Category Archives: Crime

Colorado Criminal Verdicts and the Death Penalty

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There have been guilty verdicts in two horrific crimes in Colorado not resulting in the death penalty that has caused the Denver Post to publish editorials questioning that penalty. The first crime involved a gunman (I won’t dignify him by giving his name) who set off tear gas grenades and shot into a crowded movie audience with multiple firearms. He killed 12, including a 6 year old girl, and wounded 70. He passively allowed himself to be arrested. The jury did not buy his insanity plea and convicted him of murder. However, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision that his penalty should be death, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence actually was one life sentence for each person he killed and an additional 3,318 years for those he wounded and rigging his apartment with explosives. He apparently had wanted to kill those he knew would respond to his actions while they searched his apartment.

The other case involved the stabbing death of five people in a Denver bar followed by arson to destroy evidence. The motive for the crimes was a robbery that resulted in the theft of $170 dollars and resulted in five dead stabbing victims. Two brothers pled guilty to the crimes. One was sentenced to 70 years in prison and the other was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The third man accused was tried for murder, and the prosecution sought the death penalty. The jury was once again unable to reach the unanimous verdict of death required to impose that penalty.

Denver Post editorials have questioned whether there is any logical basis for the death penalty if these two horrific crimes do not qualify. What crime could he sufficiently horrific to qualify them for the death penalty if these two crimes did not? The most recent editorial presents the opinion, “The death penalty in Colorado has effectively expired.”

Jurors in both cases had testified during selection that they could impose the death penalty. Either they were less than honest (i.e., they lied), or they were influenced by the killer’s mental state in the first case and the abuse of the second killer as a child. I assure those making future jury selections that I would be willing to sentence someone to death if deserved by their crimes. My reasoning is simple. Behave as a human being and be protected from the death sentence. Behave inhumanely and suffer the consequences. I think both the theatre shooter and the bar murderer behaved inhumanely and escaped the logical circumstances, although I freely admit I did not listen to the full body of evidence in lengthy trials presented to those who decided otherwise.

Supreme Court Criminal Trial after a Lynching

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I’m often given a stack of legal magazines while visiting our son and his family, and one article that I’ve saved is titled, “A Supreme Case of Contempt” by Mark Curriden published in the June 2009 ABA Journal. You can tell by the date that it took a considerable time before I could post something about this incredibly sad and disturbing story. The article tells the remarkable story of United States v. Shipp. It was the first and only criminal trial in the history of the Supreme Court. There were nine defendants, and all were charged with contempt of the Supreme Court. The U.S. Attorney had filed the charges directly with the court, which gave it “…original jurisdiction in the matter.” The charges alleged that the defendants engaged in action “…with the intent to show their contempt and disregard for the orders of this honorable court…and for the purpose of preventing Ed Johnson from exercising and enjoying a right secured to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Ed Johnson was a young black man convicted of raping a white woman despite ample evidence he was innocent. He was lynched after police officials stood aside to allow him to be taken by a mob.

The story begins with a 21 year old white woman named Nevada Taylor who was on her way to work in Chattanooga, TN on January 23, 1906. An assailant approached her from behind, put a leather strap around her neck, threatened to kill her if she screamed, and raped her. She ran home and her father called Hamilton County Sherriff Joseph F. Shipp to report the crime. The newspaper report of the “fiendish crime” said that Taylor had not seen the assailant. The report described the assailant as a “Negro brute.” There was a $375 reward announced for anyone who could identify the attacker. A white man named Will Hixxon read about the reward and said he had seen Ed Johnson, a young black man, carrying a leather strap near the scene of the crime about the time it had occurred. Shipp arrested Johnson, who maintained his innocence during a three hour interrogation. Johnson said he had been in a saloon and gave names of a dozen men who could vouch for his story. Continue reading →

Gun Sales Surge

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The tragic massacre of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, created understandable outrage and many legislators decided they must do something. Legislators in my state of Colorado rushed to pass new legislation to “control guns.” Some or all of the legislation will undoubtedly be found unconstitutional, but the legislators and their anti-gun constituents have been repeated portrayed by the media celebrating that they “have taken action.” They were unfazed by the fact the laws they passed would not have stopped the tragic massacres in the Colorado theatre or the Connecticut school.

Gun-Salesman-Obama-Sign

Photo: www.myfoxboston.com

Colorado residents responded to the highly publicized actions by overloading the background check system to buy guns. At one point there was a week or more delay in obtaining approval to make a purchase. The effort to “control guns” resulted in a surge in gun sales.

Colorado wasn’t the only place where guns sales increased. I recently heard a short report on CNBC that retail sales in the U.S. were up by a bit under 2 percent for the fourth quarter of 2012. The primary reason for the increase was attributed to the 20 percent increase in gun sales. Continue reading →

A Rip in Heaven

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rip-in-heavenThis book by Jeanine Cummins, subtitled “A Memoir of Murder and its Aftermath,” was recommended to me by my wife. I told her she has recommended three excellent books in a row, but that she has to suggest one that is has a happier story for the next one. The book is about the “Chain of Rocks Murder Case.” Three teenage cousins, Julie and Robin Kerry and Tom Cummins, have sneaked off late one night in April 1991 to see the poetry that Julie painted on the underside of the abandoned bridge over the Mississippi River. They are accosted by four young men who seem at first to be friendly but then tell the three they are going to rob them. The two girls are gang raped and then all three cousins are forced off the bridge into the Mississippi. Only Tom survives. Julie is with him for a while, but she panics, grabs him, and they both sink. He feels as if he is about to drown, pushes her off, and except for a few brief moments following never sees her again.

A warning about the book is that it is written by Tom’s sister. My wife believed the story, but I was uncomfortable that the information was “unbiased.” However, I highly recommend the book to anyone who is or might be involved in an encounter with the legal system. Tom and his father think they are doing the right thing by assisting the early investigation, and are comfortable that Tom is not at risk because he is innocent. Anyone hearing their Miranda rights being read, including the statement that anything they say can be used against them, should shut up until they have a lawyer representing them. This book illustrates that being innocent is not sufficient protection.

The facts presented about the rapes and murders are difficult reading, and the descriptions of the four young men who brutalized the three cousins and forced them to jump to nearly certain death into the Mississippi should serve as a warning. The four who are convicted are portrayed as committing the crimes without remorse. Some are portrayed as proud that they were the ones mentioned in television reports. One bragged “I did that” before he was taken into custody. Continue reading →