Last night Texas extended its lead as America's #1 Executing State with the 18th killer put to death this year.Bad car wrecks are bigger news than executions in Texas. Last night's Huntsville life termination was reported in a small article on page 9B of this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
In 1999 Robert Jean Hudson stabbed his ex-girl friend, Edith Kendrick, to death, after breaking into her Mesquite apartment. Mesquite is a suburb of Dallas. Hudson also seriously injured Kendrick's 8 year-old son.
Hudson's attorney appealed his case to the Supreme Court, faulting his trial lawyers for not presenting mitigating evidence that this was a crime of passion which significantly reduced Hudson's moral culpability. In his trial, jurors also did not hear about Hudson's unstable childhood, his dad's drug and alcohol problems, his mom's psychiatric problems or Hudson's own psychiatric treatment and medications taken to control his behavior and anger problem.
I used to know a nutcase who was on meds to control her behavior and anger problems. The meds can only do so much. The nutcase regularly lost control. If she killed someone during one of her fits I don't know if she should be put down for it. But I do think she should get a life sentence.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have granted a reprieve. But Hudson didn't get one because the rest of the Supreme Court thought he'd gotten a fair trail and needed to die.
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