The Death Penalty

As the Connecticut legislature is debating several versions of death penalty abolishment bills in committee this week --- to be fair, they are also considering death-penalty enforcement legislation to "sh-- or get off the pot" on the issue --- it may be a useful reminder to read about the failure of the legislative justice process in the neighboring state of Rhode Island. It's being reported in the Providence Journal that Michael Woodmansee, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1983 for murdering a 5-year-old boy (who allegedly wrote in journals that he had eaten the body and shellacked the bones) seven years before, is now in the process of being released.

With the death penalty virtually off the books in Rhode Island (the last legal execution was in 1845, and the only provision for capital punishment, established in 1872, was for murder committed while in prison for a lifetime sentence which was never prosecuted), Woodmansee was able to plea to a murder-2 charge, bargaining with prosecutors who could only leverage against murder-1 with a lifetime sentence. There is a vocal contingent of high-ground moralists who have little or no understanding of the real-world consequences of their positions. Taking capital punishment off of the books leaves one fewer tool to use in a world that is more and more being overridden with heinous crime.

In Connecticut, where the triple-murder of the Petit family in Cheshire shocked the state (and indeed the country), Governor Dannel Malloy campaigned last year on the premise that the death penalty would be justified in heinous cases such as this. Now, Malloy reportedly supports a death penalty abolishment bill should it pass in the legislature, ostensibly with "law doesn't go into effect until [insert date here]" caveat so current death row inmates and the Cheshire murderers would still possibly face death. [Stephen Hayes was sentenced to death last year, while accused accomplice Joshua Komisarjevsky's trial is slated to begin in the coming months]. Only a fool would expect that after legal wrangling, such a grandfather clause wouldn't surely be negated. The Malloy stance is discounting the idea that another such heinous crime will ever happen again in Connecticut. A cynic would say that he flat-out lied about his support for a rare death penalty option the during the campaign. And let's not kid ourselves --- the death penalty is rare in this state, as a death row inmate literally has to beg to be put to death, as in the case of serial killer Michael Ross.

Rhody's attorney general's office is in the process of keeping Woodmansee in a mental institution in an involuntary detention on dangerousness grounds. This is a poor supplement to have to resort to from poor legislative judgment that served only to reduce penalties bit by bit, thus emboldening criminals. Woodmansee was sentenced to 40 years in prison but has received "good time" measures of 12 days per month, that have accelerated his release. This is not an unexpected result from the most liberal state in the United States. Many people in Rhode Island are up in arms about this case. How can the justice system have failed so profoundly to at least make sure this man was in prison until his dying day?

When I saw the Poirot quote from "Murder on the Orient Express" before composing a new post, it gave me a little pause. That quote actually requires a little clarification. Because in the closing, Poirot, despite having learned the truth that his fellow 12 passengers in the coach had conspired together to murder the murderer of a small girl who had escaped justice via mafia connections, lead the local police in the wrong direction. In the book, Poirot had much less of a problem with letting go this band of self-appointed jury / executioners than was shown in this movie version.

Viewing Poirot in the Woodmansee case, though, the father of the slain boy called into a radio show and said point-blank that if his son's killer (and alleged cannibalizer) is released from custody, he will murder this murderer, consequences be damned. And if it happened and I were on his jury, I would probably take a cue from Poirot. The specter of Woodmansee's release is not justice.