Twisted justice in Texas

This is an interesting story - a group of people are breaking the law in order to kill other people. Only, they are not the usual sort of people doing this, but rather they are officials from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and the people they are trying to kill, is the people on Death Row.

Death penalty states scramble for lethal injection drugs

Texas, which declined to comment on the pending case, is among 32 death-penalty states scrambling to find new drug protocols after European-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions -- among them, Danish-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital. 

"The states are scrambling to find the drugs," says Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. "They want to carry out these executions that they have scheduled, but they don't have the drugs and they're changing and trying new procedures never used before in the history of executions." 

States have been forced to try new drug combinations or go to loosely regulated compounding pharmacies that manufacturer variations of the drugs banned by the larger companies. The suit against Texas alleges the state corrections department falsified a prescription for pentobarbital, including the patient name as "James Jones," the warden of the Huntsville Unit "where executions take place," according to court documents. Additionally, the drugs were to be sent to "Huntsville Unit Hospital," which, the documents say, "has not existed since 1983."

In short, a number of US states don't have the drugs they use to execute people any longer, after European companies have banned the use of those drugs for that purpose - the companies in question are threatening to stop exporting the drugs to the US if they are used to kill people.

In response, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has, allegedly, tried to get the drugs in illegal ways.

Yes, you read that right: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice allegedly breaks the law in order to execute people.

I cannot even begin to understand the twisted priorities of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - it is more important to them that people get executed than obeying the law they are supposed to help uphold!

Bad science and the death row

I know that this article is nine days old, but I thought it worth blogging about nevertheless.

Two Texans sent to death row by bad science

Two Texans convicted of committing murder by setting fires were convicted because of faulty investigations. This conclusion was reached by a study conducted by the Texas Forensic Science Commission. They retained Dr. Craig L. Beyler of Maryland to conduct the study, and reported their findings on August 25. The results corroborated those of another study conducted in 2006, by the Innocence Project.

In 1987, Ernest Willis was convicted of setting a fire which killed two women, and sent to death row. In 2004, a new district attorney suspected problems with the original investigation and ordered a new one, which resulted in Willis being freed.

In 1992, Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted of setting a fire which killed his 2 year old daughter and 1 year twins. He was executed in 2004. Willingham's prosecutor, John Henry Jackson, admits that some bad science was used in his case, but believes he was guilty, because of his jail house confession and because his feet weren't burned.

I am against the death penalty because I have the fundamental stance that it's not the role of society to kill, except in self-defense (and I don't believe that murdering someone who is locked away can in any way be considered self-defense). Even if I didn't have this viewpoint, I'd still be against the death penalty for the reason demonstrated here.

I don't know if Willingham was guilty or not, but at least part of the evidence used to convict him was based on bad science. This means that he didn't have due process when found guilty. Unlike Willis he won't have a chance to be freed though, as he has already been murdered by the State of Texas. It can be debated whether locking people up for years can be undone, but at least something can be done to undo the injustice - the same cannot be said about someone executed.

Hopefully this story will lead the State of Texas (the US state with the most executions, currently run by the governor with the most executions under his watch) to re-consider the death penalty, or at the very least, to go through the evidence used to convict people currently sitting on death row (or even better, commission the Innocence Project to do so).

Edit: The New Yorker also has an article on this story: Trial by Fire

Texas keeps murdering

One of the big reasons why I was very much opposed to George W. Bush even before he ran for president, was the fact that while he was Governor in Texas, he carried out more executions than any other Governor - 152 at the time he stopped. To give an impression of how big a number that is, let me just say that no other state have executed that number of people since the death penalty was re-introduced in 1976. The state that has executed the second most, Virginia, has executed 90 people since 1976.

It seems that the current governor of Texas, Rick Perry has surpassed Bush in murdering people - the 200th execution under Rick Perry is slated for June 2nd.

Why do I call it murder? In my opinion, the killing of anyone who you have full and total control over, cannot be considered anything else than murder. Societies can, and should, defend themselves against certain type of people, but when these are safely locked up in prison, murdering them only reduces society to their level.

Protest the 200th Rick Perry execution

Discovery Institute opens mouth, lies

I am sure that most of my readers are aware of the latest embarrassment going on in Texas, where the Texas School Board have passed a science standard including the following

"In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental observation and testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the students."

When taking at face value, it doesn't sound too bad. Who would be against encouraging critical thinking? Well, the problem is the phrase "including examining all sides of scientific evidence", which is a loop-hole for teaching neo-Creationism as an alternative to proper science.

The fact that this is the real purpose of the new standard can be figured out by the reaction by the Discovery Institute.

Texas Now Leads Nation in Requiring Critical Analysis of Evolution in High School Science Classes

The headline is in itself very telling. The resolution doesn't actually explicitly mention evolution, yet the DI (correctly) leaps to the conclusion that this is about evolution. Also, notice "critical analysis" - high school students don't have the proper tools for critical analysis of any scientific theory. Instead it will be used as a tool by neo-Creationists and Creationists for making claims about non-existing problems with evolution.

-In a huge victory for those who favor teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution, Texas today moved to the head of the class by requiring students to "critique" and examine "all sides of scientific evidence" and specifically requiring students to "analyze and evaluate" the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations.

Every time the Discovery Institute says something, it's one long string of lies, distortions and half-truths, and this time is no exception. Before this new requirement there was no issue in teaching the scientific evidence for and against any given scientific idea in science class, so it doesn't do anything to help those who wants that to happen.

And then there is the small fact that there isn't scientific evidence against the Theory of Evolution. The very fact that it's a scientific theory, shows this. Had there been compelling scientific evidence against evolution, it would not be considered a scientific theory - it would be considered a working hypothesis which would be modified over time.

As it stands now, the Theory of Evolution is the most tested, and probably the best supported scientific theory there is.

"Texas has sent a clear message that evolution should be taught as a scientific theory open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned," said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute. "Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes 'creationism' or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period."

No scientist would have a problem with others analyzing and evaluating the scientific evidence for anything, but the simple fact is that high school students are not able to do that. For people to be able to do that, requires a vast body of knowledge about not only biology, but also of related fields like biochemistry.

What will happen instead, is that the high school students will be presented by the lies of people like the John West, as if they were real problems with the science behind evolution. Incidentally, the DI press release refers to John West as "Dr.", perhaps in an attempt to confer some kind of authority to him. His Ph.d. is in political science, and of not relevance to this discussion.

The rest of the press release are just lies in the same vein, so I won't continue fisking it, but I can't let this claim go by

Discovery Institute has long endorsed the idea that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, including its unresolved issues.

This is probably the most blatant lie I've seen since George W. Bush's claims about WMD in Iraq. The DI was founded with the explicit purpose of getting intelligent design taught instead of evolution, and only after the Dover trial where Judge Jones rightfully found that intelligent design is Creationism wrapped in different languages, has the DI tried the new track of teaching the "holes" in evolution. The DI is an enemy of science, and trying to claim that they are for evolution being taught is such pure bullshit that it threatens to flood the world market for bullshit.

M.Creo?

I see that Texas is seriously considering approving a master's degree program for science education offered by the Institute for Creation Research, which is basically a master's degree in Creationism.

If I had a degree from any Texan institute of learning, I would certainly oppose this, as it totally negates the quality of all other educations approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. How can one trust any education approved by them, when they obviously don't have any understanding of what sound education consists of.

Another reason to oppose the education, is that it does the students a disservice. They can only use the education in a very narrow field (creationist institute), and won't be able to use it in society in general. If they change perspective at a later stage (e.g. become theistic evolutionists), they would end up with having no job prospects.

Anti-science should never be approved as an education.