by Roy Exum
posted November 30, 2009
 Roy Exum |
That’s right, the 53-year-old killer has been on death row for 29 years and his lawyer, in eleventh-hour desperation, is saying that in itself is “cruel and unusual punishment.” It is hard not to disagree with him if it weren’t for the fact the endless appeals, hearings, trials and legal meandering, all brought about by reputedly the best system in the world, are the reason for the inexcusable delay.
For the record I support the death penalty. I believe that when people are guilty of heinous crimes, the court should have the right – and the duty – to order those convicted to be put to death. Hand-wringing and citing incidents where innocent people have accidentally been executed in the past doesn’t work with me. If the case warrants the death penalty, everybody continues to suffer until we enforce it.
In 1981 Cecil Johnson walked into Bob Bell’s Market and, according to eye witnesses, forced a 12-year-old boy to put the cash from the register into a sack. He then shot the kid in the head – instantly killing him - before critically wounding the boy’s father and a friend in the store. He then went outside where he killed two more innocent victims, James Moore and Charles House, as they sat in a taxi.
As I understand it, the state had three witnesses, but one of them hedged, saying he wasn’t sure he got a close enough look at the killer during the gruesome melee. Never mind the two others were sure, the fact the third one wasn’t 100 percent certain is supposedly the reason Cecil Johnson has now sat on death row since he was sentenced way back in 1981.
I totally fault the legal system. I believe justice should be swift and sure, from a parking ticket to Wall Street fraud to murder itself. At the end of 2007, a Bureau of Justice report disclosed 35 states and the federal prison system held 3,220 prisoners under the sentence of death.
Recently the L.A. Times had a big story that pointed out it takes $133,000 a year to house each death-row inmate in California, about $50,000 more than a regular convict, and that they have a lot more benefits than the regular prison population, as hard to believe as it may seem.
Further, it was fascinating to me not long ago to read how the famous “Beltway Sniper,” John Allen Muhammad, was finally executed in Virginia after his horrific 2002 spree that left 10 people dead. This guy killed people in several states, or jurisdictions, but the Federal case was heard in Virginia because of that state’s speedy process. Given that, he was on death row until early this month, or for about six years since sentencing.
In 2008, 37 persons in nine states were executed - 18 in Texas; 4 in Virginia; 3 each in Georgia and South Carolina; 2 each in Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oklahoma, and 1 in Kentucky. Of those executed, all were males, 20 white and 17 black, and 36 were by lethal injection, the other by electrocution.
I have some staunch opponents of the death penalty who suggest anyone who disagrees with them should be forced to watch an execution, but I, for one, am no more inclined to do that than watch a 12-year-old boy as he is shot in the head after putting cash in a sack. People who are sentenced to die are subjected to the ultimate penalty because they did something, as is later proven in a court, to deserve it.
Not long ago the Knoxville newspaper was filled with a grisly day-after-day story of a young couple that was raped (both the boy and the girl), tortured and killed. It also had a later story that told the killer was sentenced to death. While I wasn’t present at the trial, I have no reason to believe that the verdict was not the proper call by the jury.
But to make a man wait for 29 years is not right, even if he himself is party to the inexcusable delays, and Cecil Johnson should have been executed long before now. Should he now get further consideration after enduring 29 years of worry on death row? Absolutely not – that 12-year-old boy would now be in his 40s, maybe with a military citation, a wife and a couple of kids.
But, my goodness, we should make sure lengthy delays of punishment never happen again. That is hardly the way of a civilized society.
royexum@aol.com
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The case you cite is one of the many reasons I changed from a proponent of the death penalty to an opponent of the death penalty.
I do not believe the governor of the state should have the right to
overrule the penalty imposed by the twelve jurors. Politics should not interfere with the courts' decisions (but it does in many cases).
The frivolous filings of endless appeals at great costs of time and
money, the inability of extraditing U.S. criminals back to the U.S. because many countries that refuse due to the death penalty and the alarming number of people sitting on death row proved innocent by DNA science are a few of the reasons. The death sentence has made a mockery of our criminal justice system.
I personally think incarceration without the luxuries afforded to the
general population and a "real life sentence" with no parole would be
a punishment worse than death.
Bill Watkins
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