After reading the commentary on the article, Texas Psychologist Punished in Death Penalty Cases, I agree with Ashley and find it all to be a little on the fishy side.  “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that states cannot execute mentally handicapped people.” This seems like a good idea, but one that has many loop holes. They never set guidelines on determining whether someone is “mentally handicapped” which in return left the details in the hands of the states.  Texas uses a basic three part test, which includes a below average intellectual function, also a lack of adaptive behavior skills, and finally a check to see how long they have had this problems.  Hmm well that seems only like two categories to pass or fail in, and one piece of criteria that determines the legitimacy of the handicapped.  I’m not arguing for or against it, but I’m glad to see they check the background.  I’m sure even when facing the death penalty most people would try to back out in any way possible. With that stated, I’m sure many of inmates have pleaded crazy, incapable, handicapped or any other problem just to get off death row. That’s why they have to go thru a process to determine if their handicapped. But when the tests are flawed, and criticized by many “psychologists and defense lawyers complained to the board of psychologist examiners that Denkowski used unscientific methods that artificially inflated intelligence scores to make defendants eligible for the death penalty.” You have to question the legitimacy when many people speak up about a mal-practice.  I think its wrong that Denkowski veered from the standardized tests, and of course he would have an argument proposing why he didn’t use them. “Denkowski explained why he deviated from the standard use of a test that evaluates adaptive behavior, or life skills. The test is typically administered to family and friends who know the person to ask about how the person functions.” But instead he did the test himself, hmmm possibility for a bias ? I’d say so… and his argument was that the family members would plead crazy just so they wont lose the convicted. Ok so why shouldn’t you screen them through another Dr. ? These ideas shouldn’t seem so hard, and if he would’ve taken the time to check the validity of his tests he wouldn’t be in this situation.  It doesn’t seem fair to an individual, no matter what the condition is, to get mistreated and stripped of basic freedoms.  Dr Denkowski got away with a slap on the wrist fine, meanwhile two of his fourteen inmates have lost their life.  Hopefully the others, now on death row, will get a second shot at evaluation, and that would truly see if his findings were accurate.  Matters that deal with someone’s life should not be taken shortly, or in this case with one Psychologist, no one person should have the power to take someone’s life, its not something to be played with.

Texas Speed Limits Speeding Up

I've read many articles about Texas raising the speed limits on certain highways. There are also bills being passed to remove the “night time” speed limit.  So far the night time bill has passed in the House, which will allow drivers to stay the same speed day or night.  I personally think we should pass this bill; we are the only state left with this law still in effect.  Modern vehicles have bright lights, and the highways have lights for the most part.  Just because the speed limit increases, doesn’t mean that everyone has to go that fast, so I don’t see anything wrong with this bill. By removing the night time speed drop, little towns will lose some money due to "night time" tickets, some smaller cities and towns will pull drivers over without headlights and give them a ticket claiming its too dark, eliminating possible tickets always seems like a good idea to me. Now there still are bills working on upping the speed limit from 70 to 75mph, alongside those bills there are bills trying to set the speed limit on future highways to 85mph.  These speeds are for new highways, and new highways built for the speed only. As of now legislation is just working for the 75mph mark. In my opinion I think the 75mph would be nice to see and it seems realistic, because it will allow you to speed if you want to, but not get completely ran over. The speed increase will make the speeders happy, even if it costs more per mile the faster you go, for some people its worth the price though. Like I said before I don’t see anything wrong with the speed limit increase, if you don’t want to speed, then stay out of the left lane.