California State Executes Donald Beardslee
Donald Beardslee, who killed two young Peninsula women in 1981 while on parole from an earlier murder conviction, was executed by lethal injection Tuesday at San Quentin State Prison in California. It was California's first execution in three years. Nearly 400 demonstrators in San Francisco came out to bear witness.
He and the other demonstrators were at the prison for one simple reason, perhaps best explained by the 61-year-old Blair:"My being here has nothing to do with what's his name and the two gals he murdered, and I have the utmost sympathy for their families," he said. "This is all about us. We're doing it. We're killing this guy. It's a revenge killing, and we're in the last remnant of a barbarous time. This is pre-civilized behavior."
Activists in Schwarzenegger's hometown in Austria also demonstrated.
Kurt Flecker, a top official in the southern province of Styria where Schwarzenegger was born, issued a statement blasting "the moral and ethical shortcomings of the bodybuilder and actor" for refusing to pardon Beardslee. He said the governor has "a contempt for human life."
Posted by katherine at 11:37 AM
