spends no more than 15 minutes on an issue, "including whether to go ahead with executions."

Despite this, Bush says he is "absolutely confident" that "we have never put an innocent person to death." He says the most "profound" decisions he makes are over executions. "I get the facts, weigh them thoughtfully and carefully, and decide," Bush said. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-8627643.html

Vincent Bugliosi, the former LA County prosecutor who infamously convicted Charles Manson (which he wrote about in his bestseller, Helter Skelter), is now laying out a case for murder against President Bush, suggesting no less than a sentence of death.

In an excerpt of from his new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, on the Huffington Post, *Bugliosi criticizes left wing pundits and the average man on the street for arguing that Bush may have misled or even lied to the public to create support for the war in Iraq, but not demanding consequences beyond being more skeptical the next time around.

...in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That's just common sense...

...For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did. [from HuffPo]

Now I do not believe that Bugliosi is on a fool's errand.