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tv   [untitled]    April 2, 2011 9:30pm-10:00pm EDT

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the world. uses of some sense to sign seven hundred listen with those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from will. be nineteen forty five don't come. it's five thirty in the morning moscow time these are your headlines are more lives lost in libya as a nato airstrike reportedly kills thirteen rebels that gadhafi regime dismisses opposition terms for a cease fire saying it would never withdraw its troops from d.c. for rebel strongholds. makes of satire in computer gaming a russian cartoon based on the out arrest in the arab world going viral animated characters representing former presidents of tunisia and egypt as well as colonel gadhafi. and workers at japan's fukushima nuclear plant battling to keep
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radioactive water from leaking into the pacific and conditions activists plain human contaminated seawater in the area shows radiation levels four thousand times the legal limit. now star special report looks at the merits of the death penalty and whether the crime of murder should always mean an eye for an eye stay with us. the south of the united states of america oklahoma. this road leads to mcalester
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penitentiary which houses prisoners condemned to death. this is where just twelve years ago i met schoen sellers a young man condemned to death his story created a media star all over the world he was my age and i have never forgotten him ever since the night of his execution i have been convinced that the death penalty acts like a poison on all those who participate in it now my aim is to meet all the people aboard involved in the execution of sean sellers.
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this is where sean sellers spent the last thirteen years of his life. the camera here is in three. parts in three. football players or are we. ok. sean was twenty nine when this interview took place.
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most people around here you know all this season during all the see the chains and warriors crying. if all you can see is this summer's herzog but i. kid someone is killed somebody. there's someone is dangerous did you want that person good person is a. player . he said this is what. the only legal really really. have. to was the media and people after the first during the years when i didn't i was sixteen years old those people have a right to hate those people have
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a right to get angry with me those people have a right or i did if i ever heard you might want me to. when he was sixteen sean murdered his mother vulgar and his stepfather leave telephoto they're buried here in eastern oklahoma.
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i found some archive footage on this tragedy at a local t.v. station. one night while dante and lee were sleeping in their home shawn shot them with his stepfather scum. he has always claimed that he committed this crime while under the power of an uncontrollable force. when the teenager was arrested he admitted the double murder and confessed to another crime. six months before he walked into a convenience store with an accomplice and shot dead a cashier he was only fifteen at the time. as accomplice in
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a convenience store shooting was also arrested richard was shawn's friend and both boys were obsessed with satanism. and two teenagers would tell the police that they killed the grocer just to see what it would feel like. richard accepted to testify against shown in exchange for a lighter sentence. when mrs evidence even shown sellars own confession everything was in place for a trial but the legal system was hesitant should this teenager be judged as an adult fully conscious of his acts. shawn's court appointed lawyer presented as evidence psychological evaluations that diagnosed severe personality disorders and defendant. but the prosecutor was adamant in demanding the death sentence. i. think it's rather tragedy that in the united states
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a sixteen year old when he commits a crime can be put to death. in one thousand eighty seven sean sellers was sentenced to death and first became the youngest person condemns to death in the united states in the past fifty years. over the thirteen years following his sentencing sean grew up an adult in the macalister penitentiary. in these half buried buildings the cells which are
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underground have no natural light. as the years pass shawn's lawyers try in vain to get a retrial. psychiatrists seem to have brought to light psychological disorders that were no one of the time of the trial shown now in adults writes books attacking the cultures of. the styles of letters and maintains correspondence with hundreds of teenagers. when i met him thirteen years after his condemnation he had exhausted all legal recourse. to whatever it is a. cage. most of the streets to believe that i know is are good and it's you know. nothing to me am i am
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. three days after meeting sean i sit in on a clemency hearing that takes place in this small chapel near the penitentiary. is shown as a last chance to have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. for life. steve presson shown his new lawyer as working day and night to prevent the execution. of. the five members of the jury
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selected by the state governor are to offer recommendations as to whether or not sean sellers should be pardoned. if. in the end a governor makes the decision on his old activists against the death penalty and friends of sean for president to ask but his life be spared. to me this. signifies whether we. will grant mercy or dinners. and after they always show. first ones i had for ten years. in all of my years where you should be going to nursing. and if you stick i can see how i feel it is justice for you i fear for our state yes it is right that it's ok to murder a sixty year old. person. or something first right.
