08/11/2007 10:18:25 PM EST

MAN NOT CHARGED WITH KILLING ANYONE TO BE EXECUTED IN TEXAS AUG 30. Easy ways to try and stop it.

posted by SeattleJoe

Kenneth Foster, a 19-year-old college student, was in a car 100 feet away when another person that had been in the care shot and killed someone.  The person who did the shooting has already been executed.  There is a law in Texas that makes a person equally guilty if they are part of a crime where a muder has taken place, even if they did not commit the murder. 

Aside from the absurdity of imposing the death penalty for people who have not actually klled anyone, Foster was clearly not part of the crime.

He's black of course.
 
Read some of the links or google Kenneth Foster for more info. 

At the Free Kenneth Foster web site you can write an email and it will be sent to every member of the Texas legisature.  You can also sign some petitions. 

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This is the very bizarre case in Texas where a man is going to be executed on August 30, even though he was not charged with killing anyone.  His name is Kenneth Foster.

Here is the story from The Nation

Here is the story from Democracy Now!

Here is the "Free Kenneth Foster" web site.  They have a cool thing where you write an email and it gets sent to every member of the Texas Legislature.  There are also links to some petitions.

Here's the beginning of the article in The Nation.

In less than three weeks Kenneth Foster, an African American man sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Michael LaHood, is scheduled to be executed in Texas.

LaHood's actual killer, Mauriceo Brown, was executed in 2006. Foster, who was in a car about 100 yards from the crime when it was committed, was convicted under the controversial Texas state "law of parties", under which the distinction between principal actor and accomplice in a crime is abolished. The law can impose the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred. In Foster's case he was driving a car with three passengers, one of whom, Brown, left the car, got into an altercation and shot LaHood dead. Texas is the only state that applies this statute in capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a person can be factually innocent of murder and still face the death penalty.

Foster maintains that he did not know that Brown would either rob or kill LaHood. According to an Amnesty International investigation, there is evidence not heard at trial that the murder was an unplanned act committed by Brown, as the latter himself claimed before his execution.

 

 

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MAN NOT CHARGED WITH KILLING ANYONE TO BE EXECUTED IN TEXAS AUG 30. Easy ways to try and stop it. | 21 comments (21 topical, 0 hidden)
Why would that be, Ken? Because he's a N (none / 0)

icolas Cage fan?  Or is it something else?  You have a right to be a bigot, but will you own up to it?

    Or maybe you know this because he's a fellow Texan named Ken?  You relate to the guy?
 

by homer on 08/12/2007 07:47:53 AM EST

One time uncle Jimmy ate a burrito (none / 0)

I will thank you to knock off the accusations of racism. I have Mexican American ancestry and Asian American family members.

That's irrelevant.  No amount of any ethnicity in your blood excludes you from the potential for being racist.   Try winning us over with your wisdom and compassion, not your dog-chewed family tree.  Furthermore, "We enjoy killing bad guys" is a symptom of the same problems in Texas that caused this fiasco:

1)  Laziness as it applies to the law

2)  The simpleton tendency to characterize everything as black or white, good or bad, all the time (the very cornerstone of westerns; white hat, black hat)

Don't get me wrong.  We love our "challenged" nephew Texas...but he's not going to be sitting at the grown-ups' table at Thanksgiving any time soon.  He thinks that killing criminals constitutes punishment, and he always ends up with his face encrusted with mashed potatoes and little puncture wounds on his face where he's missed his own mouth with the fork.  Poor bastard.

by OneHitKill on 08/13/2007 01:30:52 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Execution is not a punishment (none / 0)
So.....the possible near-death experience of a family member is what you use as justification for your support of the death penalty?  No offense to your dad, but I think you'd come across pretty much the same if you told people that your support for capital punishment was completely arbitrary.  If you have no sympathy for murderers, put them in prison for the rest of their lives.  Killing them just gives them an easy out while punishing their innocent loved ones.

by OneHitKill on 08/14/2007 09:55:14 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Why would you think he killed someone else? (none / 0)
Ken wrote: but he probably killed someone on another occasion. Guilty!

Here's a few facts about Kenneth

Kenneth was born in Austin, Texas on October 22, 1976. He moved to live with his grandparents in San Antonio, Texas when he was four. Kenneth attended high school at John Marshall where he graduated in 1995. During his high school years, Kenneth pursued an interest in the music industry. He worked with such record companies such as: Eternal Life Productions, Mystic Records, and Dad's House Recording Studios. With the views of wanting to help young people like himself, he immediately attended St. Phillips College in the fall of 1995 and majored in Sociology to become a social worker. With hard work and initiative, Kenneth started his own business, Tribulation Records, in May of 1996 at the age of 19.


yes, a man who worked wanted to become a social worker and was a business man at 19, sounds like a killer to me.

