Well, if you follow that reasoning, then how can you sentence a kidnapper to prison? You are doing to him what he did to another, legalizing the same act which you just condemned. How can you sentence a thief or burglar to a fine? You are doing to him what you say he should not have done. Your logic does not follow. The state is all of us and has the authority to do things that it denies you as an individual. I am not allowed to levy taxes from you and if I do it is called stealing and it is bad. The state on the other hand has the authority to levy taxes, imprison you etc. because we have all given it such authority.
I will repeat that I am not holding any position on the substance of the death penalty, just pointing out flaws in your reasoning.
Another point I’d like to make is that the argument that the death penalty is given unjustly is not an argument against the death penalty but an argument for the reform of the legal system (and a temporary suspension until that is achieved).
The death penalty, like abortion, religion etc are a matter of personal belief and we should respect each others opinions without personal attacks. If you are for the death penalty that does not make you a murderer. I can see both sides of the argument and I do not see why anyone should claim the high moral ground. I recognize the sincerity of both sides.
I’m writing this less than an hour after Gary Graham’s execution, and I am so nauseated, I may have to lay down.
I realize that what I am about to say may not sit well with the facts-and-statistics people, but it’s my experience.
In 1996, my (now-former) husband was convicted of the 1994 murder of his (and my) son. The state of Virginia decided, after an eavesdropped conversation, that my husband shook the baby to death. The police proceeded with an “investigation” on that basis, and on the basis that the doctor called the baby’s condition “shaken baby syndrome”.
The “investigation” turned into an almost farcical game. We were interrogated at length, kept ignorant about the baby’s condition when it could have made a difference, and to top it all off, the “detectives” had never worked a case involving a child before in their careers. They also refused to hand the case over to Social Services, which is the law in Virginia.
My husband was arrested based on a “confession” that not only doesn’t match any of the actual factual evidence, but is also not possible according to the laws of physics. Yet, the Commonwealth Attorney waved it around as though it were Gospel truth. The Medical Examiner was asked to run specific tests in light of the baby’s medical records. She claims she did not, which is in violation of state law. She lied about reading medical records, and admitted to reading the police reports, which is a violation of ethics and shoddy investigation practice. The police lied under oath so many times about what they did and did not say that it’s impossible to know exactly what did happen that night. The Commonwealth’s Attorney also forced my parents into silence
by threatening arrest if they came to Norfolk, and manipulated her witness into intimidating and smearing them in the local newspaper.
Now, I need to say one thing. My husband did not have a public defender. He had a private lawyer, to whom we were introduced through my husband’s employer. Even in the face of obvious reasonable doubt, the lawyer’s defense was to try to shift the guilt onto me, and get my husband acquitted on that basis. He refused to raise issues of misdeeds and incompetence on the part of the state’s witnesses, and so lost out on the opportunity to appeal them. His appeals consisted of those statements which attacked him, the lawyer, personally, and did not attempt to appeal any other issue. Small wonder every appellate court in the state turned my husband’s case down cold. Even those courts which agreed with my husband in principle, would not justify an “insufficiency of counsel” claim because he had one of the “best” private lawyers in Virginia. (One alternative newspaper put him on the cover as The Criminal Lawyer Other Lawyers Would Hire".)
At this point, my husband has a habeas writ before the federal court. The court liked it so much they’re giving him a new lawyer and having an evidentiary hearing sometime later this year, and the writ has an excellent chance of being granted.
I know my ex was not sentenced to death. Yet, if death penalty cases were tried as shoddily as this one was, I have absolutely no problems believing that other innocent people were executed. And until the justice system is cleaned up, we have no business executing anyone.
For you legal eagles, the case is Virginia v. Weber and Weber v. Angelone. I don’t have the case citations, tho.
I notice the opinions identify you as “Robin,” by the way.
I am very sorry about the death of your son. Although I have lost family members, I cannot claim to have experienced anything at all like this.
But I’m writing now because your post raises some concerns about the criminal justice system in Virginia, and this is a subject I know a bit about.
I read the appellate opinion in Weber v. Commonwealth. According to the facts as recited there, your own interrogation was terminated when you immediately requested a lawyer, which was a very smart thing to do. Your ex-husband, on the other hand, gave a statement which was admitted into evidence, because he signed a form acknowledging and waiving his right to remain silent and to have counsel. Although he was questioned a long time, he was tape-recorded agreeing that he was being treated well and had been offered food, drink, restroom facilities, and that no one had threatened him during this time.
The appeal raised the following points: that the police violated rights under Miranda by continuing to question him after he stated at the hospital that he did not want to talk to anybody; that he did request a lawyer and the questioning continued (a violation of Edwards); that his confession was inadmissible because it was not voluntary, given the length of time he was questioned; that the delay in bringing him before the magistrate was illegally long; that certain closing arguments by the Commonwealth’s Attorney were improper; and that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of guilt. The appeals court resolved these issues against Frederick.
