death penalty Something I was not aware of in Texas

[AUDub 11,158]

This is an interesting one to me. A man in Texas was scheduled to die tonight only to have his execution stayed by the SCOTUS. Texas does not allow chaplains in the chamber during an execution, you see. 

This stems from a case last year where a Buddhist was scheduled to be put to death, but wanted a Buddhist chaplain in the room with him at the time. A perfectly reasonable request for one condemned to die. Texas does not allow anyone that is not in the employ of the state into the room during an execution, and they only staff Christian and Muslim clergy. The SCOTUS stepped in then and put a stop to it. In response, Texas simply banned all chaplains from being in the room during the execution.

Tonight, the condemned was Catholic and the SCOTUS, again, stayed the execution.

This is silly to me. How hard could it be to retain a chaplain or contract one on short notice rather than ban them from the room? Texas might as well issue a moratorium on the death penalty. 

[TitanTiger 20,499]

12 hours ago, AUDub said:

This is silly to me. How hard could it be to retain a chaplain or contract one on short notice rather than ban them from the room? Texas might as well issue a moratorium on the death penalty. 

This is what should happen.  The death penalty is not a deterrent to murder.  To even attempt to administer it the right way and try to make sure you aren't executing an innocent person, you have to allow time and appeals, all of which cost the state a ton of money compared to life in prison.  Then there's the simple psychological toll it has on anyone who has to be part of it.  You can't pay people enough to fix that.  And finally there's the issue of us all knowing that DNA and other evidence keeps exonerating people on death row year after year - people who without the time to gather evidence, appeal for new DNA testing and so on, would be dead right now for crime they didn't do.  

And I don't care how many 100% guilty, despicable devils you execute, it will never make up for killing someone who didn't commit the crime.