TX prosecutor: "he has volunteered and is otherwise good to go" (for his lethal injection)

Taking full account of the fact that this man has been convicted of a crime, and the fact that the death penalty is a source of constant debate...how frigging clueless and insensitive is it for Ms. Smith to refer to him as "good to go?"

Texas Judge Refuses to Set Execution Date for Death Row Inmate Who Wants to Die

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Courts_stall_inmate_s_desire_to_die_11172007.html

MICHAEL GRACZYK
AP News

Nov 17, 2007 07:45 EST

The first letter, neatly handwritten on lined paper, arrived at the federal courthouse in Dallas nearly a year and a half ago with a simple address: U.S. District Clerk's Office.

"I am a college graduate and have no delusions what will occur as an end result of these proceedings," death row inmate Michael Rodriguez wrote in the first of a series of notes to the courthouse. Rodriguez, one of the notorious Texas Seven, a group of inmates who escaped from state prison in 2000 and killed a police officer while on the lam, has dropped his appeals and wants to die.

He can't. A federal judge signed off on Rodriguez's request on Sept. 27, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review the constitutionality of lethal injection in a Kentucky case. But now a state judge won't set an execution date for Rodriguez until after the high court rules on the Kentucky case.

"We probably won't be able to set the date for the first time until probably late next year at the earliest, even though he has volunteered and is otherwise good to go," prosecutor Lisa Smith said. Rodriguez told a psychologist who interviewed him before a competency hearing that he "had to accept his death sentence and submit to it as payment in order to be forgiven and obtain salvation."

it's kind of like pizza delivery.

It was also somewhat insensitive of Michael Rodriguez to murder a young police officer (Aubrey Hawkins) who had been called away from Christmas dinner with his wife and 9 year-old son to respond to a robbery. It was *frigging* insensitive to shoot 25 bullets at this police officer, to drag him out of his car and then to shoot him several times more in the back and the head.

And it was *really frigging* insensitive to jump into the store manager's Ford Explorer and run over Aubrey Hawkins' head three times before escaping.

I'm actually glad that he is "good to go".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Hawkins

I'm not suggesting that the prosecutor should join hands with the press and have a Kumbaya moment for Rodriguez. He's not my hero, he's not a poster child, he's the man who did all of the things you said he did.

There's a nuance to what I said in the original post that isn't registering with you, and that's OK.

I'm saying that when discussing death row inmates, maybe "good to go" isn't the most professional term for a prosecutor to use.

That's it. It's not about Rodriguez. It's about the words used by the prosecutor.