Death Row Redemption?
I’m getting just a bit tired of this recent wave of anti-death penalty sentiment. First there was the Tookie Williams case, then ABC launched it’s new series Injustice (based on the premise that people in jail aren’t actually guilty if we’d only take the time to re-examine their cases), and now we have a death row blogger with a write up in the WaPo.
It all makes me wonder what people are smoking. In the Tookie case, you have a guy who was, for a long time, one of the worst human beings on the planet. He ran a vicious criminal gang, robbed, killed, and preyed upon society, but because he seemed sorry and wrote a children’s book, we were supposed to ignore all of that.
Nonsense.
Then you have the case of Vernon Lee Evans, Jr. He was a contract killer who walked into a hotel and killed two witnesses in a drug trial. Now he thinks he’s Dear Abby dishing out advice for people more pathetic than he is, and we’re supposed to feel remorse at his passing.
What in the hell is going on with society?
Finally, we have a major network creating a show that tells people, every week, that the criminal justice system is broken, corrupt, incompetent, or all of the above. According to Injustice, nobody is really guilty and should be released if we only did a little digging.
There are cases of innocent people being convicted, but they are the rare exception, not the general rule. Death row cases, especially, are particularly difficult to fudge. You need the conviction of the entire jury, and the evidentiary basis to even seek that penalty. Prosecutors rarely seek the death penalty for cases built purely on circumstantial evidence.
Despite that, however, this odd corner of our society wants to coddle the worst amongst us. They want to befriend those who have taken so much from their victims. They want to cozy up to those who have murdered, raped and robbed.
It is a concept I don’t understand, and find deplorable. I truly hope their momentary glimpse of “chic” fades fast before it convinces others that criminals are to be cuddled, not executed.
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