Careful Ken your preconceived racists notions are showing.


"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." John Stuart Mill

by Hubble on 08/12/2007 08:01:10 AM EST

A measued and appropriate response to KenTX (none / 0)

You are a pathetic, lonely, little man with nothing better to do than jerk off on the inernet.

Anyone with friends, jobs, and a sex life recognizes you as another one of the thousands of lonely middle-aged men who have no life and no relationship with anything but their computer.  If you looked at yourself honestly you would see that your empty, lonely, hateful existence has nothing in it for you or anyone else.

It is almost painful to realize that you think you have ever contributed anything to anyone's life that wasn't irritating and embarssing. The endless hours you have spent on the internet have been of no use to anyone or anything. Eventually everyone just walks away from you, leaving you with your sick bitterness and your mastubatory fantasies.  No one can stand to be in any kind of contact with you for any length of time 

If you weren't so repulsive, people would feel sorry for you.  But you don't even have that consolation.  You have lived your life so badly that no one cares that you are alive, and no one will miss you when you are gone.

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/12/2007 10:40:41 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Everyone knows what I'm outraged about, little man (none / 0)

You know, my sad, lonely sociopath, I hadn't actually read that post of yours.  I had grown bored with your pathetic "triumphs."  Well, now I've read it, and, as usual, you "make me look like a fool" by pointing to a document or a post from a right wing blog, or something you've just made up. You always think this is, somehow, decisive evidence. It never is, never has been, never will be.

Regarding the Butler Report, I suggest you do some research on the CIA doubts about the British "intelligence from several different sources" and the simple fact that the Butler Report doesn't actually give any specifics about them.  And the even simpler fact that it is a British Report exonerating the British Government.

As for the question of what the judge said in dismissing the Plame civil case, you point me to your own post, in which you give a completely idiotic misinterpretation of what the judge said.  Just another one of the ignorant irrationalities you spend so much of your life typing into the glowing screen that means so much to you.

I can still remember when I first started contributing here.  In your second or third post to me you warned me that you never lose an argument because you are "loaded for bear."  I thought to myself, "Who is this silly little creep?" 

Ah, yes Ken.  You never lose.  You always make everyone look like a fool.  Your work on the internet is vital.  You have a great task: to defeat liberalism on the great field of battle that is the universe of message boads. 

All those lonely hours refining your debating techniques and exercising your intellectual muscles have paid off.  You are always right.  You make everyone else look like a fool.

You are a phenomenon, Ken. 

I know all this work has really cut into other areas of your life, but someone's got to do it.  By the way, if you ever get some time off from your Great Crusade, I recommend the Bourne Ultimatum.  It's not as good as the first two, but it's still excellent.  And it's much better on the big screen.  Watching the DVD on your computer is not nearly as full an experience. Really, I think you should take a break and go to it with your girlfriend. 

You've given so much, Ken.  I think you really should do something just for you.

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/15/2007 02:58:45 AM EST

[ Parent ]
How to help (none / 0)

The point of this post of course was to give people a chance to at least add their voices to the call to the Texas Board of  Pardons Paroles to ask the governor to stay the execution.

The place to go is the www.freekenneth.com where they have easy ways to contact all the legislators in Texas by writing one email; a way to email as many of your friends as you want to and let them know about, also with one email; petitions to sign, and so on.

Frankly there is probably not much hope but it is worth doing. Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness and all that sort of thing.

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/12/2007 11:10:18 AM EST

Thanks for the info (none / 0)
Thanks for the info . I posted it on other blogs.

by Zak on 08/12/2007 11:34:27 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Thanks Zak (none / 0)

Sorry, I got so involved in my new hobby of dissecting Ken's pathologies that I forgot to acknowledge this.

It's almost certainly a lost cause, but still worth the effort.

Thanks. 

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/17/2007 02:01:28 PM EST

[ Parent ]
So simple. (none / 0)

I think you can have some argument for the death penalty but to be a cheerleader for this particular case is just sick, ignorant and or bigoted. 

I am glad I can just skip over anything you post from now on Ken because this just proves your not a decent person.

 

I would love to hear you defend this if your wife or kid got out of your car got into a fight killed someone in self defense but couldn't prove it. Then they get the death penalty and so do you and anyone else left in the car. 

I know this isn't what happened in the actual case but I don't know why you think this could never happen to you nor why you would be such a cheerleader for excuting everyone even if it didn't involve you. 

 

Ken in TX deleted from my mind now complete. 

 

by loner on 08/12/2007 11:54:59 AM EST

Answer this for us, Ken (none / 0)
How is it even remotely just to kill a person who hasn't actually committed murder?

