Stay Issued in Berget Warrant of Execution
PIERRE – Attorney General Marty Jackley confirms that Circuit Court Judge Douglas Hoffman has issued a stay of the warrant of execution of Rodney Berget based upon defendant’s request and filing of the habeas petition.
The Court has further requested the parties to prepare a proposed scheduling order in relation to the habeas proceedings.
“It remains that State’s position that due process has been satisfied and the interest of justice requires these proceedings to move forward in a timely fashion,” said Jackley.
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If you put a murderer to death, you don’t reduce the number of murderers. – Winston Churchill
If it’s immoral to kill and unarmed prisoner of war once they are disarmed, and it is, then it is immoral to do it with any prisoner once the threat to society has been removed. After that it’s only institutionalized vengeance. It’s about what we do, not what they do. Our government and legal system screw up on a daily basis and they should not have the power over life. It’s hardly limited government. It’s undeniably compromises our conservative positive in the sanctity of human life. Either life is sacred, or it’s not. Conservatives nationwide are changing their minds.
I disagree with Churchill, you will reduce the number of murderers by one.
There are certain people that are beyond the scope of human decency. I have always believed that the punishment should fit the crime.
When a person murders another, the murderer takes away all that person is, was, and will be. A father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, daughter, son, brother or sister has been denied life and all that he or she could have accomplished when murdered. Murdered young people are denied families and futures. Older folks are denied the love of their offspring.
You can call it vengence, I call it justice.
I challenge crime apologists like Rev. Hickey: if you’re so convinced of the righteousness of your cause, then volunteer to guard these folks on desth row.
MAN UP, Rev. Hickey.
Either put up or shut up.
Man up says the anonymous troll. lol
So, you’re reduced to lying about quotes and making ad hominem attacks.
Stay classy, reverend.
Take your own medicine, bud.
I’m not on meds.
Are you?
Rev Hickey:
I’m going to call you out for inventing a quote.
Either retract your Churchill quote, cite the source, or be labelled a liar.
It is immoral to offer mercy to one who has no sense of it.
It is UNCHRISTIAN to oppose the DP.
So,,, Jesus wants us tell them that he loves them and will forgive them but also that Jesus wants us to kill them and have no mercy.
That is so screwed up on many levels. We all deserve the death penalty. Good luck standing before God hoping for his mercy trying to explain to him why you had no mercy here on earth. From God’s vantage point, anger in the heart is the same as murder. You should get help for your anger.
“So,,, Jesus wants us tell them that he loves them and will forgive them”
Where was YOUR forgiveness and love when you filed suit against Annette Bosworth?
HYPOCRITE.
Show me where I’ve ever said no consequences for law breaking. Aren’t we talking about the death penalty here as opposed to life without parole. Stay on topic. The Boz was continuing to exploit good people and under the guise of Jesus.
“It is immoral to offer mercy to one who has no sense of it.”
This is an ill-informed statement. Mercy by definition is toward those who don’t deserve it.
Use your name. Man up.
Apparently I was just paraphrasing the quote. It’s phrased a bit different. If it’s a fake quote that would be news to me. It’s used widely in places people are talking about the death penalty… http://statusmind.com/best-facebook-status-586/
“Show me where I’ve ever said no consequences for law breaking. ”
And who put you in charge of going after Bosworth? WHO???
“Aren’t we talking about the death penalty here as opposed to life without parole. Stay on topic.”
You’re right. And you have it assbackwards.
Instead of going after Bosworth for her MINOR crimes or demonstrating any mercy for her, you would rather extend your mercy (and society’s) for CONVICTED MURDERERS .
What a total lack of human perspective,.
“Aren’t we talking about the death penalty here as opposed to life without parole”
Yes, so why are you bringing all this religious stuff?
Staying on topic?
“From God’s vantage point, anger in the heart is the same as murder. ”
How the hell do you know anything about “God’s vantage point”? Are you now claiming to have sat and seen as God does?
BLASPHEMER?
Do you recall anything about Christ’s admonition about judging others? Or was that something for others to do–you know, those who happen to disagree with you?
