Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry has been governor longer than any other in the United States, and is seeking another four year term in 2010, with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison challenging him in the March 2010 primary.
Already notable for his statements supporting secession of Texas from the Union this past spring, and for many idiotic statements and actions in his nine years as Governor, Perry has now reached the stage where he should be removed from office immediately, as he is involved in a coverup of the execution of a prisoner in 2004.
This prisoner was convicted, in less than an hour, of committing arson which killed his three young daughters, an accusation that he denied right up to his execution in 2004, with the governor refusing to grant a delay or commutation due to widespread evidence that he was totally innocent and that arson had not taken place.
A state commission was about to reveal new evidence and proof that an innocent man had been executed five years ago, a political threat to Perry, so he fired three members of the commission, and appointed a political lackey to head the group, which now will indefinitely delay any report.
This is corruption at the highest level, and there should be an outcry demanding that Perry be removed from office immediately. Also, a civil legal action should be brought against the governor, holding him responsible for a wrongful act of knowingly having a prisioner executed when the evidence was clear cut that he was not guilty of the crime he was convicted for.
Texas has a reputation of being the leading “execution state”, and this outrage should promote a movement to suspend, if not end, the death penalty in Texas and elsewhere as “cruel and unusual punishment”, with too many errors occurring in the justice system and leading to the tragedy of innocent people being killed by the state.
Perry is an embarrassment to his state and to the whole concept of justice, and he needs to be held accountable for his corrupt behavior!
Governor Perry seems to enjoy controversy lately. First, he’s ‘petting’ old men, and then he’s engaging in a extremely devious coverup. I don’t understand how he thinks his plan was somehow a better alternative than allowing the release of the finding (as if people weren’t going to find out about who was running the committee after he fired the last commissioner). For Texas to maintain its “tough on crime” image, there’s no way the state that leads the way in death penalty cases would suspend capital punishment. It’s an insult to justice; but for Perry, politics was more important. One more reason not to vote for him in the next election.