Page 6 of 14 FirstFirst ... 45678 ... LastLast
Results 51 to 60 of 132

Thread: Donald Keith Newbury - Texas Execution - February 4, 2015

  1. #51
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Execution date set for ‘Texas 7' gang member Donald Newbury

    Associated Press

    HOUSTON — One of the infamous “Texas 7” gang of escapees now has an execution date.

    State District Judge Rick Magnis has signed an order scheduling 52-year-old condemned inmate Donald Newbury for lethal injection on Feb. 4.

    Newbury and six other convicts engineered the biggest prison escape in Texas history when they broke out of a South Texas prison in December 2000. Eleven days later, on Christmas Eve, they killed Irving officer Aubrey Hawkins while robbing a sporting goods store in the Dallas suburb.

    When the gang was captured in Colorado a month later, one member committed suicide as police closed in. The six others all received death sentences for Hawkins’ slaying. Two of them have been executed.

    At the time of the escape, Newbury was serving 99 years for aggravated robbery.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/news/commu...ld-newbury.ece

  2. #52
    Senior Member Frequent Poster joe_con's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    292
    Did Newbury actually kill anyone? or is he a victim of that draconian law of parties?

  3. #53
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Wiltshire, England
    Posts
    500
    How is the law of parties draconian?

    The scope of the law of parties has been limited, quite reasonably, by Enmund v. Florida and Tison v. Arizona. There's no question that Newbury was a major participant in the underlying felony (a prison break) and that he acted with reckless indifference to human life, therefore he is guilty of capital murder.

  4. #54
    Senior Member Frequent Poster joe_con's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    292
    How is that law not Draconian? I might have to define the word for you. dra·co·ni·an


    /drəˈkônçən,drâ-/


    adjective

    adjective: draconian




    (of laws or their application) excessively harsh and severe.

    He didn't murder anyone, so he should not be put to death. I agree he needs to be in prison, but executing him is too excessive. He was neither the ring leader or the killer.

  5. #55
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Joe_con, please knock off the smart-alecky stuff. Just debate in a courteous, respectful way.

  6. #56
    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 1976
    Location
    In ma hoose
    Posts
    1,215
    Quote Originally Posted by joe_con View Post
    He didn't murder anyone, so he should not be put to death. I agree he needs to be in prison, but executing him is too excessive. He was neither the ring leader or the killer.
    The law of parties is undergirded by an important concern of public policy, namely that the criminal law should not by its omission provide for any form of gang immunity. It is eminently reasonable and respectable to contend that his individual culpability is not such as to justify the imposition of a death sentence. But, as far as the law of Texas is concerned, he is a murderer.
    "I have adopted the Italian way of life... I may stab you!"
    — Heidi

    "You make the British Lion seem like a declawed, toothless, neutered fat tabby with the mange."
    — Weidmann1939

    "Maybe you think your being clever."
    — Weidmann1939

  7. #57
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Wiltshire, England
    Posts
    500
    Quote Originally Posted by joe_con View Post
    How is that law not Draconian? I might have to define the word for you. dra·co·ni·an


    /drəˈkônçən,drâ-/


    adjective

    adjective: draconian




    (of laws or their application) excessively harsh and severe.

    He didn't murder anyone, so he should not be put to death. I agree he needs to be in prison, but executing him is too excessive. He was neither the ring leader or the killer.
    Someone who hires a hitman didn't murder anyone, and nor did any of the Nuremburg defendants, does that mean they shouldn't be executed?

    Newbury wasn't tied into this because he happened to be in the group of 7 who escaped. He could, if he'd wished, simply split off from the others and made independant progress and he wouldn't have been convicted of capital murder. He could even have tried surrendering to Hawkins and even if his associates had still murdered Hawkins he'd have had a good case to argue that he wasn't guilty of murder, or at least, that he wasn't deserving of the death penalty.

    As it is, he admitted shooting at a figure in blue during the course of a criminal act where a police officer was murdered by them as a group, the fact that he missed or inflicted non-lethal wounds does not make him less morally culpable for the crime.

  8. #58
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Alfred's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Posts
    446
    And a godwin! A comparison with the nazis is ridiculous and I hope that doesn't need further explanation. Nor does the 'hitman' argument fit, he happened to be in a group of people of which one killed an officer, he didn't order this murder. And this was no lynching situation, no, the officer was shot. If it would have been a lynching situation, for example a group of people all beating one to death, then I can understand the law of parties, because they would all have been contributing to his death and that is exactly the purpose of this law: punishing all the people that were contributing to the death of a person. But what Texas does here is saying ''well we don't know who actually shot the officer, or who shot at all, so let's punish them all for it'', if you are talking about morals, then this really is morally wrong, punishing a whole group for the acts of one or two in a group. Really, this law is now used in a lazy way to make sure that the perpetrator is among those who are sentenced, and it's not used to sentence al those who contributed to this murder. It's perfectly possible and I guess even probable, that many of these 7 did not contribute to his death.
    Last edited by Alfred; 08-02-2014 at 05:41 AM.