Read your Bible. I’m referring to Matthew 5:21-26. That’s how I know God’s vantage point on this issue…. Jesus broadcast it expressly in his Sermon on the Mount. I wrote a book on that and I’ll send it to you if you leave your contact info.
Matthew, Mark, John & Luke all describe the imposition of the DP on Christ and others.
In the midst of three executions, Christ is silent.
Yet, Luke tells us that one of the criminals spoke:
“And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.”
Christ was silent as others were “justly condemned ” to death.
Arguments from the silence of Scripture are the worst and weakest. Jesus was innocent remember, and they killed him. He went silently to his death, and died, so others wouldn’t have to.
Read your Bible reverened.
Luke: 23: 39-43.
I think there is a difference between murder and capital punishment.
Matthew’s recollection is not God’s.
You ascribed Matthew’s words to God, which is disingenuous at best. Much like your lie when in “quoting” Churchhill, you overstate your case.
But let’s consider Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; ”
Jesus re-states the old testament commandment against murder.
He then states that everyone who is ANGRY with his brother shall be liable to judgment. How is that a prohibition on capital punishment? IT IS NOT! It may be a prohibition on acting in ANGER when carrying out punishment, but there’s no change in the commandment or the CONSEQUENCES. NO ONE that I know suggests that the state should (or does) act in anger when punishing anyone, let alone murderers.
As you say, silence in the BIble is the weakest argument, right?
It’s painful to see you butcher the Bible in your sloppy interpretations. Read the text more slowly. Judgment refers to hell, not capital punishment.
So, how is your citation of Matt 5:21-26 relevant to capital punishment?
Make up your mind.
Western civilization, all through the two-thousand years of Christianity, has differentiated between what is expected of individuals in their obedience to God, and the perogatives that human governments have to exercise in order to maintain civil order. It only becomes a gummed up mess whenever someone discovers anew that it is biblically “wrong” for governments to respond to threat of war with war, or invoke various punishments for crime, based on a reading of what God expects of us as individuals. I am very comfortable with the centuries-old traditions of western civilization on this question, and recognize that the perogatives of government authorities are different than they are for me.
Gengis Kahn killed 40 million people at a time when the population of earth was about 400 million. That means he killed 10% of the population of earth in his era. He claimed to have done it by divine right. Others attribute it to superior technology and strategy. Either way, I’m never comfortable with governments (or churches) who can kill their citizens at will, Kabongg. We’ll just have to disagree on that point.
So,,, Jesus wants us tell them that he loves them and will forgive them but also that Jesus wants us to stand by while they wreak havoc in prison..
Good luck standing before God hoping for his mercy trying to explain to him why you made no effort to protect those guards on death row from the horrors of evil. From God’s vantage point, your failure to protect others is the same as murder.
You should get help for your anger.
Those words sure do ring true.
We have 55 inmate years on SD Death Row of NO WRITE UPS for inmates. These inmates the most tame in the pen. It is not true we can’t safely incarcerate dangerous people. There are 80 people in the pen who done worse things than those on death row. The guard safety argument is a myth and we brought a Warden into Pierre in February from one of America’s most dangerous prisons who said all that and far more. He says get rid of the death penalty.
A case could be made that Officer Johnson would have been just tied up in a corner and left alone if we weren’t a death penalty escape. Roberts said to other inmates he was getting out one way or another. The death penalty just might put a target on a prison guards back when an inmate decides he’d rather die than live here and serve his sentence.
“These inmates the most tame in the pen.”
You are a fool.
Worse, you’re an ignorant fool.
As I told you, either follow through by spending time as a guard on death row, or cease with the blind rambling.
I’m up in the pen every other week. My statements are based on data and conversations with wardens in tough prisons. It’s not true we have to kill people to make others safe. North Dakotas prisons aren’t more dangerous than ours and they don’t have the DP.
“It’s not true we have to kill people to make others safe. North Dakotas prisons aren’t more dangerous than ours and they don’t have the DP.”
Nice choice of words–we don’t kill convicted murderers, we execute them. Words matter.
Executing people does make prisons safer (cherrypicking particular states is intellectually lazy).
“Ohio is keeping six death row inmates at the state’s super-max prison in Youngstown, even as most condemned killers are moved to a new death row facility in Chillicothe. Four of them, prison officials said, were involved in the 1993 riot at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.”
