The Clinton Legacy Strikes Again

Another Clinton appointed Federal Judge has stuck a blow for the ACLU, Amnesty International and all anti-death penalty groups.

Judge Jeremy Fogel of the United States District Court in San Jose California has declared lethal injection "cruel and inhumane punishment" for convicted murderers sentenced to death.

The Judge was appointed by Clinton in 1997. Prior to his appointment he was a Harvard law school graduate who served as Directing Attorney for Mental Health Advisory Project.

During this past week Governor Bush of Florida called a halt to pending lethal injections because Angel Diaz required two venapunctures to administer the lethal drugs, and it took 34 minutes for him to die. During the 34 minutes witnesses said he exhibited that he felt pain, he grimaced and shuddered.

Putting aside the fact that this man murdered a man in Miami in 1979, and prior to that had escaped from a prison in Puerto Rico where he was serving a life sentence for second degree murder.

Executions are not supposed to be pleasant experiences for people who have committed heinous crimes with little regard for the feelings of the victims and their families. Our Judicial system has allowed this man, Angel Diaz, to live for 27 years while millions have been spent exhausting all appeals. His victims were killed by this killer who did not kill them in a painless and humane way! He owed his debt to society, and two needle insertions beneath his skin are something that unfortunately occur every day in clinics and hospitals. I myself incurred six such failed attempts to insert an intravenous drip by some inexperienced technicians in one of the best hospitals in Rome Italy. Yes it hurt, but it was not inhumane!

When people sit on the federal bench and declare such a "humane" way of carrying out a capital punishment, as "inhumane and presenting an unacceptable risk of cruelty." It is an affront to the victims of violent crime, and no wonder there are so many murders in this country every year.

The horrid thought and fact is that this same judge will continue to sit on the Federal bench and dispense such disproportional opinions for the rest of his life! And we don't know how many more like him Clinton stacked the Judicial deck with.