The USCCB, in its furious virtue signaling, noted above, omitted to mention the following:
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall: “For 20 years, Domineque Ray has successfully eluded execution for the barbaric murder of a 15-year-old Selma girl. In 1995, Ray brutally deprived young Tiffany Harville of her life, repeatedly stabbing and raping her before leaving her body in a cotton field. A jury gave him a death sentence for this heinous crime. A year before, Ray had also taken the lives of two teenage brothers, Reinhard and Earnest Mabins. Tonight, Ray’s long-delayed appointment with justice is finally met.”
Go here to read about the victim our Bishops clearly couldn’t care less about.
From one of the appeals this case generated:
‘On or about August 16, 1995, Lawrence Milton was operating a tractor and bushhog just off County Road 62 in Dallas County, Alabama. As Mr. Milton went about his duties bushhogging the field, he discovered the skeletal remains of Tiffany Harville, who had been missing since on or about July 15, 1995.
“ ‘Tiffany Harville was 15 years of age at the time of her death. Mary Coleman, Tiffany’s mother, described the last time she [had] communicated with her daughter, Tiffany, in July 1995. Mrs. Coleman stated that she, Mrs. Coleman, was leaving town for the evening to attend a Union Workshop. She left Tiffany approximately $6 spending money. Upon Mrs. Coleman’s return to Selma on Sunday afternoon, she discovered that her daughter had not been seen since 8:00 p.m. Saturday night. Mrs. Coleman described the efforts made to locate Tiffany, and further reported that the Defendant, Dominique Ray, came to her house to offer his assistance and share Mrs. Coleman’s concern for her missing daughter. She testified that the Defendant offered to distribute fliers, and at one time, offered reward money to locate Tiffany. On two other occasions before Tiffany’s body was discovered, the Defendant called Mrs. Coleman on the phone to make a general inquiry as to Mrs. Coleman’s condition.
“ ‘The investigation into the death of Tiffany Harville continued for several months. There were numerous leads and suspects, and at one time an individual was arrested and held without bond for the murder of Tiffany Harville. Finally, the codefendant in this case, Marcus D. Owden, came forward and gave the police a full accounting of the events and circumstances surrounding the death of Tiffany Harville. Owden testified at [t]rial against the Defendant Ray that it was their intent to form a mob or a gang, and that they had intended to find Tiffany Harville for the purpose of having sex with her. Owden stated that he did not know Tiffany, but that Ray did and that it was Ray’s idea to go and get Tiffany. Owden testified that they had talked about having sex with her before they went to her house to get her. On the evening of July 15, 1995, Owden and Ray picked Tiffany up and proceeded to take her to [the] Sardis community located in Dallas County, Alabama, on or near Highway 41. Owden stated that they had decided they were going to ask her for sex first, and if that didn’t work, that they would take it. He described during his testimony how he and the Defendant Ray [had] had sex with her and how she [had] pleaded for help.
“ ‘Owden testified that Ray cut her throat and that he, Owden, cut her as well. He then described that they took part of her clothing along with her purse, which contained $6 or $7.
“ ‘In addition to the testimony of Marcus D. Owden, the State offered into evidence the statement of the Defendant, Dominique Ray. In his statement, he admits to his role in the rape and murder of Tiffany Harville, yet attempts to establish Owden as the primary perpetrator.
“ ‘Dr. [James] Lauridson, the State Medical Examiner with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, described 12 defects in the skull which were consistent with stab-like defects. He [wa]s unable to testify with regard to soft tissue wounds, due to the decomposition of the body.” ’
Go here to read the sickening rest.
There are cases where the death penalty is called for and is a fair and just punishment. The Pope is best ignored. He makes a very strong case for excusing the behavior of Charles V. The USCCB is the United States Cowardly Catholic Bishops.
Out of curiosity, why was his request to have an Imam present for his execution denied? Given SCOTUS’ desire to protect the religious liberty of everyone, except Christians, there must have been a serious reason for it.
Loud. Proud. Stupid.
The problem with the USCCB shilly-shally on the DP is they waste ink, money and time over six executions of really-bad men while they’re essentially silent on millions of baby murders.
No money for the bishops!
Out of curiosity, why was his request to have an Imam present for his execution denied?
He waited until January 28 to ask for it. The imam would have had to go through training before he would have been allowed to act as a chaplain in the death chamber and it would have delayed his execution. Completely pretextual, and five of the Justices saw through it:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5732055-Kagan-Dissent-Dunn-v-Ray.html
Thanks, Don. I figured that it was something like a stall tactic on the part of Mr. Ray. And of course, the bishops probably knew that. Why am I not surprised they didn’t acknowledge that very pertinent fact?