You Mr. hickey have the luxury of leaving prison every time you visit.
RJ Johnson did not.
Can you HEAR RJ’s screams? DO YOU AVE A SOUL, Mr. Hickey?
“We have 55 inmate years on SD Death Row of NO WRITE UPS for inmates. ”
And not one of them on death row has ever been cited for speeding!
What’s the point????
You’re comparing apples & oranges.
Gosh, maybe they don’t have the physical opportunity on death row to act up? Or maybe they don’t bother (or the guards don’t bother writing them up) because WHATS THE PUNISHMENT–1.5 executions??
You’re reduced to absurdity, Mr. Hickey.
So, here we have it folks.
Rev. Hickey posts here, inventing quotes, attacking other posters–
apparently, he’s about being questioned.
Haughtiness is UNCHRISTIAN.
There is a difference between innocent life (the unborn), and someone convicted of a heinous crime, so the claim that pro-life people who support capital punishment are hypocrites is invalid.
Anonymous 9:29: That is nonsense. That would be like saying nobody can be pro-death penalty if they aren’t willing to flip the switch.
Dustin: Justice is by definition giving another person their due. It includes the objective fact of what was done, the context in which it occurred, the base motive for what occurred, the wholeness of the person’s life, and their basic human dignity (which to a Christian at least can’t be denied regardless what a person does). If you ignore any, you aren’t meting out justice.
Thus, “punishment should fit the crime” only contemplates the objective fact of what was done (plus maybe the context) and by definition that isn’t justice, giving a person their due.
Except for the person who holds a person’s basic human dignity to such preeminent regard, can a person go through the litany of criteria for justice and reach a conclusion giving a person their due includes death? Absolutely.
But the whole of society (and thus its government) isn’t exclusively the administration of justice but includes the administration of mercy. Mercy is essentially making a choice to forebear administration of full and complete punishment in the name of charity or spirit of forgiveness.
I hear all the time someone say, “If x happens, I could never forgive” or “I can’t forgive until they ask for it.”
First, an absolute position which doesn’t allow for forgiveness is disordered as it is a denial of the other’s basic human dignity (by definition a denial of justice). And, thus administration of punishment is de facto unjust.
Second, demanding a person asking for forgiveness is contrary to what forgiveness means. The prefix “for” means before. Perfect forgiveness requires one to forgive before asked. Imperfect forgiveness is waiting to grant it until asked. Both are good but one is better than the other.
I question the sincerity of those who spout off against the DP but won’t personally do anything to care for those who they claim to care so much about.
While not a bar, the lack of personal action casts serious doubt on the sincerity of the belief espoused.
Thank you for your response, even though I disagree with several of your statements.
Horrific crimes are crimes against the person as well as the citizenry. Some are to unspeakable to allow that perp to live.
I don’t care about a person’s “humanity” once they commit the crime such as Berget, McVay, Donald Moeller, John Wayne Gacy, Eric Robert and the like. They gave that up.
If you are a Bible believer, you will see that God sanctions capital punishment. He commanded it in the Old Testament and reaffirmed it in Matthew in the New Testament.
No Dustin. I’d contend the opposite. God established a retributive system in the Old Testament and repeatedly didn’t use it himself. He let the first murderer live and told no one to touch him. To ignore 50 passages from Jesus about mercy toward those who don’t deserve it and make Romans 13 outweigh them all breaks the rules of interpretation.
Romans 13:1-4 has long caused Christians to squirm because it teaches that God is the one who sets guys like Nero and Hitler in power. However, it does not say God agrees with their governing philosophies. And, it does not say God agrees with the death penalty, only that he gives secular governments the authority to use it.
In Romans 13:4 Paul was writing to believers in Rome saying they need to revere Roman authority as God gives governments even the authority of the sword. He was not telling Christians that they are justified to forsake the mercy path when they one day get in power. Why then are so many Christians today defending the values of the Romans and the ethics of Nero?
Shouldn’t governments in the Christian corners of the world be based on the ethics of Jesus instead of the ethics of Nero? It’s amazing to me how much weight Christians today give Romans 13:4. Somehow it outweighs fifty verses from Jesus on showing mercy. Even so, these verses are not in conflict.