Unfortunately, your ex-husband’s statement to police gave the jury the necessary facts to convict him of second-degree murder. The Commonwealth has to prove that he inflicted the injuries; that he did so with malice; and that the injuries were a proximate cause of the death. In Frederick’s statement to police, he said:
Weber admitted that he was “frustrated.” He goes on to admit that he, a grown man, held the victim, a twenty-nine-day-old baby, upright in his hands and shook the baby side to side with “quick jerks.” He then smacked the baby’s face, twice forehand, and twice backhand. These acts alone, combined with that infant’s death, are sufficient to let a jury find guilt.
Dr. Zaritsky testified that the infant suffered from retinal
hemorrhaging, subdural hemorrhaging and significant trauma to the brain, resulting in swelling. In addition, there was bruising on the infant’s cheeks, ears, ribs, and the left side of the chin. Dr. Zaritsky stated that these symptoms were consistent with a diagnosis of Shaken Baby Syndrome. He testified that two factors produced the baby’s death: (1) shaking that produced severe swelling of the brain; and (2) the lapse of time before treatment. Dr. Leah Bush, Assistant Chief Medical Examiner, concurred in this diagnosis.
I guess I’m curious to know what aspect of Dr. Zaritsky’s testmony was a lie, in your view. With all due respect to your ex-, it hasn’t been my experience that two or more doctors will so easily enter into a conspiracy of silence regarding autopsy results. What laws of physics are inconsistent with the physical evidence and Frederick’s confession?
With respect to the ineffective assistance of counsel claim… it’s important to understand that the system does not purport to guarantee every defendant the best lawyer in the world. It merely requires that every lawyer be competent. In order to prevail on a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel, the accused must show both that his attorney’s efforts fell below the commonly accepted standard for performance, and that the accused was prejudiced thereby.
Since the issues you raise - the purported failure of the ME to run specific tests, the law so violated, and so on, were not briefed in the appeal, it’s hard for me to quite understand them. I’m not aware, for instance, of exactly what you mean when you say that the ME’s reading of the police reports is unethical and shoddy investigative practice. To the contrary, in my experience (which does not, I admit, include any homicide trials), ME’s routinely are made aware of police investigation efforts and the results thereof. I’m not quite sure what your specific complaint in this area is.
I don’t wish to sound cold-hearted, since this case affects you personally, but after my review I cannot see a clear-cut loss of a fair trial here. And I was a public defender; my sympathies are generally with the accused.
Getting into this again are we? Ok.
Let’s say under the guise of night, Bob stills my VCR. Bob is found guilty in a court of law. So is punishment is that under the guise of night I sneak into his house and steal his VCR. Justice is served, right?
Let’s say Bob rapes me. He’s found guilty in a court of law. So his punishment is an even bigger guy is going to rape HIM. Justice is served, right?
Let’s say Bob kills me. He’s found guilty in a court of law. His punishment is to die. Justice is served, right?
But let’s take this one step further.
Bob never stole my VCR. The evidence was shaky at best, but he was a minority, and everybody knows that minorities are poor. Nobody knows this better than white middle class conservatives, so he’s found guilty. I take his VCR, no biggie though, he can get a new one.
Bob never raped me. Nobody saw him, and the DNA tests were messed up. And besides, Bob is a minority, everybody, especially white, middle class conseratives knows that minorities are savage creatures, capable of savage deeds. So he’s raped. No biggie right? I mean, it’s just his self-respect that’s stripped from him. Everybody knows you can easily get more of THAT.
Bob never killed me. The eye-witness saw another man holding a gun, but because he was the same build and color as Bob, the EW testified against him. Also, Bob’s defense attorney was a DA and fresh out of school, and slightly inept anyway. Besides, Bob is a minority, and as previously mentioned, they are savages capable of savage crimes. So his life is taken. No biggie. Sure, later he evidence showed he was innocent, but hey, we’re sure he’s guilty of something.
Do you see how NONE of that is right. We don’t punish crimes depending on what the crime is. If someone steals a VCR, the state doesn’t steal his/her’s VCR. If someone rapes a woman, the state doesn’t rape the rapist. So if someone kills another human, why does the state get to kill the murderer?That’s not punishment, that’s revenge.
Also, you and I KNOW that minorities have been found guilty based on their skin color and their background. If you can’t recgonize that simple fact than you are living in Never Never Land. And trials are messed up pretty frequently, because we are all Human, who often make mistakes. There is always the possibility that the state will make the biggest mistake of all, and one it can’t take back. It could execute an innocent man.