Death Penalty

[xoxoxoBruce]

I've always been in favor of the death penalty. I still am for all the reasons I've stated here before. And the belief from following some of the cases with a personal interest, that all prisoners subjected to the death penalty have tons of legal representation and numerous appeals that eliminate any arguments.

BUT, this case has shaken my foundations... violently.

Pennsylvania is preparing to execute Terrance "Terry" Williams, a man who suffered years of physical and sexual abuse by older males, eventually killing two of his abusers while in his teens.

Mr. Williams, known to his friends and family as “Terry,” is on death row for a crime he committed three and one-half months after his 18th birthday. On that tragic day, Terry and another teenager killed a man. As the sentencing jury heard, Terry also committed another killing five months earlier at the age of 17. What the jury did not hear was that both of the men had sexually abused Terry, and both crimes directly related to Terry’s history of sexual abuse by older males, which began when he was six years old.

Terry's case has been the subject of an unprecedented outpouring of support from prominent groups and individuals across Pennsylvania. Child advocates, victims' rights groups, former prosecutors, former judges, faith leaders, mental health professionals, law professors and others have expressed their support for commuting Terry's sentence to life without parole.

​Like so many adolescent victims of sexual abuse, Terry felt intense shame that kept him from talking about what had happened to him. Terry's history of sexual abuse was not presented at his capital trial because Terry’s lawyer failed to conduct any meaningful investigation into Terry's background and ignored obvious evidence of abuse.

While courts agreed that Terry's lawyer failed him, those courts also said that evidence of sexual abuse would not have made a difference to the jury. However, in sworn affidavits, jurors who sentenced Terry have acknowledged that they would not have voted for a death sentence had they known about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, the abuse he suffered at the hands of the men he killed, and the psychological impact of that abuse.

In addition, several jurors have stated that they voted for Terry to be put to death only because they mistakenly believed that if they did not sentence Terry to death he would later become eligible for release on parole. In truth, both now and at the time of his sentencing, a life sentence in Pennsylvania meant that Terry Williams would never have been eligible for parole.

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania is the only state in the country that does not require the judge to instruct the jury that a life sentence means life without the possibility of parole, and no such instruction was given in Terry’s case.

There are petitions for clemency from the jurors, the victim's widow, and numerous other interested groups.

I've signed the online petition for clemency.

[DanaC]

I've seen too many examples in the news, in my own country and in yours to believe that capital convictions can ever be considered absolute guarantees of guilt.

And I've seen too many reports showing that the appeals system is deeply flawed and inconsistent to think that gives proper security to those convictions.

[Lamplighter]

@Dana

Agreed

[Sundae]

Kill him and then give him a posthumous pardon.
Worked for Derek Bentley.

Reading up on that case changed my opinion of capital punishment, previously shaped by my father who is still a proponent of the death penalty.

[Trilby]

I used to be in favor of the death penalty but now I'm not. Even ONE mistake is too many and I've very little faith in law enforcement in America. I am in favor of solitary confinement which, IMHO, is worse than death. Death sentences are costly, take forever and never give any murder victim back from the void. It's silly to do it. Just put 'em in the hole forever.

Having been in health care for longer than I care to admit, I've seen worse things than death.

[Sundae]

I am always slightly puzzled when someone who kills themself in their cell (or dies of natural causes in remand) is said to have cheated justice. Or that the families of victims have been denied justice.

Does justice mean revenge?

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Sundae

I am always slightly puzzled when someone who kills themself in their cell (or dies of natural causes in remand) is said to have cheated justice. Or that the families of victims have been denied justice.

Does justice mean revenge?

In America?


Yes.

eta: we WERE founded by those nutty Puritans. I have a book that says something about the Calvinistic attitudes of Puritans and their lust for beaver and mink skins and the rise of capitalism and how they only cared, really, deep down in their secret evil hearts, for profit. Not god, not justice, but profit. And revenge.

They stole the Indian's winter cache of corn, you know. They weren't exactly wonderful people.

It's all due to that lineage that we're all fooked up.

[DanaC]

I have always been against the death penalty. I would say it was probably the first actual political opinion I ever held. Probably because it was something heavily debated in the public sphere when I was growing up. I recall us having debates about it in school when I was 11 years old or so.

Initially, I think it was the sense of horror at the thought that anyone could, in theory, find themselves facing execution in the event of a miscarriage of justice. Thre were several high profile cases around the same time, in which people were shown fairly categorically, to have been wrongfully convicted of capital crimes. Some of these were ongoing for many years, and had a strong racial or political component.

Over the years I refined my views somewhat. I now object to it in principle, even if one could ever be truly secure in the justice system and its findings. I do not believe in meeting personal murder with state murder.

I also think that the power to take away life is far too great to be invested in the hands of government and judiciary. And I find it baffling that in a country like America, where trust in political offices and governmental systems is so low, you would nonetheless willingly hand that power to them.

But back to the pragmatic reasons for concern:

Here are some examples of unsafe, or questionable convictions in recent decades, which led to the execution of the (possibly innocent) people involved.

1. Troy Davis - executed

The case went through both state and federal appeals. Multiple witness came forward in affidavits admitting that they felt bullied by the police running the investigation and were forced to give false testimony against Davis.

The case went before the US Supreme Court in 2011. The appeal was rejected however and the execution was carried out on the evening of September 21, 2011.

There is still question about whether Davis was guilty or innocent.

