It was this week in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled capital punishment was both cruel and unusual, especially due to some states’ “capricious and arbitrary” ways of employing the death penalty.  The Court ruled race placed too large a role in determining who lived or died.  It didn’t stop there, however.  The Court recommended new legislation be instituted so that the death penalty might become constitutional again and went on to say legislation should directly address racial problems regarding capital punishment and that new guidelines should be put into place.  This, of course, wasn’t what opponents of the death penalty wanted, but for many, it was a start.

Then, in 1976, a substantial new study revealed over 65% of Americans not only supported the death penalty, but wanted it made constitutional again.  The Supreme Court heard the majority loud and clear and after having been satisfied of the changes it had strongly encouraged some four years earlier, the death penalty was once again deemed constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Interestingly, the first execution only a year later was commissioned via the firing squad.  Gary Gilmore, a Utah killer, faced the squad and in a split second, his life was over.  Still, many groups, including Death Penalty Focus, a group committed to abolishing the death penalty once and for all, insist racism is still too big a priority of those deciding the lives of others.   Further, it also reiterates the many who were convicted and executed, only to be found innocent later due to DNA or other evidence not available prior to the execution.  Currently, nearly 130 people across the country who were facing execution dates have been found innocent and not only taken off death row, but released from prison completely exonerated.  To date, there are over 3,300 prisoners who are on death row awaiting conviction.

It becomes difficult to reconcile those who adamantly insist the system is racist, especially since almost 45% of those currently on death row are white.  African Americans follow with slightly less than 42% of the total death row population, followed by Latinos (11.3%), Native Americans (1.10%) and Asian (1.10%).

With so much crime in today’s headlines, each story more evil than the one before, the odds of the death penalty being deemed unconstitutional again in the near future are practically nil.

While reading through the crime and punishment page of several websites, I came across one of those stories that are on every one of those news pages, and once again, I’m left asking, “Are you kidding me?!”

A woman in Ohio was convicted of killing her one year old daughter by microwave oven. I never thought I’d type all of those words into a single sentence. I don’t know which aspect of this is more infuriating: the fact that she was able to smile and wave to her family on the way out of

China Arnold

the courtroom, reminding us of Casey Anthony’s display during one of her court appearances or the fact she used being drunk as her defense. Her attorney said of his convicted client, “We’re relieved an innocent person didn’t receive the death penalty.” The fact his client was convicted pretty much eliminates the option of referring to her as “an innocent person”. The jury wasn’t able to agree on the appropriate punishment, thereby instantly limiting the judge to use her discretion for the punishment.

Frankly, I’m trying to understand how the jury locked on a case such as this. It’s now up to the judge, who has a few options in terms of sentencing her, the death penalty not being one of those options. I wonder about that too. Why can’t the judge impose the death sentence? This judge’s hands are tied, and it’s not known if she’d have even considered that punishment, but I’m not sure that’s such a good thing when a judge’s powers are determined by a jury’s inability to come to a unanimous decision.

To further complicate this, her defense was contradictory in some ways. It was first argued that her father abandoned her as a child, but that she had a normal and loving childhood - the argument being, “why would a normal person commit murder?” It was also argued that she was drunk when her baby was killed; but again, her attorney said that he couldn’t understand how a “normal’ person could even be accused of this. I don’t know how normal that is, but the attorney said so with a straight face.

Of course, there’s the ever-present cell mate who happily provided testimony of a confession made while in jail. After the jury came back and announced it was locked on whether she should receive life in prison or the death penalty, there was a brief love-fest in the courtroom between this woman and her family, followed by a family declaration on the courthouse steps reiterating how much they love her and how they had hoped for a different outcome because they all believe in her innocence.

If you’ve never researched the damage a few seconds…and I mean literally - a few seconds….can do to the human body, do yourself a favor and don’t. I wish I hadn’t. There was a young child who testified he saw another child go into an apartment, and a few seconds later, the microwave sounded indicating it had stopped. This little boy’s mother was then called to testify and said her child was nowhere near this apartment complex at the time the baby was killed.

The district attorney insists she placed this child in a microwave for two minutes because she was concerned her boyfriend would discover the little girl was fathered by someone else. Let’s just hope her other three children don’t fall through the cracks and are able to build a somewhat normal life despite knowing their mother was convicted of murdering their younger sister.

** Criminal cases related to dui that got the most attention from Criminal lawyers from our Services.

Convicted child molester Joseph Duncan, who upon release from prison, went on to kidnap and murder another child Source: CBS

Anyone who follows cultural and societal trends in America has no doubt wondered why there appears to be an increasingly high number of child molestation cases making headlines. Equally as disturbing is the way these cases are handled in the media. We all receive breaking news emails, sometimes dozens in a day’s time, informing us of the latest developments with each case. The life expectancy for any of these stories is generally two weeks, and after that timeframe has elapsed, the media moves on to the next tragedy.

What we don’t see; however, is the long term damage that will haunt these children. The ones who are fortunate enough to have lived to tell the tale face a lifetime of fear, resentment, anger and a myriad of other psychological problems. Promiscuity, drug abuse and a path of dysfunctional relationships are common threads in the lives of the molested.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that many people are wondering why the death penalty is not applicable for those who destroy the souls of those most vulnerable. My first thought was, “Absolutely! It’s about time!” After giving it a lot of thought, I can’t help but now wonder if that’s the right course. It’s not uncommon for victims to minimize their ordeals, and even insist in open court that it was consensual. They feel as though it’s somehow their fault that all of these powerful people in a huge courtroom are angry and “ganging up” on the accused. Worse still, the accused is often a family member. To apply the death sentence would be too big a burden for some of the victims to carry throughout their lives. They’re already facing adulthood at a disadvantage and molested children can sometimes be the most difficult to convince, whether by loving family members or trained psychologists, that on no level are they to blame for the actions of the accused.