The Imam would have told Owden and Ray, that under Sharia Law infidels were to be beheaded; that women had no rights.
The human dignity of the homicidal maniacs was upheld when their power of attorney brought them to infinite Justice.
Owden and Ray denied Tiffany her human right to make her peace with God and her human right to a chaplain. Having been brought to their own Justice through their own power of attorney, the temporal punishment of the death penalty, we, the people can only hope that the have entered into heaven.
“we, the people can only hope that the have entered into heaven.” for the sake of Christ’s sorrowful passion
Owden and Ray did not expire with grief over their sin. Only execution of capital punishment brings them to repentance
This stuff outrages me– because it is a lie by misleading.
They knew perfectly well that the murderer was allowed to make his peace, in his chosen manner, and the only denial was of having him in the same room at the moment of execution.
Pretty sure no group of Islam thinks Allah is so weak that he’d be stopped by glass.
I think Kagan’s dissent brings up several salient points. Why was it not considered that the prison only gave the prisoner notice that his imam would not be allowed by his side considering the state law allowed specifically for that? What training is necessary for a religious person to be in the chamber with the person? Does it require 5 days of training? Did the prison even offer to train the imam? Doesn’t the specter of a constitutional violation (even for one so vile as this man) outweigh any possible delay of his execution? I’ll add, is the prison taking steps to prevent future such egregious violations of the Establishment Clause?
Just for the record, I have absolutely NO problem with this man being executed. I have no qualms about this being cruel or unusual. My only concerns with the death penalty come from the possibility of executing an innocent man (something that has happened in the past, but certainly is not a concern here).
“I think Kagan’s dissent brings up several salient points.”
Perhaps as policy questions going forward but not as a judicial matter in this case. This vermin was convicted in 1999. For 20 years he succeeded in delaying his date with the executioner. This was merely yet another attempt to buy him more time. His victim of course has been dead for 24 years, and would be 39 if she had not been murdered. The law should not be an endless game where completely guilty murderers game the system endlessly. The true outrage in this case is the time it takes to carry out a death sentence.
When I tried to comment about this on the USCCB’s Facebook page, I found that while many other people may freely comment, permission for me to comment had been disabled. I wonder why? 😉 Nevertheless, I ensured that the USCCB got my message on Twitter anyway:
https://twitter.com/Seneca95014659/status/1094715297641185280
It’s amazing to see how the USCCB and the Vatican and Pope Francis are all united in one liberal front regarding this false ideology of the pluralism of beliefs such that they would rather cast a blind-eye over murder utterly heinous rather than confront the sinner in his sin and get him to repent before he is executed. Satan is clawing tooth and nail because he knows that his time draws short.
If Constitutional rights aren’t a judicial matter then what is?
I understand and sympathize with the people who have had to watch this monster linger for 20 years, but sometimes in the course of law we have to do things we despise. That means letting someone go when the only evidence against them was illegally obtained. That means allowing the KKK to get a marching permit. Back in ’93 there was a mass shooting on the Long Island Railroad. They caught the guy who did it, and in his trial he demanded his right to represent himself. This was so painful to watch, this man questioning witnesses who saw others got killed my him and/or were themselves shot be him. Just as it wasn’t pleasant then, we have to allowing for things like protect the rights of a murderer — even one who’d delayed his execution so often — to protect us from the danger of saying we can pick and choose who gets to invoke their rights.
“Satan is clawing tooth and nail because he knows that his time draws short.”
LQC: I totally agree.It’s the only reason you see reason turned on its head so frequently and logic so routinely cast away.
For 20 years he succeeded in delaying his date with the executioner.
I think it’s a reasonable inference that a collection of pettifoggers employed in the bogus ‘public interest bar’ worked assiduously with a set of judicial enablers in making this a travesty of procedural wheel-spinning. It’s sick-o.
I think it’s a reasonable inference that a collection of pettifoggers employed in the bogus ‘public interest bar’ worked assiduously with a set of judicial enablers in making this a travesty of procedural wheel-spinning. It’s sick-o.
It is effectively attempted judicial nullification of the death penalty.
“If Constitutional rights aren’t a judicial matter then what is?”
There was no constitutional right in question here. Merely the last desperate card played to push off a sentence imposed two decades before.
The Establishment Clause is very much a constitutional right. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a kid in a school or an awful criminal who has already had numerous execution delays.
He had access to the Imam, simply not in the death chamber. The actual constitutional challenge would be Equal Protection, since a Protestant minister was on staff at the prison. However, the issue was initially raised in court on January 28, 2019 as an obvious ploy to delay the execution. If this was a serious religious issue, the convicted murderer would have raised the issue long ago with the prison and then the courts. He had 20 years to do so.
