Missouri executes serial killer Franklin

[lastlib]

Source: Kansas City Star

BONNE TERRE, Mo. — Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist who targeted blacks and Jews in a cross-country killing spree from 1977 to 1980, was put to death Wednesday in Missouri, the state's first execution in nearly three years.

Franklin, 63, was executed at the state prison in Bonne Terre for killing Gerald Gordon in a sniper shooting at a suburban St. Louis synagogue in 1977. Franklin was convicted of seven other murders and claimed responsibility for up to 20, but the Missouri case was the only one that brought a death sentence. Mike O'Connell, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said Franklin was pronounced dead at 6:17 a.m.

The execution began more than six hours later than intended, and it took just 10 minutes.

Franklin declined to make a final statement. Wearing black rimmed glasses with long hair tucked behind his ears, he swallowed hard as five grams of pentobarbital were administered. He breathed heavily a couple of times then simply stopped breathing.


Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/11/20/4635851/fate-of-serial-killer-set-to-die.html

---

As much as I oppose the death penalty, I feel little sympathy for this worthless pathetic racist. Won't miss him a bit, and the world is a better place without him.

[Drale]

1. Like you I don't think the state should be executing anyone

but I'm not going to shed a tear over this POS.

[iandhr]

7. Took the words right out of my mouth

[AllyCat]

2. Even Larry Flynt, paralyzed by this a-hole, fought for his right to

spend his life behind bars. I oppose the death penalty and do not feel his life will erase any of the pain these families feel. He came from a terrible upbringing, but people come from crummy backgrounds all the time and do not commit the types of atrocities Franklin inflicted on his victims. Sick man.

[bobclark86]

3. Crying sad? No...

But:
1) Wonder how many of his victims came back to life? Wonder how much pain his death undid in the families of his victims? Wonder if Larry Flynt can now walk?

2) He was caught in 1980 -- six years before I (who happens to be too old to be drafted) was born. I'm sure we saved sooo much money by just executing him after more than 30 years in custody.

3) I don't feel comfortable declaring the world is a better place without somebody in it. GWB, Osama, this guy -- yeah, I don't think anyone is in a position to make that judgement call.

4) They really should have moved the third-to-last paragraph up towards the top. Nobody under 30 knows about the synagogue shooting unless they had family there. Everyone with a penis and an eye for dirty magazines knows Larry Flynt was shot, and this guy claimed to have done it.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. As a society

we just committed murder.

I find no comfort in that. As long as we have capital punishment, we will murder innocent people. It is easy to kill someone like Franklin and feel justified. But it does not change the fact that we have murdered, and will continue to murder innocent people.

The price is too high.

[MicaelS]

6. No, we did NOT commit Murder.

"Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being."

Since the state or the State defines what is lawful or unlawful, the state can and does make exceptions for the killing of another human beings. That is why Justifiable Homicide exists. Since Missouri has defined Capital Punishment as lawful, it thus does not fit the definition of Murder.

[Javaman]

11. funny how that is.

you can brush a dog and wash a dog, but it still smells like a dog.

[MicaelS]

12. Some people think abortion is murder, too.

I don't, but some do. So be extremely careful with the label of murder. Lest it bite you in the ass, politically.

People like Joseph Paul Franklin is why I support the Death Penalty, and always will. And I'm not religious either. So don't try to bring any religious rhetoric into your argument.

[Javaman]

18. so now you are trying to confuse pesonal choice with state mandated murder.

yeah "some people"

nice try.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. These are the legal fictions that lawyers hide behind

These are the semantics that allowed the Supreme Court to rule that actual innocence was not a reason to not execute someone.

I am not interested to much in the "legal" definition of murder as the moral definition.

People can tell themselves it is not murder, but it is. The law allows a lot of damned immoral things to go on.

If the state kills you nice and legal and you are innocent this would make a difference how to you and your family? Policemen commit murder all the time, and it is nice and legal. Every once and a while, it is even morally justifiable.

[MicaelS]

15. Some people think abortion is murder.

Other people think Armed Self Defense is Murder, and label it "taking the law into one's own hands".

I do not agree with either of those positions.

So be extremely careful with the label of murder. Lest it bite you in the ass, politically.

People like Joseph Paul Franklin is why I support the Death Penalty, and always will. And I'm not religious either. So don't try to bring any religious rhetoric into your argument.

[Kelvin Mace]

17. A woman either has sovereignty over her own body

or she does not. Killing a blastoctye is hardly the same thing as strapping a fully sentient human being to a table and injecting massive amounts of poison into their veins while everyone stands around and feels righteous.

