The moral inversion of the relativists who claim that the death penalty is equivalent to ‘human sacrifice’ is beyond comprehension. This was brought about as a result of the post on the convicted cop killer, Anthony Davis, and his victim, Mark McPhail along with McPhail’s surviving family members in Savannah, Georgia.

There are a lot more examples of elevating murderers to the status of heroes beyond the left’s turnout asking for clemency for Tookie Williams.

Let’s look at a few examples of the monsters that I’m aware of since I started blogging.

The Groene Murders

As a teenager in Tacoma, Wash., Duncan raped and tortured a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint. Convicted as an adult, he spent 18 years in prison and was afforded many opportunities to overcome—or perhaps constrain—his psychopathic sexual urges.

He was released on parole in 1994. When he violated his parole, he was sent back to prison in 1997, and was released again in 2000 at the end of his sentence.

Ultimately, all efforts to ‘rehabilitate’ this cretin failed.

After prison, Duncan enrolled in college in Fargo, N.D., registered as a sex offender and spent several years without any reported lapses.

But he just couldn’t contain his natural impulses. He was accused of molesting a boy on a playground in Minnesota which would certainly have led him back to prison, so Duncan vanished from Fargo in a stolen Jeep, just weeks before he was to graduate from North Dakota State University.

Duncan, 42, a convicted sex offender, was released in May, 2005, on $15,000 bail after being accused of molesting two boys. But the previous April of 2005, he broke into the home of Brenda Groene and killed her, her 13-year-old son and her boyfriend. He then kidnapped Shasta and Dylan. (I’m questioning this chronology of events, it seems to be - at the least - very odd.)

Joseph Edward Duncan III was arrested on July 2, 2005, for abducting Dylan and Shasta Groene, murdering their family, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He had an extensive online presence on his blog, Blogging the Fifth Nail.¹

From Buzzle.com:²

First Duncan served 14 years in prison for violently assaulting a boy at gunpoint, then he violated his parole and had to serve the remaining 7 years, and then he was arrested for molesting a 6-year old boy—and they released him on a paltry $15,000 bond? There’s no question that Duncan should have to pay with his life for the crimes he’s committed and the nightmare he put tiny Shasta Groene through. But whoever the judge was that released him should have to pay too, not only by losing his job, but hopefully also by being plagued with his own nightmares for years to come.

The Murder of 9-year old Jessica Lunsford

There is John Couey, a convicted sex offender, who lived within sight of Jessica Lunsford’s parents’ house. Why he was running around is anyone’s guess, but he murdered little 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford after raping her and keeping her in his trailer. She was buried alive. He confessed to kidnapping, raping and murdering her, but the confession was thrown out because he didn’t have a lawyer present.

Funny how these technicalities allow these monsters to sidestep facing consequences for their actions. There are some interesting laws on the books that give protection to ’special groups’. One of the problems with the Couey case, which should be open-and-shut, is a Florida law which states a mentally retarded individual can’t be executed for any crime. Couey is ‘mildly’ retarded, according to the articles I’ve read, but that’s not true. He has an IQ of 78 and the judge said at his recent hearing that he ‘faked’ being mentally retarded.³ Mild retardation is considered an IQ of 60-70⁴. Crafty legal ploy, though. Might as well try it, right? Because there is no denying he committed this crime.

The man is guilty, he did it, and that should be the end of it in my opinion.

Jessica’s father, Mark Lunsford, took the witness stand and spoke directly to the man convicted of killing his daughter.

“I hope you hear her cries as you try to sleep at night,”

Lunsford said, wiping tears.

“I hope you see the tears run down her face as she asked you to go home. I hope you spend the rest of your life in fear of death. You will never hurt another child.”

Lunsford then asked Circuit Judge Richard Howard to sentence Couey to death.⁵

Sentencing has tentatively been set for Aug. 10.

The death penalty was recommended but Couhy has still not been sentenced.

