WHY OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY IS SIMPLY INCREDULOUS

On Tuesday evening, Peter Cantu was executed for the horrific rape-murder of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Peña, 16, after spending 17 years on death row. Cantu became the 16th person put to death in Texas this year and the 463rd since the death penalty was restored.
　
The Houston Chronicle described the crime for which Cantu was executed as the ‘Unfathomable Cruelty’:
　
__In June 1993, Ertman and Pena had left a Thursday night gathering of friends in a rush to be home before their curfew. A small gang known as the Black and Whites was conducting a fight-filled initiation ceremony for a prospective member across from Houston’s T.C. Jester Park when the girls crossed their paths while taking a shortcut home. The girls were hurrying along railroad tracks in the dark when they were spotted by the gang, pulled off the tracks and taken into nearby woods where they were repeatedly raped. When the attackers were finished, the girls were taken deeper into the woods where, at Cantu’s urging, they were beaten, strangled and stomped [beyond recognition] to death.
　
__Even the police were stunned. The attackers shouted obscenities at TV cameras when they were arrested and reportedly bragged of their crimes once in their jail cells. The killers didn't crumple or cry when recounting the bestiality of their acts to investigators. All of it - the entire ugly tableau of human destruction - was told as if it had been a TV rerun from a year ago.
　
Five other gang members were also tried and convicted in this case:
　
___Jose Medellin and Derrick O’Brien were both executed for their roles in the slayings. Medellin was executed on Aug. 5, 2008, and O’Brien was executed on July 11, 2006.
　
__Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal had their death sentences commuted after the Supreme Court barred the death penalty for those who commit crimes under the age of 18.
　
__Venancio Medellin, who was 14 at the time of the attack, is serving a 40-year sentence.
　
It is simply incredulous that anyone could be opposed to the death penalty when horrific murders are committed by vermin like these six pieces of shit. Not only did they gang-rape, strangle, beat and stomp the two teenagers beyond recognition, but they also laughed, joked and bragged about what they had done. As Bob Walsh noted on PacoVilla Corrections blog, SOME PEOPLE JUST NEED KILLING.
　
Cantu was defiant until the moment of his death. He made no apology to the families of his victims and he made no statement in the death chamber when given the opportunity.
　
After witnessing Cantu’s execution, Adolfo Pena, Elizabeth’s father, spoke to the media: "We can say it’s the end, but it’s never going to be closure. Three of the animals that did this are gone. [The execution] doesn’t really make me feel any better, knowing that there are three guys [Efrain Perez, Raul Villarreal and Venancio Medellin] that got away with this. But I think I will probably sleep a little better."
　
There were only a few protesters against the death penalty outside the prison where Cantu was to be executed. Usually there is a good-sized turnout for every execution by those weeping and wailing against capital punishment. But for Cantu’s execution, it seems as though most abolitionists did not have the balls to show their shameless bleeding heart faces in public.