[lbo-talk] Interesting Last Words

Les Schaffer schaffer at optonline.net
Wed Jul 27 12:47:58 PDT 2005


Carrol Cox wrote:


>Capital punishment: them without the capital get the punishment.
>Executed in electric chair, Florida.
>~~ John Spenkelink, d. May 25, 1979
>

google on this guy turns up some interesting stuff, for example:

The first involuntarily applied execution after the Furman Decision,

that of John Spenkelink in 1979, is particularly instructive. His

crime – killing a fellow parolee from prison whom Spenkelink

asserted had sexually assaulted and robbed him – did not present

those factors usually seen in death penalty cases. His life

presented many mitigating circumstances, although his attorneys did

not present them. Why was John Spenkelink/ / executed? In his book

/Dead Wrong - A Death Row Lawyer Speaks Out Against Capital

Punishment/, Attorney Michael Mello quotes a member of the Florida

legal establishment: "I'll tell you why they wanted to kill him. He

was white. No one in the South wants to kill a black man first. They

don't want to be labeled racist. I think the next person who gets it

will also be white. And then it's watch out blacks." [page 115]

http://www.nyscommunityofchurches.org/Hahn%20Death%20Penalty%20Testimony.htm

and

The first person (other than one prisoner who chose to be executed)

put to death as a result of that 1976 decision was a white man named

John Spenkelink. Pro-death penalty politicians who campaigned as

“tough on crime” were eager for the first victim to be a white man.

As one of Spenkelink’s lawyers said, politicians believed this would

“inoculate” the death penalty from the charge of institutional

racism. After dramatic last minute appeals—and a great deal of

coverage in the newspapers and other media—Florida officials

executed Spenkelink in the electric chair in 1979.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5420

you can see how well Mello's prediction worked out here:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=414&scid=8#1

try entering Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virgina each seperately in the search engine here:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions.ph

to see data on Black/Hispanic capital murders in the South. or totals here:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=5&did=184

les schaffer



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