John Evander Couey Still Not Sentenced
June 22, 2007
Three months after a jury recommended the death sentence, John Evander Couey has yet to be sentenced and is not scheduled back in court for a hearing until July 17.

I Haven’t been able to find out if this hearing took place, or if it was continued.

Jury Recommends Death for John Evander Couey
Mar. 14, 2007
A jury of his peers took less than one hour today to recommend a death sentence for John Evander Couey for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Jessica Marie Lunsford.

Justice for Jessica: Couey Found Guilty
Mar. 7, 2007
A jury in Miami deliberated for almost four hours today before returning guilty verdicts in all charges against John Evander Couey in the kidnapping, rape and murder of Jessica Lunsford.

Closing Arguments Set in Lunsford Trial
Mar. 6, 2007
Closing arguments are scheduled in the murder trial of John Evander Couey after the defense suddenly rested its case after calling only one witness.

From the Tampa Bay Tribute’s outstanding Lunsford site⁶:
# Transcript of Deposition of Gary Atchison, lead detective
# Transcript of Deposition of Kenneth Slanker, one of the jail guards.
# Transcript of Deposition of Dr. Steven Cogswell, Medical Examiner
# Transcript of Sworn Statement of John Read
# Couey’s Indictment
# Couey’s Pyschological Evaluation
# March 17, 2005 (PDF, 94 pages)
# March 18, 2005 (PDF, 50 pages)
# March 20, 2005 (PDF, 54)

The Murder of 5-year old Destiny Norton

To my knowledge, Gregerson had not committed a crime like this before, but other court documents point to a Craig Gregerson’s pattern of abuse.⁷ Craig Roger Gregerson, 20, was charged with capital murder in the July death of 5-year-old Destiny Norton, whose body was found in a storage container in Craig Gregerson’s house. His wife Catherine was not living with him at the time.

In December of 2006, the Salt Lake Deseret News reported on a case charging Catherine Gregerson, Gregerson’s estranged wife, with domestic violence stemming from an incident that occurred the April before Destiny’s murder. It really makes one question what is wrong with our justice system. In that incident, according to an article from Deseret News,⁸

Craig Gregerson grabbed the baby, yelled that his wife would never see the child again, and ran inside their home, locking the door. Catherine Gregerson kicked in a screen door, which Findlay said was in dilapidated condition anyway, to get the baby back.

“I don’t think a jury would convict her — not because her husband is Craig Gregerson, but because of the things that happened. I think they charged the wrong person,” Findlay said.

I should say they charged the wrong person! If the guy grabs the baby from her arms and locks the door, and she attempts to get the baby back, knowing that he’s violent and the police have been called on previous incidents, why fault the mother for trying to protect her child? Particularly in view of what we know about him now?

This is all ridiculous. He certainly shouldn’t be given all the chances that we’ve seen the courts give to convicted criminals like him. He should not be released so he can do it again.

The murders of Debra Evans and her children, baby cut from her womb

Fedell Caffey, Jacqueline Williams and Levern Ward

Deborah Evans is pictured above with her children, 10-year old Samantha, and 9-year old Jordan. Their murderers, Fedell Caffey, Jacqueline Williams are pictured underneath. Levern Ward was the father of Evan’s unborn baby and toddler son, not pictured.

Evans was pregnant, and knew the baby was a boy. She’d already named him Elijah. Her 19-month old child, also fathered by Ward, was found at his dead mother’s side when her body was discovered.

Caffey and Williams decided they wanted a baby. So they shot and stabbed Debra Evans to death in her Addison, Illinois apartment and cut her nearly full-term fetus from her body.

Deborah’s father, Sam Evans, said: “She was killed for her baby. They actually cut her unborn baby from her womb as she was dying.”

