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| Ruth Snyder in the electric chair |
I complain about being surrounded by lawyers — two sons, a daughter-in-law and a wife — but there are advantages.
Yes, conversation quickly devolves into .... well ... I couldn't tell you exactly what they're talking about, and I try to listen, hard. For a while. at least. Something about monopolistic practices, for the older boy. About motions to dismiss, for the younger. And landlord difficulties, for my daughter-in-law at Legal Aid (when can I drop the "-in-law" part? It seems unnecessarily specific. I love her like a daughter).
But one does pick up truths, as if by osmosis.
For instance, Saturday I received an email under the very promising slug "Good column yesterday re: Crimo..." that read:
I knew my response immediately. Checked it online at the U.S. Department of Justice's web site (which I hate to ID, lest they scrub that information too. I guess it's safe, because it doesn't deal directly with race. (Though you can't talk about capital punishment without getting quickly to race: a third of the Americans executed since 1976 are Black, double their representation in the population — though I should also observe they're responsible for half the murders).
I linked to the page in my reply:
Yes, conversation quickly devolves into .... well ... I couldn't tell you exactly what they're talking about, and I try to listen, hard. For a while. at least. Something about monopolistic practices, for the older boy. About motions to dismiss, for the younger. And landlord difficulties, for my daughter-in-law at Legal Aid (when can I drop the "-in-law" part? It seems unnecessarily specific. I love her like a daughter).
But one does pick up truths, as if by osmosis.
For instance, Saturday I received an email under the very promising slug "Good column yesterday re: Crimo..." that read:
But too bad CP is not legal in Illinois. How much will the taxpayers spend housing and feeding this vermin, for what, 60 plus years possibly."CP" being, I realized after a moment, "capital punishment" (As opposed to what's going on in Washington now, which we can consider "capitol punishment").
Meanwhile millions of people in our country are homeless and/malnourished. Diverting funds from housing and feeding miscreants like Crimo should be diverted to help those less fortunate in our society, in my opinion.
Consider me a pro capital punishment, far left liberal. Hopefully, one of Crimo’s fellow cell mates will ‘Off him.’ And the sooner the better. Happy weekend. - L. from Glenview
I knew my response immediately. Checked it online at the U.S. Department of Justice's web site (which I hate to ID, lest they scrub that information too. I guess it's safe, because it doesn't deal directly with race. (Though you can't talk about capital punishment without getting quickly to race: a third of the Americans executed since 1976 are Black, double their representation in the population — though I should also observe they're responsible for half the murders).
I linked to the page in my reply:
Ah L., you must not be surrounded by lawyers, like I am. Capital punishment is far, far more expensive than keeping someone in prison for the rest of his life, when you factor in the legal costs. It's cheaper to house 'em for 40 years than to fry 'em once and — if you ask me — a more terrible punishment. There's a former colleague who was sniffing around, begging for his old job back, and I mentioned, just the other day at the office, "I couldn't conceive of a worse fate than being him is." That would go double for Crimo. Thanks for writing. NS
Alas, the reader didn't bother clicking on the link, nor could he grasp that the legal appeals around capital punishment quickly dwarf food and housing and medical care for a prisoner. He seemed to think the choice was shooting Crimo the day after sentencing, or 40 years in prison. I observed that, had the death penalty been on the table, Crimo might never have pled guilty, and the trial would be grinding on right now.
We've all seen Cremo. Cut him loose with the general population of any prison he is sent to long term. No special security measures. Just...cut him loose. Let him mingle with his new friends in the general population. The situation should resolve itself.
ReplyDeleteI believe you're correct, but I also think Crimo will ultimately end up like Dahmer. I firmly believe that the inmate who killed Dahmer was sort of paid to do so. But it was his family that's not in prison that got the money. So I think that some family member of one of those killed or seriously injured at the HP parade will get to the family of a violent lifer, who is already in for life & can't ever get out, to take out Crimo, once they let him into gen pop or if that lifer manages to get to him.
DeleteCrimo is a walking dead man & my guess is the DOC will keep him in some sort of protective custody for a long time, to try to prevent him from being killed, but I really doubt that will work.
