Last March Cory Coomer Clark died. She was murdered brutally, along with her four-year-old daughter. The monster who did it was found guilty yesterday, and not mentally ill. The jury is going to decide whether he should get the death penalty on Thursday.
I knew Cory back in middle school. I counted her as one of my good friends. We went to the Indiana Dunes together. She slept over at my house a couple of times and we both went to slumber parties at other friends’ houses. She sat next to me in choir, and we giggled the entire time. She had MS, which caused her hands to shake. She smoked back then, when we couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, and she wore a leather jacket with chains that always smelled like cigarettes. She had buttery yellow hair that I used a crimping iron on one evening. She was absolutely beautiful. You can find out more about how her friends loved her here.
We had a falling-out in eighth grade. It was really stupid, but that’s how kids are. I was still updated on how her life was going because her father works with my father. Now I get updates on the trial through my father. He tells me how Mr Coomer is taking it every day. Mr Coomer also has MS, and has walked with the aid of a four-footed cane since I first met Cory. Apparently he didn’t go to the court yesterday because it was too traumatic for him. My dad said Mr Coomer was shaky and grey yesterday. He was the one the Indianapolis newspeople shoved cameras at after Cory was found. I cried when I saw him standing in front of the house where she was murdered, telling us all that his dear girl’s murderer would be found.
Do you want to hear how she died? How she was knifed, with her little girl watching? And how that monster ran after the child when he was done with the mother? If you can stand it, you can find the details here. If you want more information from the case, find it here.
So yeah, I want this monster killed. Who’s going to tell me that this animal deserves to be alive? I’ll kill him myself, if need be, but I have a feeling I’d be standing in a very long line.
On rereading, it appears I may have inadvertently crossed the “don’t wish death” rule. What I meant to say is that I would push the button or throw the switch or whatever if the jury does decide to put this animal to death. I would take on that responsibility, because one of the problems people have with the death penalty is that it makes society into killers. However, I think that there would be a lot of other people who would shove me out of the way in order to flip that switch.
Okay, then. I really started this thread as a rant and knew it would subvert into a discussion about the death penalty, so I was being preemptive. I respect your opinion, and I would be anti if it weren’t for shit like this.
The latest thing I have seen that confirms my belief in the death penalty for threats to society is this guy who has raped 3 prison employees since being jailed, presumably for rape.
I’m so sorry to hear about this. But maybe it’s best for now to rant about this case specifically rather than drag politics into it. Just doesn’t seem appropriate.
The “monster” that killed her probably has friends and family that remember him has fondly as you remember Cory, and are going to be reaching for tissues of their own if the state kills him.
I’m very sorry for the pain and sorrow that you feel at this horror. It’s very justified.
But in expressing your pain in a thread inviting a discussion about the death penalty, you invite comment on the public policy of the death penalty, and that can be a tough thing to hear when you have such personal involvement with a specimen such as the accused here, who is probably a poster child for the most severe penal sanctions we can impose.
In this country, we do not permit the families and friends of an injured party to judge the guilt or punishment to be dealt out to the offender. Why? Because we recognize that the strong emotion that families and friends rightly feel can overwhelm the concept that we are a government of laws, not men. An accused must be judged - and sentenced - by an impartial, neutral tribunal.
I mention all this to say that your willingness to visit the death penalty in this case based on the pain and hurt you feel is totally understandable - but totally outside how we treat criminals here.
I don’t support the death penalty. I have a number of reasons for that, but at the heart of them, I do believe it’s simply wrong for the state to deliberately take a life in revenge or punishment. For protection? Of course… if this guy were in your home, threatening you, I’d have no compunctions if you shot him dead. But he’s in custody now, and he can be left in custody for the rest of his natural life. He can kept in a high-security facility where he is not, realisitically, a threat to other prisoners or to guards.
If this option is available, what do we gain by killing him?
We satisfy your visceral desire for revenge. What else?
By the way – if a judge were to decalre the death penalty “cruel and unusual punishment” as prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, I’d be opposed to that ruling as activist… even though it reaches a result I favor.
The death penalty is clearly constitutional. That doesn’t mean it’s wise to use it.
I read all the links and am disgusted by that man’s actions. Anyone who is able to relate to another person would be.
I’m not claiming pro or anti here - I just want to make the sad note that life isn’t fair. We don’t always get opportunities to turn our (justifiable) anger outward and right a wrong or even the score. Many times our anger must be impotent.
As difficult as it is to accept those things which are beyond our control, “getting even” often doesn’t relieve the pain.
I’m so sorry for your loss and that of her family.
I’m not going to say whether I’m for or against the death penalty, mostly because I just don’t know. I will say I felt the same way after the guy who murdered a friend of mine was found guilty, but we don’t have capital punishment here. And you know what? He has to spend the rest of his life in a prison cell knowing what he did to Katie, knowing that he threw his own life and his family away, that he destroyed the lives of his kids, knowing that he has nothing to look forward to ever again and no one gives a damn about him anymore. I’m okay with that. I hope he’s fucking miserable.
Strangely enough, my dad said that this animal’s mother (I’m sorry that I can’t bring myself to call him a human being) said he deserved the death penalty for what he did. I don’t have a news article about it, because the mother said it to Mr Coomer who said it to my dad who told me.
Yes, Bricker, it would satisfy my feelings of revenge. I have conflicted feelings about it, and I think you expressed my other feelings very well. What’s the difference from having this thing in custody for the rest of his life or killing him, except revenge?
The thing is that I feel revenge alone is almost a justification for the death penalty. I’m not sure why revenge is unethical, except that sometimes it rebounds and soon you have gang ways. So why is revenge unethical, if the criminal has been convicted and has confessed, and a jury finds for the death penalty? I guess I’m a little confused by it.
I know that human’s aren’t animals, but I feel this monster has crossed the line. Wouldn’t we put down a mad dog if it ripped someone’s throat out? Is there a line that someone can cross that takes away humanity? How can we draw that line? i feel that it has been crossed here.
Elysian, my heart goes out to you. No-one, I’m sure, will come here and argue why the death penalty is unfair with the passion that some of us fee appropriate - it would be crass and stupid given the emotion.
And Bricker, so many times I read your comments and wince - but what you put here is so very true and compassionate that I think it should be noted.
If the death penalty were always 100% justified, and guilt was always 100% proveable, and there was some other intent behind the death penalty aside from the retribution of friends and family members(like, say, some form of deterrent power), I might support it. Unfortunately the above conditions are hardly-if ever-able to be met.
THat having been said, I’m sorry for the loss of your one-time good friend. In the last year I’ve come to know 2 different people who knew 2 different friends or family members to have been murdered. It’s shocking and graphic and it seems to rip at the fabric of them.
I hope for the best for you and your friends and family.
Discussions about the death penalty on these boards have helped me revise my position on that particular subject. While I still don’t think it’s morally wrong to kill certain people I’m comfortable with the idea of ending the death penalty for other reasons.
My wife and I were robbed at our wedding reception. In addition to the loss of money and gifts, I had to watch my wife sobbing on the floor in her wedding gown. I think the penalty for robbing someone at their wedding reception should be public hanging in the town square.
Obviously, the victim of a crime, or somebody closely involved, is not the best person to decide the sanction.
Elysian, I am very sorry for your loss. I saw that that guy was convicted on the news this morning and my wife and I were relieved. He was the moron who called his sister from the jail and told her he was going to fake insanity, right?
I’m both surprised to hear that, and pleased that I am wrong. I’m still not comfortable discussing it here - the OP is seriously grieving and I don’t wish to be a jerk.