To eliminate witnesses, they also murdered Evans’ 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, and 8-year-old son, Joshua (pictured above with their mother). Both Jordan and Eli survived.⁹

All three of these vicious people had long criminal records. Williams’ includes convictions for theft and forgery; Caffey for attempted theft, domestic battery and unlawful use of a weapon. Ward had served a three-year sentence for striking a police officer while trying to enter the home of a former girlfriend, and had been released from a prison work camp that January. Ward also had beaten Evans in the past, according to her cousin, Fred Moody.¹⁰

Note: Before George Ryan left office, he commuted 167 death sentences, including those of Fedell Caffey and Jacqueline Williams.¹¹

———————————-
There are a lot more cases of this kind of thing…and the fact that society seems to believe that the murders of innocents are no big deal.

“If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.”

John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence

The benefits of a legal system in which judges and juries have the option of sentencing the cruelest or coldest murderers to death far outweigh the potential risk of executing an innocent person. And there is this added reassurance: The risk of an erroneous execution is infinitesimal, and getting smaller all the time.

The death penalty makes it possible for justice to be done to those who commit the worst of all crimes. The execution of a murderer sends a powerful moral message: that the innocent life he took was so precious, and the crime he committed so horrific, that he forfeits his own right to remain alive.

When a vicious killer is sent to the electric chair or strapped onto a gurney for a lethal injection, society is condemning his crime with a seriousness and intensity that no other punishment achieves. By contrast, a society that sentences killers to nothing worse than prison — no matter how depraved the killing or how innocent the victim — is a society that doesn’t *really* think murder is so terrible.

But there is more to executions than justice for the dead. There is also protection for the living.

A recent study at the University of Colorado, for instance, finds “a statistically significant relationship between executions, pardons, and homicide. Specifically, each additional execution reduces homicides by five to six.” A paper by three Emory University economists concludes: “Our results suggest that capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect. . . . In particular, each execution results, on average, in 18 fewer murders — with a margin of error of plus or minus 10.”

Comparable results have been reached by scholars at the University of Houston, SUNY Buffalo, Clemson, and the Federal Communications Commission. All these studies have been published within the past three years. And all of them underscore an inescapable bottom line: The execution of murderers protects innocent life.

(When Murderers Die, Innocents Live-Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe)

Bottom line is, you can see the trending of execution “stays” here, and I think this needs to stop.

The 635 killers who were executed between 1998 and 2005 had murdered at least 1315 people.
That is an average of 2.07 victims per executed killer.

1977 - 1997 Executions
There were 434 killers executed in this time period. They murdered at least 690 people.

1. Huff, S. (February 21, 2006). Revisiting Duncan, and Beaner… History’s Miseries.[back]
2. Orlando, L. (July 6, 2005) Idaho Girl Gives Disturbing Details of Her Abduction and Abuse: Shasta Groene, the 8-year old girl kidnapped from her home along with her brother six weeks ago, has told authorities the grim and nightmarish details of her ordeal at the hands of a convicted sex offender. Buzzle.com[back]
3. (July 18, 2007) Judge: Sex Offender Faked Mental Retardation kyw.com CBS3.[back]
4. Mental Retardation. Wikipeda.[back]
5. (July 18, 2007) Judge: Sex Offender Faked Mental Retardation kyw.com CBS3.[back]
6. Smith Law Offices (March 16, 2007). John Couey Indictment, transcripts and misc exhibits SexCrimeDefender[back]
7. Thomson, L. (December 2, 2006). Deseret Morning News “Domestic violence trial delayed for Gregerson”. Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Dec 2, 2006. FindArticles.com. 21 Jul. 2007.[back]
8. Thomson, L. (December 2, 2006). Domestic violence trial delayed for Gregerson FindArticles.com[back]
9. (September 29, 2006) Boy stolen from slain mother’s womb in 1995 is sweet, well-adjusted survivor. CourtTVnews[back]
10. Edwards, C. Couple Killed Mother To Get Her Baby. Associated Press. Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky’s student production. [back]
11. Illinois - Outgoing governor empties death row of 167 killers. (2003). also on the same page, Veselenak, A. (undated). George Ryan: The Great Emancipator. Prodeathpenalty.com[back]