C'mon Clark St., this is poorly thought out, even for you. "I think that some family member of one of those killed or seriously injured at the HP parade will get to the family of a violent lifer..." And by what process do you imagine that will unfold? Have you been to Highland Park? And you imagine the grieving relatives of the slain hanging out in, what, Calumet City biker bars, making the appropriate contacts? I don't mind you sharing your fantasy world. But c'mon...
DeleteMr. S, this supposed fantasy actually happened in Real Life, at least once. In the early 80s, a lifer in a maximum security facility (in Columbia, SC) was killed by an improvised bomb that was brought into the prison by a correctional officer. He was bribed by the family of one of the murdered victims of the lifer. How was it done? The explosive device was placed in a radio. When the guy turned it on, the radio blew his head off.
DeleteHow do I know all this? Hard as it is to believe , my cousin Billy (yeah...THAT cousin...the right-wing alcoholic who was once like a brother to me) was working at the prison when it went down. As...what else?...a correctional officer. He told me this bizarre (but factual) story, in excruciating detail.
Mere months after hearing it, an ultra-violent 1983 Sean Penn film called "Bad Boys" was released. Saw it on cable TV. It was shot at the Illinois Youth Center, the medium-security facility in St. Charles. And a skinny little Jewish arsonist (who's naturally also an electronics wizard) employs a fertilizer bomb in a boom box to blow off a bully's face.
Wonder where the writers pulled that one from? One guess. Art (if you can call such scripted violence that) often imitates Real Life, both on the big screen and the small one. Shit can...and occasionally does...happen. So Clark's fanciful scenario, although extremely unlikely, is somewhat conceivable, Mr. S.. If it happened decades ago in SC, it could happen again in IL. But I wouldn't lay a bet on it.
So interesting... did not know this about CP. Makes one wonder what went on in his home, school life to compel him. Some people cut up their own flesh to release their anguish, some take it out on others. WTF happened to this kid?
ReplyDeleteIt is entirely possible that nothing happened to make him this way. He is a sociopath. It could be that he was born this way. Either way, he should never be let loose in the world again.
DeleteYet another example of how the right loves to under educate its followers. It's much easier to let your base get riled up over spending to house felons rather that executing them, than it is to discuss the costs - which FAR out weigh it. And I agree that life in jail seems like a far worse punishment.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been telling this to people for years. As an ex-cop I am unusual in that I’m against capital punishment not only for the costs but because whether or not one is executed depends largely on the quality of one’s legal representation as well as the lawyer’s ability to pay for experts in the defense of the client. I don’t want the state or anyone to kill someone in my name. Life in prison seems a much worse punishment to me.
ReplyDeleteI assume you wouldn't change your mind if was another officer. I have read that it doesn't give closure to a lot of family when the killer is executed.
DeleteIf killing people is wrong, then killing people is wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt's that simple.
Executing someone for committing murder makes no sense.
I agree with Marty G and the mous at 8:44. then some POS murdered my sons grammar school teacher and I felt like I could have done them with mine own two hands I was so angry. no arrest was ever made.
Deleteit takes great discipline and character to adhere to your principles.
I remember as a young man feeling homicidal. nothing in my childhood had led to this it was the drugs and alcohol coupled with the people I hung out with. . thank you Lee Gladstone of northwestern hospital for the years of intensive psychiatric care that helped to make me the person I am today. im just back from the mountain trails where I did my rehab some 35 years ago
He's in Stateville at the moment, but they won't keep him. They're in the process of moving the population to other prisons. If they don't build a new facility on existing land, Stateville will cease to exist.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there was the possibility of simply sentencing Crimo to a life sentence, leaving the option of a parole board opening his cell door twenty, thirty or a hundred years from now. Unlikely as it seems, the guy might have a complete mind change leading to some valuable contribution to society. After all, they let Leopold go and the legal world didn't come crashing down.