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right right fear fear for what scope we are not the wild wild west it's time for you to realize that there are better ways to handle this and to execute. it's here and it's. going to the rest of the world thinks. once on sellers of turning as i'm sure you've heard and no man should ever have to shoulder out of a month's early human life. as you know shawn was sixteen years old when he committed these murders that's not to say the song so it should not be punished for his crimes sean is being punished no rational person can deny that after each day for the last thirteen years on a slope on a concrete slab just inches from a metal toilet in a windowless room smaller than most of our own closets there he spends twenty three
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hours a day off and twenty four of these not executed health will spend the rest of his life in just such an existence and that better than watergate as victims many say not but no one can credibly argue that imprisonment is not punishment sean has been punished it is being punished and will be punished. i ask you about clemency if not now where. you know the song sellers who are. on sellers' lives on a dark. estimate death row. on that road is a mining and oh please don't extinguish them on. you.
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during the hearings the families of the victims get to say their pace. of parents and children of leave bellefonte shawn stepfather are here to demand that the execution be carried out. among them are lorna know well at least son and daughter. i'm here to i. just cannot talk there for almost thirteen years i've remained silent allowing just this. and our courts.
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now after all of us are shocked to find ourselves in your presence pleading to you know a lot of address form. of song hours to go forward oh no i haven't i think you did . the executions sellers will not bring mark thought or bad or monster either. it can never fill the void in my life. but sellers must be executed for the brutal crime who committed this is a punishment this is not nothing. it confirms what is allowed fifteen minutes to plead his case.
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or if you know we. have something of what you heard did you own. that heard. another. can imagine. what i say today. because you have been immersed know me well so have.
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no i didn't come here to ask for justice. came here today for mercy. and. i don't think you will live with you. i'm not so listen to that not making a simple one. i have to try in time to keep on. in this type of hearing the jury does not retarded deliberating the verdict is announced directly. this time. i will
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call on each member of the board alphabetically. now. i'll step mother this time. ronald know and i just now right. this time the clemency hearing or shuns ours was adjourned. for. this. sean is dead. for the state of oklahoma the case is being closed for a long time. but for all those who witnessed his execution life is going to.
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now twelve years later i am going to meet with one of the witnesses at the execution in this nature reserve in the eastern part of the state. at the clemency hearing long bell a father son of lee bell a father will ask that shown be executed lauren is a true man of the south. he has always been in favor of capital punishment i didn't decide to see that you got her twelve people decided that was his punishment that was a fitting punishment for the crime he committed. because i happen to agree with it
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. uses as a side subject that's that's. that's good for me. it well bella fodder lauren sister lives in the town of lawton and center of oklahoma. she also waited thirty nine years impatiently for shown to be executed. oklahoma the families of victims have the right to view the execution. well and her family came to the penitentiary to watch sean being put to death.
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if. he was strapped down to the table with his arms out to his side and they had run an i.v. which was how they were going to. commit the execution it was lethal injection it was all done through it was altered intravenously. he was prepped and ready to go in line down and the warden was in there and some doctor. said a few prison guards i believe there was no fear he was happy to get it seems like and that to me was readily
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he did whatever i perhaps he'd come to terms with his fate he gets a list of everyone who. has an execution both. his guests in the prison the guests and his family members and the victim's family members it's a. it's the only opportunity you're going to have to go see i gotcha he didn't get away with it and now we're even i'd reached a point where i guess i'd be humanized him and i had to for my own peace of mind i had to look at him for what he was
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a killer. or as an advocate of ever gone through or it was painless for him i didn't suffer he was like an animal like euthanize a dog or cat but it was actually probably far more humane.
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noel than lauren realized that the execution would also claim other victims shown family. shuns biological father who had abandoned him when he was two heard about his son's coming execution. he sent him a video message from california. there think good look for a. certain nature of these kind of certain. ideas can get bad here if you perform. well that i could almost have the. honor of for you stable enough to do this.
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lucky i'm talking to you or this this way to communicate with me i can't i can't stand. alone you wish things were different. good bye. the execution was a terrible ordeal for sean's grandfather jim saunders father. jim often took care of the little boy when his mother was out on the road. i met jim twelve years ago when i came here the first time it was a few days before the execution. jim had already lost his daughter vonder and now the state was about to put his only grandson to death.
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he's still migraines are. they still moderates or. i would love to say it's not going to affect me one way or the other were made for him today. but i know better. is go showed her my good self. put the show to death and not go bring that man circlet back i don't regularly back. you know what was your reaction when i was with us and. i just really so we'll. have cruel can you be really. so ram came to my mind.
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i hated janet's effort. because our lives and. it was i was good to me. as a child i really liked him. and i hated that he i mean he was so. broken and a committee hearing i couldn't bear to look at. sean's grandfather died shortly after the execution. and some team has been to the jaroslav all region where handicrafts have become a major industry. now our team goes to a former top secret military stronghold. which today has
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a limitless possibilities for extreme sports. with a long lost secrets and damask seal has been discovered. and the real sufyan fleet divers watch is amazing. will come from the chelyabinsk region of. russia close up . home. mom.
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