Damn!
Of all the luck, tonight they signed the execution warrant for Billy Kearse. This will make the fourth guy in less than a year who they have killed that had been a neighbor.
Two days later I continued writing
We don’t talk about…
….is stuff much but last Thursday when they took Python (Billy Kearse), it was the fourth former neighbor of mine DeSantos has had murdered in the last year. Two of them I worked with helping their drawing/painting, one was maybe the single best “customer” I’ve had, collecting and sending to his son something like 20 paintings I did of cars. One was an phenomenal chess player that easily kicked my ass every time we played. Two were avid sports fans with encyclopedist knowledge.
Two of them were really good, warm people. One of them I could care less about except he was probably below minimum IQ level to be executed and would have been much better served if he would have had mental health care as an adolescent instead of being locked away in a juvenile detention center.
I wonder why this country still clings to the Puritan ethos of “threat of punishment leads to acceptable behaviour?” I have had the opportunity to ask many confessed murders if the threat of a death penalty even entered their mind and the answer is always a resounding “fuck no!” One person even said the possibility of facing a death penalty contributed to two murders he committed. “I shot the first guy in a fit of rage, after that I kinda figures the cops were going to kill me anyway so why not settle some old scores until they catch me.”
The second and third victim died the day only because the guy I was talking to assumed he was going to get the death penalty.
I have seen many studies and statistics showing how the death penalty is not a deterrent but for some reason the conservative majority in this state, and many others, still have to exact their revenge in a death chamber. That reason can be nothing more than vengeance but while intellectually I think I understand, emotionally I am unable to empathize. Is there something broken inside people that makes them want to kill other humans for revenge, and even worse, why would someone authorize an execution to try to get more votes?
I don’t think I will ever understand.
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