Jurisprudent Injustice
As much as I would love to find a little corner of Texas to acquire and call my home, just the thought of living in a state where Rick Perry is the governor sends a chill up and down my spine.
As much as I would love to find a little corner of Texas to acquire and call my home, just the thought of living in a state where Rick Perry is the governor sends a chill up and down my spine.
I need not reiterate all the preposterously improvident bad decisions the guy has made during his tenure, not the least of which is mandating the forced-fed inclusion of religious-based “creationism” into the curriculum known throughout the industrialized world as “science.”
What an excellent way to muddy the waters of truth with conjecture, while confounding the very youth who will before long be in charge of the state and country.
The plaint I offer herein is not about school policies or tax structure or toll roads within the Lone Star State.
While other heads of state seek out less severe methods of punishment in dealing with human beings who go astray, even making attempts at rehabilitation, I find it absolutely insane that Perry has ridden shotgun over 200 executions during his tenure.
That shocking total gives Rick the dubious honor of Number 1 on the list of hanging governors — 24 percent higher than the previous top dog, George W. Bush, aided and abetted 152 times in true Texas style by his ever-trusty sidekick, Alberto Gonzales.
Despite the fact that this is the 21st Century, and folks are supposed to be more enlightened than we were during the 1800s, Perry and Dubya have managed to pull Texas backward to the days of “Judge” Roy Bean.
Of course, Rick has considerable assistance from people such as Georgette Oden, an appellate prosecutor for the Texas Attorney General. In a posting on her blog, Ms. Oden offered that when other guests at cocktail parties ask “So, what do you do?” her response is, “I kill people.”
With a mindset such as this permeating the highest echelons of Texas law and order, there clearly is neither law nor order.
It is painfully evident that Perry has ripped a page right of Roy Bean’s playbook, the one that says that if someone needs killin’, then there’s no room for discussion.
The case that has pushed Perry’s overkill mindset squarely into national scrutiny is the execution in 2004 of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Willingham was sentenced to death for setting fire to his house in 1991, which resulted in the deaths of his three children. Although arson forensics have been proven unreliable in countless cases, Perry accepted as gospel the investigators’ findings as proof positive of guilt.
Just in time to curtail a possible halt of Willingham’s execution, he stymied efforts to conduct any thorough further investigation by forcing out Chairman Samuel Bassett and two other members of the Forensic Science Commission after they refused to relent to pressure to drop their probe; the commissioners had been scheduled to meet with fire expert Craig Beyler, who disputed the official findings.
Perry’s justification for eliminating continued investigation has been summed up in his personal opinion that Willingham is a “monster” and “bad man” – mostly based upon unfavorable accusations that he was abusive.
It seems to me that putting someone to death without full exploration of the facts is “abusive.”
In other execution news, Georgia sent convicted killer Mark McClain to his final reward last Tuesday, Oct. 20.
McClain was a career criminal who shot and killed Kevin Brown, a Domino’s Pizza manager, during a 1994 robbery. Unlike Willingham, who had gone to his death protesting his innocence, McClain admitted his guilt but swore it was unintentional.
Despite remorsefulness and acceptance of his fate as the will of God, neither the Supreme Court of Georgia nor the United States would stay his execution.
Then, we had cloture in the infamous 1993 Brown’s Chicken massacre in Palatine, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.
Although some might feel that’s not entirely an accurate assessment.
On a bone-numbingly cold January night, seven people — most of them teenagers — were slaughtered execution-style by person or persons unknown. Victims included the franchise owners (a married couple with children), employees, and customers.
The first victim had no idea what had hit him; the other six spent their final moments in unspeakable terror.
Not being accustomed to such gruesome horror, the suburban police department contaminated the scene and bungled the investigation.
Despite bragging to friends about perpetrating this heinous (not nearly a strong enough adjective) atrocity, it would be 13 years before someone came forward — in the form of a drug-addled girlfriend of one of the killers. She claimed fear for her life kept her silent for so long, until the pangs of conscience became too much to bear.
The first assassin, Juan Luna, eluded the death penalty in 2007 by making a full confession, and naming his associate.
This past week, following a long (eight week) and costly (on numerous fronts) trial, the second murderer, James Degorski, was also sentenced to life in prison.
Degorski was 20 when he and Luna (also 20ish) herded the victims into two walk-in coolers, made them kneel with their backs to them, then shot these innocent human beings in the iciest of blood.
In his confession, Degorski, a dullard scumbag loser who knew he’d never leave a mark on the world, stated that he “wanted to do something big.”
His solution was to massacre seven people in a petty robbery.
Although both of these worthless wastes of oxygen are among those most deserving of being put to death in the annals of murder, that shall never come to pass.
Two jurors actually bought into Degorski’s defense, that he was abused as a child, insisting on life rather than death row.
These are just three cases, yet their outcomes make it painfully obvious that our American system of jurisprudence has a long, long way to go before justice can truly be considered fair and equal.
Shalom.
(Erstwhile Philosopher and former Educator Jerry Tenuto is a veteran who survived, somewhat emotionally intact, seven years in the U.S. Army. Despite a penchant for late-night revelry, he managed to earn BS and MA Degrees in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. On advice from a therapist, he continues to bang out his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast — providing much-needed catharsis. Jerry is also licensed to perform marriage ceremonies in 45 states.)
