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On Oct. 8, a 49-year-old man who was looking death in the eyes was able to walk away a free man.
According to the Houston Chronicle, in 2005, Manuel Velez was charged in the death of his girlfriend’s son, Angel — who passed away a day before his first birthday.
The Huffington Post said Velez was with the boy when he started struggling to breathe and sought help, but ultimately the child could not be saved. It was only a few weeks after the death that Velez became a person of interest, despite not having a history of violence, and he was sentenced to death row at the age of 40.
Angel’s mother — and Velez’s girlfriend — Acela Moreno was also found guilty of the child’s death and charged with capital murder; however, she agreed to a plea deal and was only required to serve five years of a 10-year sentence before being sent to Mexico.
Back in August, a judge granted credit to Velez for the nine years he served on death row and gave him the ability to be eligible for mandatory supervision. And on Oct. 8, Velez walked out.
One of Velez’s lawyers, Brian Stull from the American Civil Union’s Capital Punishment Project, strongly believed that Velez never committed the crime he was imprisoned for, said The Huffington Post.
“Manuel never belonged in prison, let alone on death row waiting to be executed,” Stull said. “He is indisputably innocent.”
Stull also went on to say that he believed the child’s mother played the upper hand in his death.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Moreno had a history of being abusive to her children, and Stull said he believed she should have been regarded as the main suspect to the tragedy.
“This is the story of an innocent man who went to death row because the entire system failed,” Stull said to the Huffington Post.
The death penalty isn’t black and white; it’s difficult to say death penalty should be legalized all over the country.
According to the Texas Death Penalty Law, capital punishment is legal in the state of Texas should the suspect have caused the death of another individual. However, the entire institution of capital punishment goes a lot deeper. Rather than generalizing every murderer as simply being deserving of the penalty, it should be required to take each case as it comes.
“I always find myself torn on whether the death penalty should be allowed,” said journalism senior Nikki Nduukwe.
“I think it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around taking someone’s life as a punishment for a crime, but then I think of the people who have done horrible, disgusting things. So when it comes to the death penalty I think the issue is so complex that it is hard to say yes or no.”
In Texas, the death penalty is reserved for those who have caused another’s death. If the system and the victim’s family want the perpetrator to suffer the consequences for the act he committed, the death penalty would not fulfill this.
“I think the death penalty is too easy of a way out for a criminal crime,” said accounting junior Christina Nguyen. “A life sentence in jail allows criminals to think upon their actions.”
Once the criminal is dead, he’s gone. It would be more beneficial to have him serve out a life sentence and, therefore, be properly punished for his crime.
However, there are a number of individuals who are beyond help, and the death penalty may be the only course of action for them. This can be said for individuals who have repeatedly committed the same crime or who are becoming an increasing danger to society.
Each case must be taken on its own, but with some individuals it’s easy to see that they have no chance in redeeming themselves and it would be better to put them out of their misery. Psychology junior Emma Coronado said she believes the system can remove the blood from its hands by keeping criminals locked up.
“There are people who are too evil to live,” Coronado said. “They’re dangerous and have insatiable lusts that are impossible for them or anyone else to control. That being said, I do believe in a higher power and that fate will take its course; whether it be during their lifetime or after it. I think they belong in high security places where there is no danger of escape.”
Velez was extremely lucky to walk away from capital punishment, which cannot be said for a number of individuals.
The death penalty is the most inhumane form of punishment, and the system does not have the right to decide whether or not a person should live. Despite being a highly controversial topic, the death penalty is not spoken about as much as other topics — which needs to change.
Opinion columnist Trishna Buch is a print journalism senior and may be reached at [email protected].
Trishna:
It is extremely difficult to dole out the death penalty, first because it is so restricted to apply, as you linked, showing how few murders are actually subject to it, with prosecutors very select when they use it, and noting that it is the sanction which has, by far, the greatest of due process protections
Since 1973, Texas has executed about 0.9% of her murderers, after about 11 years of appeals, on average.
Texas Death Penalty Procedures
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/11/texas-death-penalty-procedures.html
100% of the 48 votes (4 voting issues for each of the 12 jurors), must be against the defendant/murderer, for a death sentence to be given. 2%, only 1 of those 48 votes, must be for the defendant/murderer, to remove the death penalty option.
Any juror can use anything they want, personally and subjectively, to spare the murderer a death sentence.
