... try capital cases is a major reason for Harris', and consequently Texas', staggering number of executions, and his rigid pro-death penalty stance represents the mainstream opinions of Harris County as well because they continue to vote him into office term after term. A misinformed public also contributes to the high support for capital punishment, and public opinion is often ... actually discourages lawyers from representing death row clients. Jim Mattox, former Texas attorney general, acknowledges the widespread problem of inadequate funding: "I think you'd find our state government and...

• Word Count: 4933
• Approx Pages: 20
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... all beat up, anger built up inside of him. He carried her to the ambulance where they rushed her to the hospital. Elsewhere, the sheriff of Ford County, Ozzie Walls, was arresting Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard down at the local bar Huey's. The little girl managed to describe Cobb's yellow pickup truck ... the Coffee Shop, heading for his office. The building his office was in was built by the Wilbanks family back in the 1890s when they owned Ford County. The family had started practicing law there from the day it was built until 1979, the year of disbarment. This is when Jake began to ...

• Word Count: 3932
• Approx Pages: 16
• Grade Level: High School

... was able to avoid the death penalty. This angered a lot of people, especially the families of the victims. However, since this trial took place in Kings County, Washington he could still face the death penalty in other state. People were outraged by it getting plea bargained away from the beginning just to close the case ... I killed a lot of them in my truck not far from where I picked them up." He also said that he killed all of them in King County, a lie that he came up with in order to avoid the death penalty. Since he had already plea bargained in King Country, he made sure not to...

• Word Count: 2513
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... penalty showed that the murder rate increased by seven percent from the five-year pre-abolition period to the five-year post-abolition period ("Justice For All" 5). Since 1990, Harris County, a single county in Texas has had more executions than any other state in the United States. During the period between 1990 and 1995, Harris ... County has had a forty-eight percent drop in crime, the greatest decrease in the United States. In Harris County, the highest homicide rate was in 1981, one year before the death penalty was reinstated in Texas ("Justice For All" 6). All of ... ...

• Word Count: 4548
• Approx Pages: 18
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... of a preference. He just liked to kill. Ed Kemper, killed college-aged girls. Albert Fish preferred children. He once kidnapped the 12- year-old daughter of acquaintances of his ( Crime Library ). Jeffrey Dahmer killed homosexual men. The Killers often choose victims who are vulnerable ( What Makes 5). They sometimes pick up prostitutes, runaways, and people who are easy to follow. A killer will ... last 32 years, his notoriety has not diminished as he has the dubious distinction of having received more mail than any other prisoner in the United States prison system (Crime Library). Acc...

• Word Count: 2622
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... penalty showed that the murder rate increased by seven percent from the five-year pre-abolition period to the five-year post-abolition period ("Justice For All" 5). Since 1990, Harris County, a single county in Texas has had more executions than any other state in the United States. During the period between 1990 and 1995, Harris ... County has had a forty-eight percent drop in crime, the greatest decrease in the United States. In Harris County, the highest homicide rate was in 1981, one year before the death penalty was reinstated in Texas ("Justice For All" 6). All of ... ...

• Word Count: 3831
• Approx Pages: 15

... went to his mother, Julie Baumeister. It appeared there was a human skeleton in the wooded grounds of their Tudor home in the Fox Hollow Farms section near Westfield in Hamilton County. Mrs. Baumeister alerted her husband, but, thankfully, he had a practical explanation. Herb Baumeister's father was an anesthesiologist. Herb had stored one of his dad's medical skeletons in the garage. Cleaning ... very interested, but the gay community was alarmed. Authorities didn't pay much attention to one man's story of how a man he met in a gay bar had taken him to a Hamilton County home with an in...

• Word Count: 2582
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... set a precedent not only in North Carolina but all over the United States of America. The passing of this legislation into law made North Carolina the first state in the county to provide death row inmates an opportunity to have their death sentence changed if they could prove that they were significantly discriminated against by prosecutors based on race. With this ... reasonable arguments to show why this act was either the greatest piece of legislation or the biggest mistake that North Carolina legislatures had ever made. The district attorney of Wake County, Colon Willoughby, argued...

• Word Count: 2866
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the death penalty brings to the community by lowering the murders committed. One of the greatest indicators that the death penalty is a deterrent can be seen in Houston Texas (Harris County, with the highest murder rate in Houston) in 1996. In 1981, 701 murders were committed in Texas. In 1982, when Texas reinstated the death penalty, Harris ... County executed more murderers than any other city or state in the union and saw the greatest reduction in murder from 701 in 1981 down to 261 in 1996, a 63 percent ... ...

• Word Count: 3361
• Approx Pages: 13

... dependency was suspect." Upon further evaluation, they concluded that Ted had a "fear of being humiliated in his relationships with women." On June 7th, during one of his trips to the library at the courthouse, Bundy managed to jump from an open window, injuring his ankle in the process, and escaped to freedom. He was not wearing any leg irons or handcuffs ... ...

• Word Count: 5789
• Approx Pages: 23
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... wholehearted support in this important cause. - Christian Griffiths, Melbourne, Australia Thank you for your informative and well written newsletter. We have started saving each copy in a binder in our Church Library so that we can share it with the parish. - Barbara Kastanias Lee, St. Pius X Church, Conyers, Ga. 11) QUOTES "Why is the United States almost the only country in the ... ...

• Word Count: 2517
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... to gun control. "Concealed carry laws have reduced murder and crime rates in the states that have enacted them. According to a comprehensive study which reviewed crime statistics in every county in the United States from 1977 to 1992, states which passed concealed carry laws reduced their rate of murder by 8.5%, rape by 5%, aggravated assault by 7% and robbery by 3%" (Foundation ... ...

• Word Count: 4157
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... and U.S. Military prisons are African-American. And, 90% of the people U.S. Government prosecutors seek to execute are Black or Latino. During my research through the Internet, I came across, The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney: The Death penalty (www.clarkprosecutor.org). This website has information on executions from 1977. According to this site 35.8% of the people executed were black males, and, that ... ...

• Word Count: 2728
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... , 1888, as "cured," He was mentioned in Police Gazette in October 1888, as a "dangerous man" who failed to report to police. In 1891, he was again committed to the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum. Some believe that the grandson of Queen Victoria was the ripper. Nigel Morland tried to interview Ex- Inspector Frederick G. Abberline about the killings; he asked if he police ... ...

• Word Count: 4077
• Approx Pages: 16
• Grade Level: High School

... some of the money created by the prisoner's productivity to pay for his/hers incarceration. I believe if these options were given as alternatives it would make a world of difference. Harris County District Attorney John Homes puts it well by saying, "You're not going to find twelve people back-to-back on the same jury that are going to kill somebody ... ...

• Word Count: 2619
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... were 249 homicides in New Orleans alone, eighty-five percent of these victims were black. Only sixteen offenders were convicted and jailed. She reports studies of murder cases in a six-county area between 1973 to 1990 which found that although blacks made up 65 percent of the murder victims and whites 35 percent, the death penalty was sought in 85 percent ... ...

• Word Count: 2921
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography