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North Spore Shop: Injection Grain Bag

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Thank God For Texas
    #4945186 -

Article

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Condemned inmate Shannon Thomas' execution bore little resemblance to the execution-style slayings that earned him a trip to death row.

Thomas, 34, told a sister who was watching through a window a few feet from him in the moments before he was put to death Wednesday night that he loved his family, mentioned several people by name and urged them to stay strong and not give up.

"Don't let this hinder you," he said, laying on the death chamber gurney. "I may be gone in the flesh but I am always with you in spirit."

Five minutes later, after a chaplain prayed silently and offered comfort with a hand resting on Thomas' right leg, he was pronounced dead, making him the second inmate to receive the lethal injection in as many nights in Texas and the 19th this year in the nation's busiest execution state.

Thomas was convicted of a Christmas Eve 1993 shooting spree that left a Baytown man, Roberto Rios, 32, tortured and fatally shot and his two children dead in what court documents described as an execution.

Eleven-year-old Victor Rios and his 10-year-old sister, Maria, were each shot in the head through a pillow as they were laying side by side on the floor.

All three bodies were found that evening by relatives who showed up at the house with Christmas presents.

"When you're at a murder scene looking at dead kids and there's Christmas presents around and you look at the TV and 'It's A Wonderful Life' is playing, it took me five years before I could watch that movie again," Baytown Detective Randy Rhodes said. "I'm hoping for a lot of us involved in the case, we can put this all back on the bad-memory backburner. It's been a long time coming."

Authorities said Rios, whose ex-wife lived in Monterrey, Mexico, was a small-time marijuana dealer and that Thomas and Keith Bernard Clay went to his house for drugs and money.

Nearly three years ago, Clay was put to death for the beating and fatal shooting of a Baytown convenience store clerk two weeks after the Rios slayings. Authorities said Clay was the shooter in that case while Thomas waited outside in a car. Thomas also was charged in that slaying but was not tried.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year refused to consider an appeal from Thomas. Another appeal to the high court Wednesday delayed the scheduled punishment by about a half hour. In that appeal, defense lawyers said prosecutors failed to disclose an agreement that in exchange for his testimony in Thomas' case, they'd help out a witness facing a drug charge. Prosecutors said there was no agreement.

It was almost two years before any arrests were made in the Rios family slayings.

Thomas and Clay apparently told friends about the murders. When one of those friends was arrested on a drug charge, he gave police information implicating Thomas and Clay. A friend testified Thomas told him he was responsible for the Rios family killings shortly after the slayings.

At the time of the killings, Thomas was on probation for delivery of a controlled substance, and records show a motion to revoke his probation was pending. He had also served time at a Harris County boot camp after an assault conviction.

Thomas declined to speak with reporters in the weeks before his scheduled punishment. On a Web site where death row inmates seek pen pals, he described himself as "a very honest person and those are the type of people with whom I choose to associate myself with."

Tuesday night, Robert Rowell, 50, was executed for fatally shooting three people at a Houston crack house. One more execution is scheduled in Texas this year. Convicted killer Tony Ford is set to die Dec. 7 for the slaying of an El Paso man during a home robbery a week before Christmas in 1991.

If carried out, the 20 lethal injections would be three less than a year ago and the fewest for a year in Texas since 2001, when 17 inmates were executed. A record 40 were executed in 2000.


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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4945190 -

I absolutely detest the idea of death row. If sentenced to death you should be allowed no more than one week to live. And your method of execution should be chosen, from a list, by the victims next of kin and publicly displayed and broadcast.

At least one state doesn't have it's head totally up it's ass. At least on the issue of following through with sentences.


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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4945193 -

I'm unsure what to think about death sentences. I would like to say that I agree with them, yet in saying so...I feel wrong.


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The secret to being funny is to say smart things stupidly, or is it stupid things smartly? Whatever..it's not rocket surgery...or something like that.

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: CaRnAgECaNdY]
    #4945779 -

These crimes are heinous, but keep in mind that if you're white and rich and commit the same crime as somebody who is black and poor you will NOT get the death penalty. The death penalty is a punishment not fairly meted out.

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4945827 -

I actually grew up near Baytown. It was the closest city to me.

I think the current system is best. There have been people wrongly convicted and this gives them the opportunity to prove their case.