2. Johnny Frank Garrett - executed Feb 1992

On October 31st, 1981, Johnny Frank Garrett was accused of both raping and murdering Sister Tadea Benz, a 76-year-old nun.

Garrett, then 17, had admitted guilt to the crime when examined by a forensic psychiatrist brought in by his defense team. During the interview the doctor said that she found him to have both severe brain damage as well as multiple personalities, only one of which confessed to the crime.

Garrett later stated that he did not confess anything and there were no tapes made of the interview.

His mother plead with the state of Texas to exonerate her son with the DNA evidence that they had. Texas has refused to do so to this day.
-snip-

12 years later, cold case DNA testing found Leoncio Perez Rueda guilty of the rape and murder of Narnie Bryson, another elderly victim that was killed 4 months before Sister Benz.

Both cases had similar evidence, including white t shirts and curly brown hairs found on both scenes. Rueda confessed to the crime against Bryson and also confessed to killing a nun later. It was also caught on camera that Rueda stated that it was indeed his shirt found at the site of Sister Benz' murder.

3. Ellis Waybe Felker

Ellis Wayne Felker was convicted for murder of Evelyn Ludlum in 1981. Her last known whereabouts were visiting Felker at his leathershop in the hopes of receiving a job with him. Felker was put under surveillance for two weeks, after Ludlum's abandoned car was found and a datebook noted that he was her last point of contact.

The body was found shortly afterward in a creek, raped, and murdered by asphyxiation. When an autopsy was originally performed it was determined that Ludlum had been dead for 5 days when she was found. This eliminated Felker as a suspect as he was under surveillance during this time. The findings were changed however when another autopsy was ordered and it was found that Ludlum could not have been dead for more than 3 days, since she was found in running water though, the exact time of death could not be determined.

Felker was convicted of the murder and rape and later sentenced to death. In September 1996 Felker's attorneys received evidence that had been withheld unlawfully by the prosecution during the trial. The DA in charged denied under oath that such evidence did not exist. Included in the evidence was possible DNA samples and a signed confession that was made by another suspect who was mentally retarded.

In spite of all the evidence and doubts of guilt, the Supreme Court of Georgia refused to have a new trial and proceeded with Felker's execution later that year after the Summer Olympics since they were held in Atlanta at the time.

4. Cameron Todd Willingham

Cameron Todd Willingham was charged with the arson deaths of his three daughters when the house they were living in burned down in 1991 in Texas.

During the trial there was multiple conflicting pieces of evidence that could either prove that the fire was started by a liquid acceleration or by faulty electronics. There was much debate between the various fire authorities. Throw in the fact that there was various witness testifying either for or against him.

In the end Willingham was convicted of arson and murder and sentenced to death. After 12 years of appeals, he was executed by lethal injection.

The case is still receiving attention due to the fact that there may be evidence that Governor Rick Perry might have influenced conviction by firing the original forensic scientist who argued against conviction. Investigation is ongoing.

5. Larry Griffin

In 1981, Larry Griffin was convicted of the murder of 19 year-old Quintin Moss. Moss was a drug dealer who was killed in a drive by shooting.

While there were only a few eye witnesses, the conviction was based. almost solely, on the testimony of Robert Fitzgerald, a career criminal. The jury pronounced him guilty, and Griffin was executed by lethal injection in 1995 after a failed appeal process.

In 2005 though an investigation was reopened by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. It was found that there were crucial pieces of evidence withheld during the trial. These included the fact that Griffin was left-handed, even though Fitzgerald testified that the gun was shot by someone right-handed. Also, there was no DNA or fingerprint evidence the Griffin ever even held the murder weapon and an alibi witness the could put Griffin in a different place at the time of the murder.

The investigation concluded with Griffin being presumed innocent.

from http://www.ranker.com/list/8-_allege...d-jones?page=2

The appeals process is only as strong as the individuals who man it. There is a good deal of evidence that personal prejudice, political expediency and outright incompetance can and do subvert the judicial system from first investigation to final appeal.

[Trilby]

^WSS esp. last paragraph.

[Lamplighter]

Certainly the jury/trial/sentencing system, itself, is one of the problems with the death penalty.

But was that xoB's original issue ?

I read his OP more along the lines of "justifiable homicide",
that was not an imminent threat or fight-or-flight self-defense.
Instead, it seems more along the lines of revenge or prevention from further abuse.

Obviously, the judiciary system and society failed this boy/man during his lifetime.
But did he have alternative's, and what form of punishment would be appropriate ?
.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The clemency petition is to commute the sentence to life without parole. Five of the jurors claim they would have voted for a life sentence if they had been informed he wouldn't be back on the street in the future.

[sexobon]

I've read only what has been posted here regarding this case. If in fact this convicted murderer killed twice, five months apart, it seems that any mitigating circumstances for commuting the death sentence applicable after the first time are outweighed by a developed thirst for killing as his retaliation of choice thereafter. I wouldn't object to this murderer being put down.

[Big Sarge]

Watching an execution will change how you feel about the death penalty.

[sexobon]

That may only be because you didn't see the capital crime as it was being committed.

[infinite monkey]

The second best argument against capital punishment: no one will agree on who 'deserves it.

Guilty vs not guilty being the first best argument.

Assuming you ignore the cost-effectiveness argument and pretend it is cheaper to enact the death penalty given our legal system of all that pesky appeal stuff, and other reasons dp costs so much more.