Put him away for life, fine.  But where is the concept of personal responsibility?  It cuts both ways -- YOU are responsible for ALL your own actions, yes, but I am not responsible for YOUR actions.

This is a very simple concept.  Why does the Texas state legislature seem to have such a tough time grasping it?

by jarett on 08/13/2007 03:23:05 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Speaking truth to patholgy (none / 0)

Ken, you're just a sick, pathetic fuck.  You've never won anything in your life.  You're a complete loser with nothing to offer but grotesque, pathetic repetitions of things you heard on TV and right-wing blogs.  You think you're some kind of intellectual, you think you're some kind of political operator on the internet, but you're just a strange, bitter little man with nothing better to do than spend your time uselessly on the internet, endlessly posting facile, repetitive crap in a desperate attempt  to generate some sick, misshapen excuse for self-esteem.

You think you intimidate people, but you just sicken them.  You're entirely repulsive. 

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/14/2007 04:58:39 PM EST

Paint me a deep shade of intrigued (none / 0)
See it happen?  Hell, I'll be your stunt man, Ken!

by OneHitKill on 08/14/2007 10:02:10 PM EST

[ Parent ]
OneHitAttinborough (none / 0)

I have to say, I'm skeptical as well.  The tendency to suddenly become a towering pillar of belligerence is a trait exhibited by the species known as Daemonicus diminutus (commonly, Tiny Demon).

But Prof Rich was a different animal, I think.

by OneHitKill on 08/15/2007 05:59:56 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Batting 1000 (none / 0)

It's amazing.  You are always wrong. 

Always. 

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/16/2007 08:15:44 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Better test: get laid without paying for it, champ (none / 0)

There are reasons for remaining anonymous on the internet.  The internet creates a false sense of empowerment which breeds and reinforces all kinds of pathology, especially among lonely middle-aged men.

The moment I arrived here you noisily announced yourself as someone who simply deserves no respect.  I got into a long debate with you to see if I was mistaken, and I wasn't.  I decided to let it rest after you made a pusillanimous call to tone things down.

And then, once again, you declare yourself to be some kind of pathological fantacist with a personality that is a  combination of fragile egotism, schoolboy sadism, and cowardice.  I'm forced, every time I have to painfully acknowledge your existence, to point out that you are a would-be schoolyard bully/teacher's pet, and how grotesque and pathetic that is.

I just came here because I like the show and talking about politics.  As soon as I did I found myself dealing with a blowhard who never shuts up and never says anything all of us haven't heard a thousand times before, but thinks of himself as king of the message board hill because he repeats himself over and over and over and over again until any self-respecting person gets up and leaves.

If there were an ignore button here I would simply push it and be done with your simpering self-importance.  But I am forced to confont it to be here.

You are giving me exercise in expressing well-deserved contempt to an internet low-life.  Anyone who sees you clearly feels nothing but disgust. 

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/16/2007 09:18:23 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Oh, Ken ... (none / 0)

... I know nothing makes you happier than a blissful combination of complete certainty and absolute ignorance.

How can you ever lose? Reality doesn't matter!  Combat is always a joy when there's no possibility of getting hurt.

What's the prize for the winner of this exchange?  I got into it because one day I wanted to post on the Young Turks message board and found the place had been taken over by an annoying little creep whose life seems to consist of spewing an endless stream of hateful nonsense on the internet.  I don't like to let self-important jerks like you get away with that kind of thing, so I decided not to back down.

But what's in it for you?  What satisfaction do you get out of all the time you spend here? I'd be fascinated to know how you would answer that question. 

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/17/2007 01:59:10 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I don't debate reptiles (none / 0)

By the way, I'm going to try and be in Huntsville for the execution. If so, I'll try to take lots of pictures to share in the forum. There are usually hundreds of protesters and counter-protestors when a controversial execution takes place.

It is a joyous, festive occasion.

You are beneath contempt. Wasting art and humour on an internet sociopath is like giving champagne to a sewer rat.

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/16/2007 08:27:00 PM EST

Maybe I missed it ... (none / 0)

... but I don't remember your post telling us the last time you got laid.

Sitting alone in a room telling yourself you're a master debater doesn't really prepare you for meeting women.  Even if you bring along your list of lifetime achievements.

But don't despair: heterosexuality is a choice.  Being by yourself so much you've probably been deprogrammed, since what makes a person heterosexual is contact with other heterosexuals -- or so I've heard.  With a little will power you can see if can change your luck on the other side of the fence.

I think you'd dig the whole leather scene.  Anyway, it would be an improvement to be in someone else's dungeon for a while, instead of spending all your time in your own.