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: HagbardCeline]
    #4945893 -

Think it was Ron White who said, "Most States are abolishing the Death Penalty. My State (Texas) is putting in an express lane."

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4946229 -

daimyo said:
I absolutely detest the idea of death row.  If sentenced to death you should be allowed no more than one week to live.  And your method of execution should be chosen, from a list, by the victims next of kin and publicly displayed and broadcast.

At least one state doesn't have it's head totally up it's ass.  At least on the issue of following through with sentences.


Imagine your chagrin if you were falsely convicted... sitting in a cell, days after your conviction, yet only days from your death... and there were the victims of someone else's crime deciding how they wanted you to die, and all their friends were watching you on TV as they pumped you full of toxins... and all YOUR friends got to watch you dying for the horrible crime they now think you actually did. You'd be dead, disgraced, and unloved, and the fucker who caused it all to happen would be out in the world, still a threat to others, and worry free because the case was closed.

The nice thing about people's opinions is that they often have no basis in reasonable thought

:owned:


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I find your lack of faith disturbing

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4946305 -

What he did was wrong and evil, but no matter what (IMO) I think the death penalty is way wrong. I dont anyone should have to deal with being injected with poison and slowly fading away, knowing that any second you will be dead. Also waiting on death row, I can imagine the thoughts inmates have. "I am going to die in 2 days..". I think they should be confined for life rather than killed. If that is not enough to be put away for life, then have their arms chopped off so that they will not hurt anyone. Yea it wastes our tax dollars, but whats one more inmate anyway?

Anyways, If there is death sentance I think It should be the inmates choice (It might be, I just dont know)


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TRUMP 2020

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: Konnrade]
    #4946308 -

You're right. Everyone on death row is innocent and the taxpayers should continue to spend 10s of thousands of dollars per death row inmate(over 3400 nationally) per year.

Since 1973 ~120 people have been exonerated. That's about 4 a year. I agree that it is tragic those people would be killed, but let the heavy-heartedness rest with the prosecutor and jurors.

Me, my family, and my friends are not death row material(as fas as I know). If someone set me up and I ended up there I would sure as hell rather be put to death than sit in prison my whole life.


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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4946313 -

Quote:
You're right. Everyone on death row is innocent and the taxpayers should continue to spend 10s of thousands of dollars per death row inmate(over 3400 nationally) per year.


I would rather pay taxes than see the most evil man on the planet put to death.


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TRUMP 2020

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4946431 -

Extreme solutions to perceived problems generally dont do much good.

Examples:
"Final Solution", numerous wars, prohibition.


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I find your lack of faith disturbing

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: Konnrade]
    #4946483 -

The best way to prove to someone that killing is wrong is to kill them.. oh wait that doesn't make much sense?? Or does it??

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4946488 -

daimyo said:
I absolutely detest the idea of death row. If sentenced to death you should be allowed no more than one week to live. And your method of execution should be chosen, from a list, by the victims next of kin and publicly displayed and broadcast.

At least one state doesn't have it's head totally up it's ass. At least on the issue of following through with sentences.


i'm not sure how i stand anymore. i used to be against it completely.

the death penalty realy doesn't deter people though. all it does is save money, keeps a murderer from getting back on the streets, and maybe helps the related victims/citizens feel better.

but even murders can change....i think we need more research into what makes people murder..and find out ways of preventing it. just killing the killers will keep this whole situation going on and on forever. they should be our genui pigs and we should try to rehabilitate....yes this takes lots of money..money that people will not want to spend.
but it also takes lots of money to continue finding killers, taking them to court, and killing them.

we need smarter education. we need smarter parents. we need love.

if we practiced eye for an eye all the time.....then we'd all be dead!

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: daimyo]
    #4946611 -

daimyo said:
Baytown Detective Randy Rhodes said.


:smirk:

I wonder if he plays guitar?


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:murray:

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Re: Thank God For Texas [Re: XUL]
    #4946787 -

XUL said:
What he did was wrong and evil, but no matter what (IMO) I think the death penalty is way wrong. I dont anyone should have to deal with being injected with poison and slowly fading away, knowing that any second you will be dead.


I'd much rather have the death penalty than life in prison. Hell, I'd rather have the death penalty than 50 years in prison...40 too...30 too. I might take 25, but I'd probably be crazy as a fucking loon when I got out. I dont know. I'd have to think about that...


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After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus

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North Spore Shop: Injection Grain Bag

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