No individual is beyond help with modern-day medicine. This is just one more excuse by proponnents of the death penalty. Who has the ‘right’ to decide whether a person is too evil to live?
The average death row prisoner waits more than a decade for the lethal joab. Waiting in anticipation, (most in solitary confinement) for the date of their execution would send a sane individual be become totally insane. In medical terms this is known as ‘Death Row Phenomenon’ as it refers to the destructive emotional, physical and psychological illness/consequences of long-term solitary confinement – the inevitable emotional anxiety that results from awaiting their own death.
Solitary confinement has been labelled by International Human Rights organizations as inhuman torture. Prisoners are isolated alone for 23 hours 7 days per week. One hour each day is allocated for recreation in another cage. These aminalistic inhuman conditions have been proven by medical professionals to create hallucinations, delusions, agitation, psychosis, paranoia, violent behavior and self-harm to prisoners. In addition, these medical problems create all kinds of risks to those involved with the mentally disturbed prisoner.
When prisoners deteriorate mentally to such a state that they become so mentally incompetent, by law this makes them ‘ineligible’ for execution.
I know, poor murderers.
The death penalty is for folks who murder innocent people.
Context is important.
Victim’s Voices – These are the murder victims
http://www.murdervictims.com/Voices/voices.html
Of course; you failed to mention the many web links (eg. DPIC, Amnesty, HRW, etc) that list all the names of people killed by the States. Not all of the executed were guilty of murder, some were found to have been wrongly convicted, and some were found to be innocent via DNA … but the States executed them anyway.
Victims Names – these are the victims of the States. The victims of cold-blooded executioners who claim to be ‘doing their job’ whilst achieving some sick sexual gratification during the legal killing process. That’s the reason executioners hide their faces – afterall, they would never want their children, family and friends knowing that they too are legalized killers.
You mean these innocents executed and convicted?
The Innocent Frauds: Standard Anti Death Penalty Strategy
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-innocent-frauds-standard-anti-death.html
“According to the Texas Death Penalty Law, capital punishment is legal in the state of Texas should the suspect have caused the death of another individual.”
Yes and no.
As someone who has worked in a prosecutor’s office, I can tell you that the death penalty is not something taken lightly. The death penalty is not and can not be ‘doled out too easily’ as you put it in your article. While another commenter (dudleysharp) was very clear to point out some of the procedural and statistical points involved in capital punishment, you seem to have an innate misunderstanding of the law itself.
In the State of Texas, criminal homicide is found under Chapter 19 of the Texas Penal Code (where you should have spent a solid 15 minutes of reading in preparation for this article). Within Chapter 19 it defines all types of criminal homicide ranging from capital murder to murder to manslaughter to criminally negligent homicide. Capital murder (the death penalty) is reserved for a level of crime which is seen as particularly heinous and/or unlawful. For example, the murder of police officers and firemen acting in their official capacity, a corrections officer (while a prisoner), a judge, a child under 10 years of age (the example from your article fits into this), or multiple people in one criminal episode… There are more intricacies to this, including felony murder (where murder is committed during the commission of another felony), but I am not going to quote an entire subsection of penal code. If you’d like to read it, you can find the information at Texas Penal Code 19.03. The point is, “should the suspect have caused the death of another individual” is such a vast oversimplification that I’m not sure why you relied upon that point even once – much less the two times you did in the article.
In closing, I would encourage you to read the State of Texas Penal Code before making an uncited reference to laws that clearly weren’t researched. The “system”, as you so lovingly put it, makes it extremely difficult to enact the death penalty, and the very fact that your subject (Manuel) was able to walk away is evidence of this. As usual, I am not surprised to find an opinion piece of this quality on the Daily Cougar. I’m not saying you guys need to stop being radical leftists, I’m just saying that you need to do your research and know what you’re talking about before you start flinging claims from left field.
yep
Luis Saenz, Cameron County District Attorney in charge of the case against Velez, argued that he has never been found innocent of Moreno’s death and that the revocation of his death sentence took place due to misleading testimony of a witness the prosecution called to testify.
from
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Man-sentenced-to-death-for-killing-a-baby-5809570.php
Expand the death penalty to all murders all rapes and all child molestations, and while they’re at it hang them in public in front of the country courthouse the crime was committed in
Cameron Todd Willingham
A Texas Innocent wrongly executed