Dec. 8
TEXAS:
'Justice' is not a good replacement for answers
One month ago, we executed Melvin White for the hideous crime he committed
on an August night in 1997.
Melvin lies buried in Big Lake's neatly tended cemetery. His 9-year-old
victim, Jennifer Lee Gravell, is 43 miles away - among Ozona's dead.
That is the end of it.
Slow but sure.
Justice triumphs.
We move on.
But stories don't end just because the ink dries. I wrestle with questions
that rise from between those 2 graves.
Questions that will not be quiet.
As citizens, we must protect ourselves from sexual predators who would
rape and murder our children.
Instinctively, I know that raping a 9-year-old girl and crushing her skull
with a tire iron should carry the death penalty in a case like this.
But we really have no idea of what caused this crime, nor how to stop it
from being done again by another Melvin White. We know he drank a fifth of
vodka a day, but we don't know why he drank.
We can't stop monsters from victimizing children on so little information.
And what of the penalty?
Jennifer is not brought back to life by Melvin's death. Does the death
penalty really deter crimes like this one?
Most experts say probably not.
Yet, if we had spared Melvin's life, how would we go about rehabilitating
him? His is the kind of crime where rehabilitation is so hard to evidence.
And do we let him out of prison at some point, risking others?
Doubtful.
So, of what value is incarceration? To kill him does little. To save him
may do less.
In other words, would Melvin's life be worth the effort that it would take
to rehabilitate him?
Not likely.
As a believer in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of mankind, I
wonder whether Jesus' words - to ''turn the other cheek" or, "Judge not
lest ye be judged," or "You must forgive 7 times 70" - can realistically
be applied in our society.
These are hard sayings.
Or if we interpret these passages as testifying to the character and
nature of God rather than rules for human behavior, what do they say? That
God hates sin, and that evildoers should be punished?
Or can Jesus love Melvin and Jennifer just the same?
Jesus never met a Texas politician, scrabbling for money, power and votes.
He never watched our rickety checks-and-balances that often pass for Texas
justice.
Is any punishment worse than death? Possibly.
Living with the effects of one's wrongs might make death a welcome
respite.
Does Melvin White's execution somehow pay for her death? No.
I think he was simply removed - like a malignant tumor - from a society in
which he was unfit to live, thereby keeping him from ever again harming
others.
By that act, was some kind of balance restored?
No.
But some of us may sleep better knowing he's dead.
Is there any sense of closure or completeness for anybody involved?
Do we feel any assurance that another little girl in the future will be
safe from another Melvin White?
Still other questions rise from between the space of graves for the
clearly innocent and the clearly guilty.
Questions such as:
Does Jennifer automatically go to heaven, or Melvin to hell?
Is Melvin beyond redemption?
Such questions - about sin and grace, forgiveness and accountability,
decisions and consequences, salvation and damnation, life and death - are
as confounding as they are compelling.
I wish I could just say that when the facts are known, we could just bury
those facts and move on.
But something tells me that however simple things may seem, human nature
is infinitely complex.
Ever since Cain slew brother Abel, we have striven to draw back the
curtain on our dark mysteries.
Until answers are known, I keep asking questions about what lies between
the graves.
(source: San Angelo Standard-Times)
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Students, faculty members speak out against death penalty
Calling the 1,000th U.S. execution of a death row inmate last week a
tragic milestone, a small group of University of Texas students and
faculty members pushed for the abolishment of the death penalty at a
sparsely attended rally Wednesday.
About a half-dozen activists pleaded with students passing through a
nearly empty campus to sign petitions in favor of ending the death
penalty. Rally organizers had to fight for students' attention with a
fraternity offering free hot chocolate and doughnuts a few feet away.
"Don't be discouraged that there are so few of us out here today," said
associate professor Dana Cloud, a member of the International Socialist
Organization. "The tide is turning in this country."
But death penalty supporter Dianne Clements called the 1,000 marker
insulting to victims.
"The tragic significant milestone was when the 1,000th victim was
murdered," said Clements, president of Texas-based victim's rights group
Justice For All.
(source: Austin American-Statesman)
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State May Have Executed Innocent Man
After years of official reassurances that Texas' capital punishment system
is, well, infallible (including more than one such condescending assurance
from former Gov. George W. Bush), new evidence in an old death case
suggests that the state has executed at least 1 innocent man.
An investigation by the Houston Chronicle suggests that Ruben Cantu, who
was executed in 1993, may in fact have been innocent. Cantu, who at 17 was
sentenced to die for a 1984 robbery and shooting murder in San Antonio,
steadfastly maintained his innocence in the slaying of Pedro Gomez, but
was convicted based on the testimony of an alleged accomplice, then
15-year-old David Garza, and on the eyewitness testimony of Juan Moreno,
who was with Gomez the night he was killed and barely survived the
shooting. Moreno now says he was pressured by police to identify Cantu as
the shooter, and Garza says it was another local teen with him the night
of the killing, not Cantu. According to the Houston daily, Garza pled
guilty to robbery in exchange for the state dropping a murder charge, but
says he never told police that Cantu was his accomplice. Amazingly, Garza
was never compelled to testify at Cantu's trial. The daily also reports
that a third witness, Eloy Gonzales, who, like Garza, never testified at
Cantu's trial, says that he and his brothers were actually with Cantu in
Waco on the day of the Gomez murder.
In the wake of the recent revelations, Bexar Co. District Attorney Susan
Reed (a former district judge who in the late Eighties denied one of
Cantu's appeals) says her office will reopen and review the Cantu case.
Still, state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, says the enormity of the
situation cries out for an additional, state-led investigation. "There
ought to be an independent review in addition to the fine work coming out
of [Reed's] office," he told the Houston Chronicle. "The public has a
right to know if the state of Texas has made a mistake in the
administration of the death penalty."
Kathy Walt, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, seemed less than impressed
with the recent revelations - the recanted testimonies are hardly
"unique," she said. "We've had these kinds of confessions before in other
death-penalty cases," she told the daily. "It's happened before."
(source: Austin Chronicle)
