Are they seeking the death penalty against her??
Are they seeking the death penalty against her??
Nope. I don't know why. Texas is a Law Of Party State. I think she is just as culpable.
There was talk of Carson's depression and postpartum psychosis. Someone has to be REALLY screwed up in the head to do that to an innocent baby. It's cases like this that makes me regret the passage of Atkins v. Virginia.
Does this baby look possessed?
To be fair, if you're truly a mental case, yes, that baby may indeed look possessed. So, then the question becomes what does society do with mental cases who kill under a misapprehension? One can make the argument that society would be better off without them in any case, that is, they ought to be executed for the greater good. However, the US Supreme Court has decided in Atkins that retards are not fully culpable. Clearly, the trend in US criminal law is to render some measure of mercy in cases in which mental illness is a factor. I'm not sure exactly what to opine since I reckon that most murderers are, in the final analysis, more than just a bit nuts in the first place, and if I were to fully follow that line of thinking, execution of murderers would be little more than eugenics at the end of the day.
I think Carson is completely nuts, but she is not mentally retarded. Atkins v. Virginia addressed mental retardation not mental illness.
The prosecution rested in Carson's case today. I'm interested to see what the defense will offer up next week.
Yes, exactly. However, the trend has been running towards applying Atkins-type reasoning to mental illness. Of course, those who are legally insane are already excluded from execution. However, would it really be such a huge leap to include the run-of-the-mill mentally ill among the execution-exempt crowd, which currently comprises the aforementioned completely insane as well as retards and those under 18 (whose minds aren't apparently developed enough to be entirely culpable when they commit murder)?
Yes Moh, it is a giant leap to include the run of the mill sickos. Like you said, it is the trend nowadays. Better the issue is raised before trial.
Related:
Texas Woman Convicted In Infant Daughter’s Exorcism Death
HENDERSON — Jesseca Carson, 20, will spend the rest of her life in prison without the possibility of parole after an East Texas jury convicted her of capital murder Wednesday in the sexual assault and beating death of her infant daughter.
A Rusk County jury found Carson guilty in the December 2008 death of her 13-month-old daughter, Amora.
Carson's boyfriend, Blaine Milam, was sent to death row after he was convicted of capital murder earlier in the infant’s death, which Carson evidently believed was an exorcism.
Prosecutors didn't seek a death sentence for Carson, saying she encouraged, promoted or assisted in the crime.
Defense attorney Don Killingsworth told jurors that Milam dominated Carson, convincing her that a demon dwelled inside her daughter.
Killingsworth said Carson thought Milam was helping her child and didn't think he would hurt her.
http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/T...119805064.html
Related:
Jimerson says appellate law discouraged death penalty
Existing appellate law in Texas discouraged Rusk County district attorney Micheal Jimerson from seeking the death penalty for Jesseca Bain Carson.
The 20-year-old was found guilty Wednesday of capital murder by a Rusk County jury. The conviction of capital murder - without the prosecution seeking the death penalty - carries with it an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Carson’s boyfriend, Blaine Keith Milam, was convicted last year in the death of her 13-month-old daughter, Amora Carson, and sentenced to death.
The difference, Jimerson said, is when seeking the death penalty, “… you have to ask ‘is she a future danger to society?’”
The way Texas law currently interprets that question when applied to a mother that kills her children is the mother is only a danger to her own children, Jimerson said.
“A decision by the Court of Criminal Appeals is law,” said Jimerson.
In the case decided Wednesday by jurors, Jesseca Carson has no living children to which she can be a threat.
Jurors in Carson’s case could have also considered the lesser charges of murder or injury to a child, according to the charge read Wednesday by Fourth District Court judge Clay Gossett.
If the guilty verdict had been for murder or injury to a child, instead of capital murder, jurors would have then sit through additional testimony during a penalty phase of the trial. Then, jurors would have selected from a range of five to 99 years for Carson.
And, where the injury to a child charge is concerned, a jury coming back with a decision of less than 10 years could have opted for probation for the guilty party.
But the capital murder conviction in this case carries with it the automatic life sentence without parole.
http://www.hendersondailynews.com/ar...news/04thu.txt
So let me get this straight. Milam and Carson, are convicted of brutally killing this innocent baby. You don't seek the death penalty against the mother because she would only be considered a future danger to her own children, making her ineligible for the dp. Yet, you get a death sentence against Milam who has the exact circumstances as Carson in terms of future dangerousness. I'm a little worried at the idea of only Carson being able to escape the dp is because she's a woman so therefore she is less dangerous which is what the DA and the evidence seems to imply. That's not how the law should work at all.
Yeah, Milam wasn't the biological father...go figure. I'm relieved Gabriel Armandariz is in a County to the North of Rusk.
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