I’m for a government that is more like Christ than Rome. Whichever government we happen to live under we are to live in submission to it, that’s the point of Romans 13:4. The leaven of the kingdom (the ethics of Jesus) should permeate society and government eventually and if we don’t contend for that now, when will we start?
We know what incarceration looks like under the value system of Islam and Sharia Law. However, what should incarceration look like in the Christian corners of the world?
Real prison reform happens when we view prisons as places of reform (and redemption) not retribution. Once behind bars what if we did more than punish their depravity? What if we introduced them to their dignity?
Steve, little nitpick: I think you mean “respect” and not “revere” as the latter means to hold in deep esteem. I think that goes beyond what Paul intends.
However, I really like the aspirational context of what you present. Rather than be content with “hardness of heart” which only contemplates Justice but also sees the appeal to our better nature and to be merciful (which the Sermon does as it a great summation of what we are called to aspire to be).
“Shouldn’t governments in the Christian corners of the world be based on the ethics of Jesus instead of the ethics of Nero”
Historically, Christian societies have SUPPORTED the DP as Christians do not see death as the end.
Maybe the good reverend has now transformed and reformed the central tenet of Christianity into “this life is all there is and we must protect all of it at any cost”?
Rev.. Hickey, your version of Christianity is not based on the history.
“based on the ethics of Jesus”
The DP in the US is indeed based on the ethics of Jesus.
Do you not understand that?
“He was not telling Christians that they are justified to forsake the mercy path when they one day get in power”
Really?
Arguments from the silence of Scripture are the worst and weakest…or so I heard!
We gotcha Reverend: your arguments are biblically-based; those arguments that you oppose, are not!
How convenient.
“God established a retributive system in the Old Testament and repeatedly didn’t use it himself.”
And what are we to make of Him not using it? According to you Mr. Hickey, not much! (“Arguments from the silence of Scripture are the worst and weakest.” )
Anonymous 9:37 said:
“It is immoral to offer mercy to one who has no sense of it.” Actually, mercy exactly is giving a person something they don’t deserve. If they deserved it, it would be granted under Justice.
“It is UNCHRISTIAN to oppose the DP.” Are you now claiming to have sat and seen as God does? Do you recall anything about Christ’s admonition about judging others?
If I were Rev. Hickey, this is where I’d start attacking your personally!
(and think you for independently exposing Hickey’s hypocrisy and double standards).
Rather than unreliable lethal injection why can’t we have a firing squad, fire “Old Smokey” or dip Rodney Berget and others on death row into an acid bath.
Acid bath? That tells me Christ is not in you. Such a comment is not made by a Christian. Those are the values of ISIS you espouse there…. God wants me to make you suffer.
Wouldn’t an acid bath be far more efficient and a just punishment for violence and suffering this criminal caused? There would be minimal remains afterwards saving space for disposal & taxpayer money.
” That tells me Christ is not in you”
You dear sir, ARE IN NO POSITION TO TELL OTHERS WHETHER CHRIST IS IN THEM.
If you continue to do so, you too can go to hell.
You’ve crossed the line Rev. Hickey into the dark sin of blasphemy.
You’ve become a sad, bitter, & judgmental representative of much of what is wrong with modern Christianity.
You need to seek forgiveness for the way you’ve treated posters here, and to seek redemption.
I can just see it. A commenter among us goes to heaven and God welcomes us there and we look shocked and say “But Lord back on Earth Rev Hickey said I would suffer eternal damnation in hell!”
Based on what Rev. Hickey’s written, Christ in not in his heart.
He refsues to adesLuke: 23: 39-43..
He uses scripture references to oppose the DP, but then claims that the references refer to God’s judgement, while retorting that he doesn’t oppose legal consequences for criminal activity except the DP, based on his reading of the Bible???!!!!
wah???
Back to square one I guess!!!
The Book of Hickey
It’s a simple observation. You can tell a disciple by the love they have for others. Speaking of putting someone in an acid bath is revealing. People with Christ in them don’t wish those things on others.
