Talk:Patrick Knight

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 27 June 2007. The result of the discussion was No Consensus.

Contents

[edit] Notability.

This article is filled with plagiarism everywhere. It lifts chunks of text out of the news articles it sources, but does not quote directly, as it should. This needs to be reworked and cited correctly. Blueclare 18:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

This article should not be deleted as he has made quite a bit of noteworthy news. [1] Not only as an ambassador of the US imposition of the death penalty, but as a sober reminder that there are still a few first world countries that carry out primative punitive punishments. Jachin 02:33, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

You should not let your decision to keep or delete be driven by your admittedly strong POV against the death penalty. Wikipedia shouldn't be the place to push a political agenda. Talmage 03:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
You know, not even fifty years ago the same would have been said about slavery. Regardless, it's a prima facie jurisprudent relevant case. It meets notability on various grounds as the matter:-
  • is a contemporary example of capital punishment.
    • As are countless other people executed in Texas every month. Talmage
  • made massive news headlines due to the quirky humour of the condemned.
    • It didn't make headline news; rather small blurbs at most. Talmage
  • addressed fundamental shortfallings of an ailing judicial system.
    • No it didn't; it was just about his joke contest. Talmage
  • outlined various improprieties in relation to mitigation portion of sentencing.
  • illustrated the bias of a defence attorney who chose not to act out his role because of his personal beliefs.
  • became so well publicised that Amnesty International attempted to intervene due to the lack of a fair trial.
    • Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in general and has attempted to intervene on quite a few inmates. He's not special. Talmage
  • illustrated further that the 'neccessity' for imposition of the death sentence comes with immediacy, given that the person is a danger to the public and to prison populations, per the legislation, yet the condemned in this instance served 1/3rd of his entire life in gaol without any further charges of violence in any way.
    • Yawn, this guy isn't any different from the rest of the guys on death row. Talmage
The list could go on, and on. Either way, it's a good article, it'll be a shame if it's nerfed due to narrow minded pro-death penalty POV pushers. Politics shouldn't be brought into it. And yes, whilst my discussion page comments may illustrate a clear POV (and I'll quite happily say I find it abhorrent that human beings kill other human beings period, and that there is no excuse to do such) but that's merely called enlightenment, IMHO. However as you can see from my editing this POV doesn't creep into my work, for good reason, I want to do a good job as a wiki editor and have done so far for the last .. god knows how many years.  :) Jachin 04:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but there is nothing special about this guy or his case. Talmage 04:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Jachin, from a legal prospective there is NO way this case is notable. When appealed to the US Supreme Court (with two justices that vote to here al capital appeals and to overturn all sentences) it couldn't even muster the four votes needed for the Court to consider the case. If the Court had accepted the case even then this guy might not deserve a separate article it would probably be an article on the case. This guy is just your run of the mill murderer Who couldn't get his case reviewed by the Court. ChrisLamb 14:33, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I vote for leaving it. It is a good article, well written, for the most part unbiased and it is most of all INFORMATIVE, which is the purpose of an encyclopedia. The guy managed to make the news, several times, I feel this article is relevent and should be allowed.

You know, "this guy isn't any different from the rest of the guys on death row" might be a good reason to keep it as representative. As it happens I came here specifically to find this information, I'm surprised to find it under discussion as potentially deletable. It's a good piece of work and it fits Wiki criteria. Talmage is wrong to say coverage was trivial, I'm in the UK and I was aware of it from local reports. JohnHarris 02:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