You keep saying it’s an “obvious ploy”, when the questions I brought up and referenced from Justice Kagan’s dissent are valid and unanswered.
Your claim that the prisoner had 20 years to work this religious matter out, but that is shown to be untrue. The state law said he would have the same right as Christian prisoners, so he had no reason to think this needed special legal attention. The prison, only a few days before the execution went against state and national law regarding equal protection, then used that 11th hour decision by the prison as an excuse not to allow the imam to be by his side. There are no reasons given why this alleged training could not have been given to the imam, nor any sign such an attempt was even made. The fact is Christians would be up in arms if the roles were reversed (and rightly so).
Actually the Federal District Court Judge who denied Ray’s attempt to delay his execution made the same comment about the dilatory nature of this last minute raising of the issue:
https://www.newsweek.com/federal-judge-denies-death-row-inmates-11th-hour-requests-imam-execution-1316786
As I said this was all pretextual. This is done all the time in raising any and all issues in endless death penalty appeals in order to stop an execution. The Imam issue was one of a laundry list of items that his attorneys were raising in hopes that after 20 years some further delay could be squeezed out of the courts.
“The fact is Christians would be up in arms if the roles were reversed (and rightly so).”
The roles were reversed. Tiffany had no minister; no JUSTICE.
The cutthroats had sufficient time to become ministers themselves.
Do imams cut throats as well? It is called self-defense.
Did you notice in the article that you cited that it cited the prisoner’s call for his imam as “11th hour” but makes absolutely no mention that the reason it was an 11th hour request was because the prisoner only let him know their decision in the 11th hour? The article states again that their chaplain has special training, but it makes no mentioned of what that training is nor why the imam could not have received the same training.
Mary, what happened to Tiffany was abominable; but that’s not the scenario I presented. If we say that John Smith killed a young girl named Amina. He’s on death row an wants what Muslim prisoners have gotten, his priest there to see him off. If a story came out where Muslims got special treatment over Christians there would be an uproar. Put aside the vile nature of criminals and their crimes for a moment, as hard as that is. There’s no reason we can’t strive to have equal protection under the law. And Mary, if I hadn’t made my position clear in my first post. I’m *very* happy this bastard died.
“Did you notice in the article that you cited that it cited the prisoner’s call for his imam as “11th hour” but makes absolutely no mention that the reason it was an 11th hour request was because the prisoner only let him know their decision in the 11th hour?”
He could have asked about it at any time. His most recent execution date was set in November of last year. This is all bilge dreamed up by the anti-death penalty attorneys representing him. This type of bad comedy comes up all the time as the clock winds down in death penalty cases.
DRM, I think we’re both officially out of talking points on this matter. Thank you for this interesting discussion!
“Put aside the vile nature of criminals and their crimes for a moment, as hard as that is. There’s no reason we can’t strive to have equal protection under the law. And Mary, if I hadn’t made my position clear in my first post. I’m *very* happy this bastard died.”
Twenty years too late. No I will not put aside the equal protection denied to the victim. No NO No. Having Ray and Owden enjoy their crime for twenty years is a crime in itself. With every homicide, the people suffer jeopardy of life. Every living killer is double jeopardy of life to every citizen, warden, doctor, guard, the public. The Constitution outlaws double jeopardy of life for innocent victims too. No. God will take care of Owden and Ray. Twenty years and they are not sorry enough to expire with grief because they are lairs. What would they tell their imam. I’m innocent?
I remember a death penalty case in New Jersey. The state said that they could not find an executioner. 86 men volunteered.
” Twenty years and they are not sorry enough to expire with grief because they are lairs” Liars
OK Mike. Now, Owden and Ray are sorry. Equal Justice under the Constitution.. Equal protection of equal Justice under the law.
Two things need to happen:
—The USCCB is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party, does not manifest the Catholic faith and needs to be disbanded.
—-Pope Francis must be replaced ASAP.
DRM, I think we’re both officially out of talking points on this matter. Thank you for this interesting discussion!
Thank you Mike!
The US bishops are usually a good guide to Church teaching. Just listen to them and strongly consider the opposite as being true.
Each year, 4000+ Americans are murdered by an illegal alien. The USCCB has NEVER, not ONCE, in any utterance or publication of any kind, acknowledged even ONE of these murders.
There are lives that do not matter to the USCCB. Namely, lives that do not assist in the project of transforming America into a Third World hellhole. Even though immigrants vote 80% pro-abortion and pro-infanticide, the bishops campaign relentlessly against any limit on legal immigration or illegal invasion.