Give us your name if you want to talk tough and huff and puff. I’m not bitter and not the one spewing anger here.
here is what Ann Coulter had to say about acid baths http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-05-14.html
There is a difference between forgiveness and absolving such a person of the consequences of his actions.. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. If he repents, that is between him and God. But on this earth he must deal with the consequences of his actions.
Why do you need my name? So you can stalk me?
Save me?
Condemn me?
Who’s the troll?
You have my name: Believer
Your name is important because you’ll be more civil. As is, you are afraid to put your words with your name. That makes you unaccountable.
I’ve been perfectly civil….
unlike you who has claimed to know what God’s view on the DP, told other commenters that they don’t have Christ in his heart, and lied about what Churchuill said, filed suit against Annette Bosworth while arguing that we should not hold condemned kilelrs accountable, misquoted scrptiuure then claimed tha tit dealt with Gid’s judgment not the DP, and on and on.
How do you slee pat night?
Do you HEAR RJ JOHNSON’S SCREAMS?
DO YOU HEAR HIS CRIES FOR JUSTICE???
DO YOU HEAR HIS FAMILY’S CRIES FOR JUISTICE?
Or do you fall quickly into a deep sleep, comforted by your own smug righteousness that you oppose the DP with Christ at your side?
The things that you’ve written here, USING YOUR NAME, would make any real Christian blush with embarrassment.
Dustin,
“Horrific crimes are crimes against the person as well as the citizenry.” I totally agree. Actually, every crime is a crime against both a person and society.
I also agree some crimes are so horrific the perpetrator doesn’t “deserve” to live. However, nobody “deserves” mercy either because Mercy by definition is giving them something they don’t deserve.
“I don’t care about a person’s “humanity. . . .” I am so thankful God never stops caring about a person’s humanity.
Regarding Mathew, are you talking about when we are told to turn the other cheek (5:39) or “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy (5:7)?
Regardless of whether Churchill said Hickey’s quote, or something similar, or whether he was supportive or opposed to the death penalty, the logic of the statement stands.
We don’t reduce the number of murderers by executing one of them. If the execution is done on behalf of society, and there is even one member of that society who believes capital punishment to be a form of cold blooded, premeditated murder, then the number of murders is increased by one. it could ever only be decreased if 100% of the society thought CP just. I think that’s what Hickey is getting at. Capital Punishment makes murderers out of all of us who believe that capital punishment is murder, since We the People ARE the government.
Seems like one would do well to note that the argument is mathematically irrefutable, before trying to refute it.
P.s. It’s pretty much the same line of reasoning as that behind the Hyde Amendment.
Furthermore, a bystander ALLOWING you to lethally defend yourself against a murderer is NOT a murderer.
Self-defense, defense of another, execution, combat deaths–these are not “murders”.
Stop abusing the word. When you use “murder” as you do, you’re DEMEANING and DEGRADING what murderers do,.
Stop it.
“:Capital Punishment makes murderers out of all of us who believe that capital punishment is murder”
You’re intentionally misusing the language.
And execution is NOT murder. Period.
Using your words, the intentional killing of a person who is trying to kill you or is threatening to do so, is “murder”.
Hogwash.
“We the People ARE the government.”
No.
When Obama orders the murders of US citizens who have not been charged, tried, or convicted–that is NOT my gov’t.
You do not speak for me, Bill.
You either believe what the Constitution says or you don’t. We are, as Abe Lincoln says, a government of the people, by the people and for the people, or we’re not. You don’t have a problem with me, you have a problem with your understanding of your government.
We are, as Abe Lincoln says, a government of the people, by the people and for the people, or we’re not.
Indeed.
But that’s not what you claimed:
“We the People ARE the government.”
Lincoln never said that the people are the gov’t. The Constitution says nothing like the “the people are the government”. If what you claim is true, why have a gov’t? In fact, the Const. and most laws are ALL ABOUT WHAT THE GOV’T CANNOT DO TO THE PEOPLE!
Furthermore, when the gov’t is AGAINST the people (not “for the people”), then even Lincoln would agree that it is not a legitimate gov’t. A president who assassinates his own citizens without charge, trial, conviction, or appeal is not a gov’t “for the people”, now is it?