  9. #59
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Wiltshire, England
    Posts
    500
    Quote Originally Posted by Alfred View Post
    And a godwin! A comparison with the nazis is ridiculous and I hope that doesn't need further explanation.
    It's not ridiculous, those were people who ordered killings without conducting them themselves. The point is, not being the triggerman does not mean you are less morally culpable. You can replace Nuremburg with the Tokyo or Trabzon tribunals and the same applies, except you're less likely to have heard of those war crimes tribunals.

    Plus Godwin's law doesn't say what you think it does, Godwin's law involves characterising the other person's position as a position the Nazis would hold, which I never did.

    Quote Originally Posted by Alfred View Post
    And this was no lynching situation, no, the officer was shot. If it would have been a lynching situation, for example a group of people all beating one to death, then I can understand the law of parties, because they would all have been contributing to his death and that is exactly the purpose of this law: punishing all the people that were contributing to the death of a person.
    You're completely mischaracterising Newbury's crime. Newbury wasn't just standing around while one of his associates killed a police officer, he wasn't even just the getaway driver (who incidentally ran Hawkins over). Hawkins was shot 11 times, from multiple directions, in an ambush conducted by all 7 of them, during which Newbury admitted that he fired at a person wearing blue. Apart from the technology used (guns rather than fists) that is no different to the lynching scenario you describe.

    If you applied what you suggested about Newbury's crime to the lynching scenario you've forwarded: You would argue that the pathologist should examine each blow the victim received to determine if that blow would have been fatal, then in conjuction with the detectives, determine who inflicted the fatal blows and only those individuals should be charged with capital murder. I think you'd agree that just because you were lucky that the blows you inflicted weren't fatal it doesn't mean you were a more minor participant in the lynching. Now, apply that same thinking to a group of 7 people, all of whom open fire on someone they're all intending to ambush, again, why does being lucky and missing or inflicting a non-fatal wound make you less culpable?

    Take part in an ambush where you intend for someone to die, even if you can't hit the broadside of a barn, even if you're just the getaway driver, then you're as culpable, both legally and morally, as the person who happened to fire the fatal shot. You still intended someone to die and still took part in the group action where someone did die.

    For a genuinely outrageous use of the Law of Parties, look up the case of Edith Thompson, because Donald Keith Newbury is not an outrageous use of the Law of Parties.

  10. #60
    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 1976
    Location
    In ma hoose
    Posts
    1,215
    The seven defendants accused of murdering Aubrey Hawkins were convicted felons serving lengthy prison sentences who conspired to break out of their maximum-security facility. Having achieved that objective, they did not go their separate ways. They banded together and, having acquired a cache of deadly firearms during their sophisticated escape plan, committed several armed robberies for financial support. Clearly each was dedicated to the cause and willing and ready to perpetrate acts of violence to secure their continued freedom.

    At their final robbery, the police were informed and Officer Hawkins arrived on scene before they could make good their escape. He was callously ambushed by at least one member, and probably several or all members, of the gang and was cut down mercilessly in a hail of gunfire. Plainly they must have intended to kill him. As they drove away at speed, they caused Officer Hawkins, whether deliberately or not, to suffer further injury and indignity by running over him with their getaway vehicle, demonstrating yet again their hallmark willingness to offer up extreme violence to prevent their apprehension. Even at this juncture, it would seem, and doubtless aware that they had killed a police officer, no member of the gang felt any readily perceivable pang of remorse. None did the honourable thing in surrendering. Instead, they drove some 700 miles to central Colorado, where they laid low in a small-town motel, conceitedly attempting to impersonate Christian missionaries. When they were finally located, amidst a storm of national media attention, it required a sizable and heavily armed FBI SWAT team to bring about their apprehension without further loss of life.

    It matters not who fired the fatal shots. This is not one of those calamitous events where one member of a gang acts out of character by committing a wholly unpredictable and unforeseeable crime and then selfishly drags his cohorts down with him. The Texas Seven acted with a common purpose, namely to remain at liberty no matter what the human cost and to resort to any violence necessary to that end. Had the actual triggerman not fired the fatal shots, another member of the gang would have stepped up to the plate. And neither does it matter whether the defendant in question was the ringleader or a follower. While the ringleader was, by definition, in command and perchance the brains behind the operation, the others were his trusted lieutenants who played their parts enthusiastically.

    Donald Newbury stands guilty of a terrible crime and he must now pay the price.
    "I have adopted the Italian way of life... I may stab you!"
    — Heidi

    "You make the British Lion seem like a declawed, toothless, neutered fat tabby with the mange."
    — Weidmann1939

    "Maybe you think your being clever."
    — Weidmann1939

Page 6 of 14 FirstFirst ... 45678 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •