never made any attempt to commute a sentence, however, none of the seven women seem to be likely candidates. An example would be Betty Lou Beets. Beets was convicted in 1983 for shooting her fifth husband to death for his insurance and pension benefits. His body was buried in a wishing well at their home near Gun Barrel City in East Texas. Investigators also found the remains of her fourth husband, who had also been shot, buried under a shed on the property. Police began to suspect her when an informant said he had gone to a motel with her, both drunk and laughing, and she had said, "You wouldn't think it was so funny if you knew that the last son of a bitch I laid up with I buried in the front yard" (Curtis 3). Beets was the 121st person to get the needle in Texas in the five years Bush has been governor.Another possible reason for Bush not trying to commute any sentences is that he’s giving the Texans what they want, and the people of Texas like executions. In the recent Democratic primary for governor in Texas, one candidate, Mr. Mark White, put out a gruesome commercial in which he strode triumphantly past photographs of the people who had been executed while he was governor in 1983-87. He still lost. However, Jim Mattox, one of the two Democrats who competed in the run-off election for the party's nomination on April 10th, tried in similar vein to take credit for executions even though, as Texas's attorney-general, he is involved with civil cases, not criminal ones. When his rival, Mrs. Ann Richards, received unwanted support from a prison newspaper, the Mattox campaign quickly adopted the slogan: Jim Mattox. There are no endorsements for him on death row" (Brown 2).From a political standpoint, you must conclude that the death penalty is legal, according to the constitution and state law, when a prisoner has stood trial and been convicted. However, one must question the way in which people are being convicted in Texas. With t...
