The final chapter to this long twisted story played out in the courts this week and highlights all the reasons why I have had to revise my attitude and views on capital punishment. Someone like Ted Bundy is dispatched to the great (or not so great) beyond and honestly, I'm not all bent out of shape about it. I have always believed that the death penalty may not deter others but at least one bad guy wouldn't be around to slit my throat.
But what do we do about guys like Henry McCollum and Leon Brown? How many have there been in similar situations that didn't get an 11th hour reprieve? The question looms large; how many innocent men and possibly women have been put to death in the US over the years? One is too many for me to continue to support a barbaric system rife with corruption and prejudice.
See Henry McCollum, now 50 and his now 46 year old half brother Leon Brown were convicted of the brutal rape and murder of 11 year old Sabrina Buie in Robeson County, NC back in 1983 when they were 19 and 15 respectively. Both initially received the death penalty but while McCollum's sentence held, Brown's sentence was commuted to life. For over 30 years these two brothers have grown old in prison FOR A CRIME THEY DID NOT COMMIT!
This notorious case has been hard fought for 30 years in the courts, blocking McCollum's execution time and again and good thing because if it had not blocked, he would have received his exonration posthumously.
Recent analysis of a cigarette butt, miraculously preserved all these years, found near Sabrina's body in the field where she died showed the DNA of another man who lived near the killing field, and who is currently serving a life sentence for a similar rape and murder he committed less than a month after Buie's murder!
The defense has long held that these two very scared teens were coerced in to confessing to the crime EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE LINKING THEM TO THE CRIME! The brothers finally walked free this week after the judge dismissed all charges.
So now, can you see my dilemma? Can I really believe ever again that justice has been served by the death of a convicted inmate or will the faces of these two brothers, free at last, haunt my thoughts when another conviction makes the news in North Carolina.
Good question, rockync. I've thought about it for years. But since DNA evidence has been admitted in these types of cases, I think we know the answer. The system is rife with corruption and bigotry on the parts of people who want convictions at any cost, even if it means killing an innocent man or woman, especially if that man or woman is of a particular cultural background. And to think this happens in a nation that brags to the rest of the world that it is a country that believes in "...justice for all."
ReplyDeleteWe've not done a very good job on living up to the last part of a pledge that many people think defines us and makes us exceptional.
Shaw, I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with capital cases as there have been several similar cases like this one in North Carolina and we aren't the worst state for judicial irregularities. Considering what must be going on in states like Texas and Louisiana, it becomes apparent that we cannot trust the judicial system we have in place to ensure fair and accurate trials and outcomes.
DeleteA conviction at any cost sums it up. I remember one high profile case in Illinois in the 1980s. A man was convicted of rape with no evidence but the alleged victim's word. She later recanted stating that she was afraid to tell her parents she'd become pregnant by her boyfriend and framed this guy. I can't remember his name. But te tragedy is that proven by science to have been innocent, the State refused to release him and although the governor pardoned him, he was never exonerated and the States Attorney tried to move heaven and Earth to keep him in jail. And then there's the famous "innocence is no excuse" when it comes to overturning a decision according to a Texas Judge.
ReplyDeleteProsecutors too often seem to care more about their careers and too little about the lives they ruin - because they're poor or a minority or have long hair or seem scary.
These things are convincing arguments against killing convicts, but beyond that, the urge to kill an offender, particularly a heinous offender is too often justified by "he deserves it" as though this was an accounting exercise. What does it mean to deserve other than an expression of hate? I don't think hate should have any part in the law and justification by hate seems hardly Christian until you speculate on what we can say it is to be a Christian. Historically it means you obey some leader with no closer connection to any Deity than you have.
In fact it's hard to see compensation in execution. No one is paid back, no account restored to zero. It just feels good when we're very angry and wasn't that supposed to be the Devil's reasoning? You can't restore a lost life. What's done cannot be undone and that leaves only the "deterrent" argument that plainly does not work. We kill because we like to and we like to because we're hate filled animals whose ancestors killed for sport.
Capt you have summed up the flaw of capital punishment perfectly. We kill because we are filled with hate and like making someone "pay". We are barbarians who have hardly moved out of the caves even though we think because we now walk upright and have harnessed energy that makes us oh so civilized.
ReplyDeleteI think most signs are pointing in the direction of mercy. If the recent botched killings in Oklahoma and Arizona are any type of bellwether. If the necessary barbiturates for a merciful sleep-induced death are being withheld by their European manufacturers. If the medical community wants no part of this barbaric practice. All together it creates a perfect storm. Gone are the days of hanging, gas chamber and the electric chair. Firing squad, anyone? Certainly it has been proven beyond any doubt that execution in the U.S.A. is far more expensive than lifelong imprisonment, given the legal costs to our society. Surely the minds of those more humane and enlightened than myself have spoken.
ReplyDeleteIf this was not enough. The recent beheadings by ISIL bring it into sharp focus. Bumbling innocent that I am, of course I pictured the beheadings taking place quite mercifully with fine Arabian scimitars. As fine as any Toledo steel. Apparently, much to my dismay, this was not the case.
No, apparently they saw off your head with a hunting knife. I wonder if the victims knew this beforehand because they seemed relatively calm. I think this is the way they killed Daniel Pearl, if you remember him. Frankly I would like to see that ISIS bastard killed in a far more horrific and agonizing fashion, and if I seem to be contradicting myself, it's because I have the same feelings as anyone else even if I know it's wrong. Of course if we could lock him in a small concrete box forever, that would feel almost as good.
DeleteWe still kill for sport. Truth is though life in prison is a far worse punishment. And having worked a few state's attorney and circuit judge campaigns I can totally agree with the Captain. Law and order win elections. Not compassion and real justice. sadly the only ones who listened to me and ran on this were republicans I drank with at a couple local bars. The democrats went high minded and got their bottoms handed to them. And in every case the democrat was the far better qualified to be a judge or states attorney. As long as the bad stuff happens to someone else it's okay.
ReplyDeleteBeing slightly claustrophobic, I think life in a little cell is a life of horror, but the obvious fact that death is no deterrent, and even makes some killers feel like heroes tells you something about people who support the killing, doesn't it. We kill because it feels good, not because it does anything to deter or reduce murder. We're killer apes and we're hypocritical as hell about it.
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