ChrisLamb, I understand you believe it not to be of any notability from a legal POV, however I disagree. Getting a hearing doesn't mean a case is notable. Not getting a hearing doesn't mean it's not notable. The worlds human rights groups jumping up and down saying a case is fundamentally corrupt and the person was sold out by his lawyer who aknowledged publically that he didn't quite give a toss to protect his client properly and then the case being refused to be heard on the grounds that they believed misrepresentation and unconscionability from the defence attorney doesn't give reason however IS very notable.
In fact, the last time such kangaroo courts were setup which ignored prima facie case matters such as a dodgy lawyer were in Nazi Germany. Or possibly more recently the military courts setup in relation to GitMo. Jachin 04:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
You are attacking an institution that has for 200 years asserted convicted killer's rights, and when it thought said rights were being violated in the 1970's ordered a halt to all executions until the rights could be preserved, and has imposed more restrictions than any other time in history on executions. Also in my opinion refering to the most independent judiciary in the history of the United States (some would say the world), that has nine of the greatest legal minds on the face of the planet siting on it as a "Kangaroo Court" is wrong. ChrisLamb 21:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page Edits

I've removed some images, because there seemed to be too many for a page this size. Much of the information plagiarized from the Amnesty International call to action has been removed by another editor. It was reverted, and then removed again. After being added a third time, I finally removed it. This was a blatant copyright violation from an advocacy group, which should not be a primary source of information (since Amnesty International is not an objective source) in the first place. While a section pertaining to his crime and trial might be appropriate, I don't think going into detail about his trial is necessary. Despite Jachin's claim, I do not believe this trial to be significant. As a previous editor commented, the Supreme Court decision not to hear the case was extremely lopsided. If this article is to be retained (after surviving the ongoing AfD debate), I believe it should mention his crime, conviction, joke contest, final statement, and execution. A lot of trial details aren't necessary, since his case has never amounted to much in and of itself. In fact, the only source pertaining to his case that I have found is the Amnesty International page, but as I mentioned earlier I don't think advocacy group websites are the best places to find objective NPOV information. That being said, the sections removed were done so because of copyright concerns, not relevancy issues. I'm only bringing up relevancy now in this discussion page, since I believe a consensus should be reached. Furthermore, I believe there is widespread consensus on Wikipedia that MySpace pages should not be included as external links. That being said, I haven't removed them until I can determine for certain whether such a consensus is as widespread as I believe. 03:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mitigation section.

If someone would be willing to re-write the mitigating circumstances portion of this guys case which made it notable from a jurisprudence point of view it would be appreciated. In my opinion it's the primary reason why the case and person is notable. Whilst Talmage believes trial details should be minimised, trial details are one of the primary reasons this person has come to quite a bit of international attention, even drawing fire from Amnesty International in relation to miscarriage of justice in capital cases. I would re-write it, but I have a feeling based on three prior attempts, that anything added will be claimed as a 're-wording of the amnesty international report' based on the grounds that it succinctly outlines the mitigation and case in general. But I have a feeling the facts aren't the problem, the editor is. Jachin 04:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

What sources do you have to back up your statement that trial details received widespread coverage? You haven't cited anything except an Amnesty International propaganda page. Talmage 05:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crime and Trial Details

Now that the afd debate is over I would like to propose that this article is given more complete details regarding the actual crime and trial. I can see there has been some debate about this before, but there is also mention above that the crime should be more detailed and maybe the trial less so (if it is included, the author above didn't suggest that). I partially agree with this, the crime...yes and the trial I think should be included but I agree that it is not worth detailined extensively, unless of course there are other sources to the information Amnesty International has. Freakchild 09:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Excessive External Links

There are four external links that essentially link to the same story. At least three all provide essentially the same Reuters story. Of the following, the last three are virtually the same, with only minor differences from the first.

  1. Daily Mail, UK, 'Gallows Humour as Death Row inmate wants a joke to be his final statement.
  2. Reuters, 'Man set for execution wants to die laughing.'
  3. China Daily coverage
  4. FoxNews, 'Inmate set for death plans joke as last words'

In addition the link of the "alleged" copy of the criminal file ought to be linked from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice page, not from photobucket.com. Talmage 17:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Patrick Knight 3.jpg

Image:Patrick Knight 3.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 22:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)