And I see that you quoted Lincoln. Since you want to use Lincoln for your claims, I will as well. Lincoln, on SCORES of occasions, signed SCORES death warrants. OBVIOUSLY, he had no problem with the morality or legality of the DP–why do you?
Surely, when you choose to use Lincoln to support your views, you wouldn’t bar others from using him as a learned source of wisdom? Would you?
The Constitution that you reference allows the imposition of the DP, and has for 200+ years.
Of course it does. Read the Preamble. The Constitution was established by the People. It is by the people, for the people and of the people. If you don’t believe that, that’s your whole problem. If I believed as you, I’d be paranoid and angry too.
Anyone who conflates “Constitution” with “government” doesn’t understand either.
People ESTABLISHING a gov’t or constitution does not EQUATE the people with what they created, or with what they created later became.
UNDERSTAND?
An analogy: Edison created a workable incandescent light bulb. The light bulb is not Edison.
End of story.
The lightbulb isn’t a form of social organization and governance. False equivalence.
People are to Democratic Republics (aka Liberal Democracies) as Kings are to Monarchies.
Ergo the people are the government in Liberal Democracies the same way kings are the government in monarchies.
The only lightbulb involved is the one that has yet to go on inside your head. 🙂
It was an ANALOGY, not an “equivalence”!
Hitler established the Nazi party and the Third Reich, which many Germans supported . Thus, German people (which would have included many Jews) = the German (Nazi) gov’t .
Sorry. Your maxim falls flat because it’s simply nonsense.
You brought up Lincoln.
He supported the DP time and time again.
After bringing up Lincoln, are you now discarding him?
yes or no.
“If I believed as you, I’d be paranoid and angry too.”
If you believe as I do, you’d be right.
If being right means being afraid to identify myself and hostile to anyone who disagees with me, I’m not interested.
You haven’t identified yourself. There are thousands of “Bill Flemings” in the world, and I for one, can not which you are.
Are you trying to get me to reveal my name and address so that you can stalk me?
Are you a troll?
If as a society, we bar execution, and there is even one member of that society who believes capital punishment to be a form of justice, even divine justice, then the number of injustices is increased by one when the DP is not carried out.. It could only be decreased if 100% of the society thought the DP was unjust. We the People ARE the government.
Seems like one would do well to note that the argument is mathematically irrefutable, before trying to refute it.
Amen Bill.
Anyone who believes that CP is ‘divine justice’ doesn’t understand either concept.
And anyone who abuses “murder” for capital punishment doesn’t understand either.
Say, wanna try to refute my mathematically “argument”. It sure is SOLID!.
No problem on your math, if people think the only justice for a murderer is murder and it doesn’t happen, then yes, in those people’s mind, justice wasn’t done. I will note that a better word for such mindset is ‘vengence’ but that’s a different discussion.
No, the proper word is “justice”.
But, your attempted abuse of “vengeance” (like “murder”) again undercuts any argument that you may have against the DP.
“only justice for a murderer is murder ”
Anyone who believes that CP/DP is murder does not understand either concept, right?
Are you going to ignore your own words? Yes or no?
Someone up above said the following:
Part 1: “There is a difference between innocent life (the unborn), and someone convicted of a heinous crime,” Absolutely.
But, the rest of the sentence may or may not be true depending on context:
Part 2: “so the claim that pro-life people who support capital punishment are hypocrites is invalid.”
I don’t mean to pick on Dustin but when he said “I don’t care about their humanity” it does sound like the attitude of a pro-abortion advocate who won’t discuss the rights of the unborn child. It at least strongly appears hypocritical to stand on the principle of “basic human dignity” for some but dismiss it for others. Either all have it or all do not.
That said, like I said earlier, I believe it wholly possible after considering the heinous murder’s basic human dignity and still justly conclude a punishment of death. But, it requires a complete view of justice and not simply punishment=crime.
I have just read through this entire conversation in a single sitting. Governments can kill you for committing the crime of premeditated murder, and they tend to stick to their laws governing how that penalty is carefully applied. Individuals have no right to carry out a death sentence on another individual. To conflate the two is the height of silliness, and that’s all there is to say about it.