ReplyDeletejohn
I am guessing that if any of Franks family was still alive that they probably weren't happy about that. I find it kind of amazing when there are stories and interviews with criminals that are in for long terms seem pretty noarmal. Are fairly well spoken. Maybe they have mellowed out over time or putting on an act.
DeleteI too am a center-left voter who is pro capital punishment. I had a long email debate with a progressive friend years ago, and finally accepted the fact that the cost, not the faulty deterrence argument, nor the guilt conviction inaccuracy argument in the age of DNA testimony, nor the government-cannot-decide-life-or-death argument, was the only legitimate justification to me for continuing to prohibit the death sentence.
ReplyDeleteIn law school I had an amazing course on the death penalty taught by an attorney whose commitment to pro bono work led him to serve as the public defender for Ted Bundy, another killer for whom there is zero sympathy. So I know well how wrong your correspondent is. However, a U.S Attorney told me he felt having CP as an option encouraged criminals to take plea deals.
ReplyDeleteAside from the cost issue is the fact that our criminal justice system is extraordinarily flawed -- well known from the work of the Innocence Project on behalf of the wrongfully convicted. While not the case with Crimo, the U.S. has likely executed innocent people, so we as a society need to deal with that in discussions of whether CP should be legal.
I stopped backing capital punishment after I realized just how many times the wrong people have been convicted of murder. I realized that in addition to the police officer above’s comment about legal representation there is also the sad fact that sometimes cops will lie, prosecutors will lie and manipulate juries and evidence and witnesses can just be wrong. It’s bad enough to have to release a person after decades with a “sorry bout that” and or having to go to the graveyard to say it
ReplyDeleteWho among the far right factors in the legal costs for anything? Our litigious president uses the DOJ as his personal attorneys and litigates every check or balance and every grievance, no matter how small, straight up to SCOTUS. Costly to citizens, but free to him. The ideal perk. Especially since he has "sovereign immunity", to protect himself from counter-suits. I would like an accounting of our government's legal costs.
ReplyDeleteAs for Crimo's life sentences (7 of them, one for every person killed, plus time for those he injured), I hope this marks the end of any public coverage of him. No legal appeals, but also no book deals, and certainly no sale of any future artwork, etc.. Keep him out of the spotlight. Feed his body, but not his ego. If he experiences religious conversion, let it be kept a private matter. and spare the public.
I can't imagine being "in favor" of the death penalty. It is almost fatally flawed by false convictions, uneven application, and the fact that two wrongs don't make a right. Still, there are cases where I'd argue a criminal has gone so far and acted in such a heinous way that they have claimed untimely death as their fate. People who criticize DOGE because government isn't designed for profitability will often cite the relative costs of life/death as a valid argument against the death penalty, but it's not about the costs. Unfortunately, our violent society seems to require a punishment so severe that it matches our worst crimes. Now, all we need to do is stop the false convictions and the uneven application and the problem is solved.
ReplyDeleteI came across an interesting historical bit recently. After some gruesome murder in Michigan there was talk of reinstating the death penalty. Every single prison warden in the state said they would resign before they'd put one of their inmates to death. It didn't explain why they felt they felt that way. My guess is that they'd learned that life is complicated and random.
ReplyDeleteMichigan cannot reinstate the death penalty, because it has never had it in the first place. There have been no executions there since before it became a state, in 1837. The death penalty was abolished in 1846. Michigan was the first English-speaking jurisdiction in the world to do so.
DeleteIn a rare case, a Michigan-born killer was transferred to another prison in Alabama, where he was sentenced to death for a rape-murder in Birmingham. His lawyers filed an appeal, and sought his return to Michigan to serve out his life sentence. Michigan authorities refused. He was executed in February of this year, in Alabama, thus becoming the first Michigan inmate to be executed in another state.
Usually I comment after reading an uplifting column and say something deep like - what a great way to start my day! Today I say a great column and comments to make me think!
ReplyDeleteCP would work out well and frugally if there were no appeals allowed.
ReplyDeleteThen you would have more innocent people murdered.
DeleteDon’t you hate it when that pesky Constitution or Bill of Rights gets in the way? Darn it.
Delete