Texas plans Thursday execution for Carl Buntion, the state's oldest death row prisoner

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

45% : At 78, he would be the oldest prisoner executed in the state in the modern era of the death penalty.
41% : Ad"No legitimate purpose for the death penalty would be served by carrying out his execution," the lawyers added.
39% : But his execution was held off by prolonged legal fights over how juries should be instructed to weigh mitigating evidence, like mental illness or a troubled childhood, when considering the death penalty.
39% : The year before Buntion killed Irby, the U.S. Supreme Court found Texas' death sentencing procedures unconstitutional for failing to instruct juries in the punishment phase of the trial -- after finding someone guilty of capital murder -- to consider whether mitigating evidence warrants a life sentence over the death penalty.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.