According to the "law" as interpreted by "lawyers" the Iraq war was legal, thus we did not murder 500,000 Iraqis. The Iraqis, and many other countries, have a different view. According to the "law" as interpreted by "lawyers", waterboarding is not a torture, despite the fact that we hanged Japanese officers for it in 1946, calling it a "war crime".

Please point out where I brought "religious rhetoric" into the conversations. Most religions I know, especially the dominant ones in the U.S., are down with murder as long as they believe their god/holy writ sanctions it, or it is a convenient means to their ends.

My objection is ethical and moral, not religious (which in my book is seldom ethical or moral)

Since you say you support the death penalty, could you please tell me how many innocent people you are willing to see die in order to justify it in this case?

Round numbers please.

[nomorenomore08]

21. That's the thing. An imperfect legal system - which is *all* legal systems - means that a certain

number of innocent people will always be executed, so long as the death penalty exists. And even if executing someone like Franklin isn't murder, executing someone who didn't kill anybody certainly is.

[Kelvin Mace]

22. My point exactly.

I ask this question of every death penalty advocate. Usually I get one of two responses:

1) We NEVER execute innocent people.

2) Refusal to answer the question.

[beevul]

27. Not just "a woman"...

I would say "any person either has sovereignty over their own body, or they do not".

[Kelvin Mace]

29. Certainly,

however the poster was making a point about abortion, which involves a unique issue applicable only to women. Bad comedies not withstanding....

[geek tragedy]

23. So, if the death penalty is murder, then imprisonment is kidnapping, right?

Government fines and taxes would be 'theft' by that logic as well.

[nomorenomore08]

25. Some extreme libertarians do go that far. On the taxes part anyway.

But we all know those folks are laughably impractical.

[Kelvin Mace]

30. Now where did I say that?

The poster claims that the death penalty cannot be murder since it was conducted according to the law, thus making a legal distinction where I was making a moral distinction.

Pol Pot and Mao imposed the death penalty according to the law, however the rest of us called it genocide.

And I would argue that the tax code as written IS theft, the government is stealing from the poor to support the corporate oligarchy. Huge chunks of the 1%'s income is shielded from all but token taxation, whereas everyone else's income is not. If I make a million dollars running my business, busting my ass 70 hours a week, I will pay a higher tax rate than Rupert Murdoch, whose billions come from capital gains and dividends, which involve ZERO effort on his part beyond cashing the check.

I will assume that you chose your words poorly and you did not just attempt to smear me by characterizing my words as typical wingnut nonsense.

Oh, and I would never claim imprisonment is "kidnapping". "Extraordinary rendition", however, is.

[Jimbo S]

5. I'm not pro-capital punishment

I'm not doing handstands, OTOH I won't shed a tear for him.

I was a young boy back in 1977 when he came to Madison and murdered that interracial couple in cold blood in a shopping mall parking lot not too far from where I was growing up. Terrifying.

[heaven05]

8. good

[Ranchemp.]

9. I'll express my opinion with this

[PCIntern]

10. Yeah I understand the sentiments generally expressed here...

and am generally against capital punishment.

I sincerely hope that "Dante" has created a few new Circles of Hell for miscreants such as this guy. Not that this is a new crime, but there's always room for Progress, IMO. I could only hope that those directly affected by his killings take some solace that he no longer inhabits the same planet.

"Let him burn."

[novano]

14. we did NOT commit Murder.

No, we did NOT commit Murder.

[rug]

16. No, we simply unlocked the cell in which he was confined for decades,

walked him into a windowless room and injected lethal chemicals into his veins while he was strapped to a gurney, surrounded by armed officers of the state who silently watched him suffocate.

His cell is being cleaned as we speak, awaiting the next person we will not murder.

[mike_c]

28. +1

[Niceguy1]

19. good riddance.

[Ranchemp.]

20. To bad rubbish.

This piece of filth will never harm another human being ever.

[nomorenomore08]

24. That's one certainty, at least. Still doesn't make the DP worth it, fiscally or otherwise.

[madrchsod]

26. took long enough.....

this is one guy who i believe deserves his fate.

[Sunlei]

31. pentobarbital overdose. That's euthanasia, the "good death"

why do they wait so long? The dregs of society who would go on a killing spree don't even remember his name or deeds.

The prisoner who knows he will never get out should be allowed to self medicate a εὐθανασία sooner.

[Dreamer Tatum]

32. "I'm against the capital punishment, BUT"

Is there ANYTHING better than a capital punishment thread on DU?