But don't tell your pals in Huntsville.  God hates fags, yoiu know. 

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/17/2007 01:36:00 PM EST

[ Parent ]
If you disagree w/ the DP that's one thing . . . (none / 0)

innocence is another.

I ask: If i told you that you were my best friend, then behind your back tried to destroy your marriage, you job and personal life, which is more true: my words or actions?  This is exactly what is being presented in Foster's case.  He claims he's innocent, but let's compare that w/ the uncontested facts that even Foster can't deny. 

During the guilt/innocence phase of the trial. The court took judicial notice of the gas station where they began to stalk their victim.  It was nearly 6 miles and involved nearly 9 or 10 turns/intersections that they chose to drive through.  They then entered a secluded neighborhood and continued to follow them to Mike's house.  They drove past it, then turned around and stopped.  Foster claims there was a dead end, there's not one dead end in that entire neighborhood.  He claims on the net that they just ended up there, but there was a long pursuit . . . and then there's still the matter of turning the car around before dropping off Brown ( consistent w/ their prior robberies)

In Foster's video interview, he flippantly mentions that Brown(shooter) was a Romeo and smiles as he says that's why they didn't pay attention to what was happening at Mike's.  It was 2am, they had just committed 2 armed robberies (one victim was pistol whipped) and had just stalked them for nearly 6 miles and turned around for no good reason.  Then no one paid attention while their friend confronted a man? Possible, but neither probable nor credible.  Especially since they said they were scared of the cops, so why would they not pay attention when their friend was doing that?

This beckons my original question: what is more credible, what do you believe, empty words or undisputed facts that show an intent entirely different than later claims.

 Furthermore, after being found guilty, during the punishment phase, the jury learned of Foster's extensive criminal record that involved an armed robbery w/ those same men just 2 days before, in fact, the stolen cellphones were still in Foster's trunk.  They also learned that Foster was on deferred adjudication for a 1994 violent shooting, where Foster fired into a truck w/ 3 people. 2 were wounded, one seriously.  This the jury heard along w/ other evidence to show Foster's propensity for violence.

I knew Mike from SAC, a community college in SA.  If you disagree w/ the death penalty, that's your choice and I respect that.  But don't falsify the record to support your beliefs.  That's not credible.  I've followed both Foster's and Brown's stories over the years as they've changed to suit their latest defense.  I keep asking but haven't had one response to this question: If your guy's innocent, why does his story keep changing.  Innocent men don't need evolving and malleable lies. 

In the end, Texas, and I agree, believes that if you are a major participant to an armed felony, then you are culpable for any other felonies that might occur.  It doesn't matter that Foster didn't want anyone to die that night, from the looks of it neither did Brown.  However, the courts have noted time and again, that armed robbery implicitly creates a "money or your life" situation.  It's reasonable and foreseeable that someone might die.  To later claim, "i didn't know" is not only incredulous but disingenuous.

I miss my dear friend Mike. Executing Foster won't bring him back to me, but it will help bring closure to myself, and more importantly to his family.  Showing violent felons that we won't tolerate what they choose to perpetrate on innocents will hopefully deter at least one other murder or violent crime.  Our system gave these "men" chances, they were all on probation for felonies, and they repaid mercy w/ violence and felonies and murder.

by Brian DB on 08/20/2007 07:04:05 PM EST

I apologize ... (none / 0)

... for not replying sooner; I just noticed there was a new reply to my thread.

I'm sorry about your friend.  I only learned about the case the day I posted.  Obviously I'm completely opposed to the death penalty, and think extending it to people who didn't actually kill anyone is an even worse extension of of a bad principle.  I understand that you disagree and you make as good a case for the death penalty and the "law of parties" as anyone can.

And of course I and anyone else presenting an account of the case here were repeating what we heard.  Frankly, even if the accounts were distorted I believe that would be completely justified to avoid an execution, but that is just because I am so against executing anyone, even if they are guilty.

It is a fact that many innocent people wind up on death row and are executed, whether Kenneth Foster is guilty or not.

I'm not sure if I'll actually have the time to take a serious look at the case, about which you obviously know more than I do, and for good reason feel passionately about in a way that I can't.  It's the death penalty I feel passionate about.

It doesn't looke like there is any hope that Kenneth will not be executed, so we will all have to deal with it, whatever it means to each of us.

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Nancy Pelosi for President in 2007

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by SeattleJoe on 08/24/2007 06:42:43 PM EST

[ Parent ]
MAN NOT CHARGED WITH KILLING ANYONE TO BE EXECUTED IN TEXAS AUG 30. Easy ways to try and stop it. | 21 comments (21 topical, 0 hidden)
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