As a Catholic, I have to say: ignore pope Francis.
He is ignorant, vulgar and intellectually challenged.
He is a false teacher – indeed incapable of teaching.
Human dignity is not compromised by the death penalty – otherwise God the Father would have violated Christ’s dignity by demanding His death.
This statement by these pathetic perverts is a stain on the victims, the Church, and indeed the name of Jesus Christ. I cannot avoid the thought that the minds and hearts of men capable of such a disgusting statement must be so corrupt they are they are simply unable to tell right from wrong and are devoid of any understanding of the most basic principles of justice. I and my wife and entire family are converts to the Catholic faith, a faith that is grossly befouled and hideously obfuscated by sick, twisted perverts such as those who speak on behalf of the bishops and alas, sadly, on behalf of the Catholic faith itself.
I myself can think only that the poor victims involved have been gang raped and murdered yet again by the slime that front themselves as princes of the Church.
God save the Church from such as these. And may God raise up one or more who will come to their senses and condemn the lot of them that degrade the name of Jesus Christ with horrific travesties of judgment such as the statement discussed here.
“…otherwise God the Father would have violated Christ’s dignity by demanding His death.”
Jesus says, “No one takes my life from me, I lay down my life, and I take it up again.” John 10
The death penalty is enacted through the power of attorney of the condemned…through his power of attorney, through his human dignity, through his Justice.
“For 20 years, Domineque Ray has successfully eluded execution”
Am I alone in finding this astonishing?
Between 1887 and 1965, when the death penalty was abolished, every execution in Scotland took place within 8 weeks of sentence being pronounced.
The time-line in the case of Mrs Newell, the last woman hanged in Scotland, was typical.
Arrest 21 June
Judicial Examination 25 June
Indictment served 1 September
First Diet 7 September
Trial Diet 18-19 September 1923 (58 days after arrest)
Execution 10 October 1923 (21 days after sentence, 79 days after arrest)
In the case of the American-born serial killer, Peter Manuel, convicted of 7 murders in 1958
Arrest 13 January
Trial Diet (postponed at defence request) 12-29 May (119 days after arrest)
Appeal 24-25 June (28 days after sentence)
Execution 11 July (16 days after appeal and 43 days after sentence. 179 days after arrest)
This commendable dispatch was thanks to s 79 of the 1887 Act: “All interlocutors and sentences pronounced by the High Court of Justiciary under the authority of this Act shall be final and conclusive, and not subject to review by any court whatsoever, and it shall be incompetent to stay or suspend any execution or diligence issuing forth of the High Court of Justiciary under the authority of the same.”
Am I alone in finding this astonishing?
You and 200 million other people. AFAIK, this is a phenomenon which has emerged in the last 60-odd years in this country. The man who assassinated the Mayor of Chicago in 1933 (and tried to put a bullet in Franklin Roosevelt) was executed in a manner of weeks. The man who kidnapped and killed Charles Lindbergh’s oldest son was executed within 14 months, after a review of the case by the Governor of New Jersey.
“The man who assassinated the Mayor of Chicago in 1933 (and tried to put a bullet in Franklin Roosevelt) was executed in a manner of weeks.”
Fourteen days after the death of Cermak. It helped that Zangara pled guilty. It took four years to execute Timothy McVeigh, and it only happened that fast because McVeigh eventually dropped his appeals.
Astonishing, no; sad, yes.
The most common cause of death on death row is natural causes.
I’m all for letting it go a couple of years, because of the human element- a secret can survive six months easier than five years– but the dead girl could’ve easily had a daughter older than she was by this time.
More importantly, they lied.
Donald R McClarey wrote, “Fourteen days after the death of Cermak.”
Now, that is astonishing.
In Scotland the induciae on an indictment is 15 days and, as it has to contain a complete list of witnesses and productions, the Crown has to be ready for trial when it is served. This means witnesses have had to be precognosed and medical reports obtained. The Crown has 80 days from arrest to serve it and I doubt if it could be done in under a month. I remember a case where a girl was stabbed by another girl in a school playground in front of about 50 witnesses and we thought we were doing well by serving the indictment in 35 days.
A capital sentence had fix a date not less than 15 days or more than 21 days after the judgment, if south of the Forth ; and not less than 20 days or more than 27 days north of the Forth. This was to allow the convict to petition the Crown for clemency and was fixed in the days of stage-coaches
Even with a guilty plea, I cannot imagine it could ever have taken less than 60 days, or about 2 months, between arrest and execution.
Even the usual 90 days or so was very different to 20 years!