News to muse over

Friday, June 20, 2014

The decades-delayed justice for three murdered women finally arrived this week, when admitted, convicted killers were executed by lethal injection in Georgia and Missouri.

Marcus Wellons was executed for the 1989 rape and strangulation of 15-year-old India Roberts, who lived in the same apartment building as Wellons' girlfriend in Cobb County, Ga.

John Winfield was executed for the 1996 fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend's sister and neighbor in front of her children (he also shot his ex-girlfriend multiple times, but she survived, though blinded and facially disfigured by the wounds) in St. Louis.

These were the first executions carried out since the botched lethal injection of an Oklahoma death-row inmate in April, and there couldn't be better banner cases for capital punishment.

No worries about exonerating DNA or executing wrongly convicted men here; both murderers admitted their acts, but pled mitigating circumstances (Wellons claimed insanity, Winfield said he "snapped").

Even with undisputed guilt, both cases also demonstrate the simply obscene process for attaining justice in death-penalty murder cases.

The average citizen would consider both of these guys low-lifes before they became murderers.

Wellons abused his girlfriend, sometimes holding a gun to her head if she refused his sexual advances.

When she broke up with him, he ransacked her apartment and poured bleach over all her clothes. Following the rape and murder of Roberts in that apartment, he initially told police he had sustained hand cuts and face scratches while fighting off two white burglars.

His appeals after conviction were equally ridiculous. The appellate court was tasked with citing case after case to dispel 35 spurious claims by Wellons of trial court error.

He argued everything conceivable. He argued that some prospective jurors were wrongly excused, and others wrongly allowed. He argued that an eyewitness' testimony should have been inadmissible evidence, that the search warrant for his girlfriend's apartment was illegal (though there was probable cause, plus she consented).

He argued that the prosecutor erred when:

v referring to the victim (in her first week as a sophomore in high school) as a "little girl";

v claiming Wellons "tortured" the victim (a neighbor heard screams from the apartment as the much-larger Wellons brutally raped her--causing vaginal tearing--cut her, tried to use a ligature on her and ultimately crushed her throat with his hands);

v mentioning the victim's lost life opportunities that Wellons had enjoyed.

He even argued that the cross-examination of his character witnesses improperly introduced evidence of bad conduct because those witnesses had to answer questions about his previous troubles in college and with the law.

Winfield wound up blaming his attorneys for his unsuccessful defense, claiming among other things that they didn't put up the character witnesses he wanted.

His lawyers had elected to not call one of Winfield's friends with a long criminal record, or his mother and grandmother, whose false statements about an alibi in police depositions would have done his case more harm than good, the appeals court noted.

Winfield also argued that he was prevented from testifying at the penalty phase (had he testified, he would be arguing that he was pressured by counsel to do so).

Both men also objected to the method of execution and the death penalty in general.

The legal time, energy and money devoted to dragging out the dutiful disposition of justice in open-and-shut cases like these is simply a social outrage.

In neither instance did any of the years and years of lawyering center around the crimes themselves, or the rightful consequences and punishments--instead focusing only on the elements of the process.

It'd be one thing if these cases were exceptions. Unfortunately, when it comes to capital crimes, our court system has deteriorated into the business of denying (by delaying) justice rather than delivering it.

Visual worth 1,000 words

A Canadian woman made the news this week for filming her own stroke with her smartphone, which drove home just how a camera in almost every pocket and purse is changing the way we think, see and communicate things.

Stacey Yepes, 49, had experienced numbness on her left side and went to the emergency room, fearing she had stroke symptoms.

After failing to find evidence of a stroke, the ER doctor concluded she was suffering from stress and sent her home.

Two days later, she felt the same onset of symptoms while driving, so she pulled over and did a "selfie" video so doctors could see what she was experiencing (and also see that stress-management breathing exercises didn't alleviate the symptoms).

Watching the video, hospital doctors this time referred her to a stroke center, where she was diagnosed as having suffered a mini-stroke. A subsequent MRI scan revealed a small brain injury, caused by artery plaque buildup, and doctors now say she almost certainly avoided a larger stroke.

It's becoming a more visual, less verbal world.

When I texted one of my kids, asking for his driver's license number, I expected him to type it back to me.

Instead he sent me a picture of his license.

The takeaway? More show, less tell.

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Dana Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.

Editorial on 06/20/2014