Posted on 04/29/2017 10:53:02 AM PDT by ColdOne
Shed your tears for Mary Phillips & Stacy Errickson
Dennis Wyatt
dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
209-249-3519
April 25, 2017
I do not cry for Jack Jones. Nor do I shed a tear for Marcel Williams.
My tears are for Mary Phillips and Stacy Errickson.
Jones and Williams were executed Monday night by the State of Arkansas.
Jones raped and then murdered Phillips during a botched robbery at an accounting office in 1995. He also beat Phillips’ 11 year-old daughter so savagely that law enforcement officials were stunned when she suddenly moved when crime scene photos were being taken.
Errickson — a 22-year-old mother of two — had stopped for gas in 1994 when Williams forced his way into her car at gunpoint, robbed her, raped her and then dumped her body in a shallow grave. Errickson was not Williams’ first victim. He had attacked women previously.
Endless bytes in the cyber world, non-stop sound bites, and countless words have been typed over the inhumanity that the State of Arkansas is committing by carrying out executions.
It’s been over 22 years since the two men — if you can call them that given they committed heinous acts more fitting to rabid dogs than anyone who considers themselves a human being — were convicted and sentenced to die.
Their respective lawyers on Sunday argued that their clients should be spared being put to death because they were in ill health. That’s right. The opponents of the death penalty are basically arguing the state shouldn’t be allowed to execute anyone unless they nurse them back to good health. It reflects the twisted logic in 2003 of another lawyer who tried unsuccessfully to get the court to order the administration of drug treatments designed to make a death row inmate sane discontinued so the State of Arkansas could not execute Charles Laverne Singleton. If any death penalty opponents would care to know, Singleton stabbed grocery store owner Mary Lou York to death in 1984 during a robbery by plunging a knife repeatedly into her neck.
Jones was on insulin, had diabetes and high blood pressure, suffered from neuropathy, and was on heavy pain medication. He also had a leg amputated below his knee.
His lawyer argued Jones could suffer a “torturous death” as the medication he took may render him resistant to the execution drugs.
One wonders what the lawyer would call Phillips’ death at the hands of his client. The odds are she would have preferred to live at least another 22 years even if she had developed diabetes, high blood pressure, and other issues instead of being raped and killed as well as her 11 year-old daughter beaten to the edge of death.
Williams, we are told, at 400 pounds may make finding a vein problematic.
He certainly had no problem finding Errickson’s windpipe after he raped her.
Neither Jones nor Williams have ever been quoted as saying they inquired about the health of their victims before they executed them nor did they show any concern the women they killed suffered gasping for their last breaths as they administered death sentences while acting as judge, jury, and executioner.
They decided two women had no right to live. There was no appeal of their decision.
I realize there are those that are against the death penalty as they believe it is inhumane. I would argue murdering in cold blood as in a first degree murder conviction with special circumstances that is needed for a death sentence is inhumane as well. That said, I have no problem putting down a rabid dog.
The “state”, they say, has no right to take a life. Yet that is exactly what those on death row have done.
To argue two wrongs don’t make a right is a tad shallow. There is a huge difference between the two acts.
In order to gain residency on death row you have to meet a lot of conditions that separate you from garden variety killers who get convicted for second degree, manslaughter or even first degree murder without special circumstances.
At the end of a day it is a moral question.
And it is not simply a case of whether we should value the life of a convicted cold blooded murderer more than their victims.
It is whether egregious acts that rip into the fabric of orderly behavior and laws that are spun to strengthen the fabric of civilization should be answered with penalties that reflect the act committed.
It is doubtful that the death penalty serves as a deterrent. You could even argue that at one time the death penalty encouraged murder given several states had laws that being convicted of rape could lead to the execution of the perpetuator.
But that said it is fairly common for criminals to kill to avoid punishment for their deeds which is basically imprisonment.
Using the deterrent standard then we should toss out prison sentences along with the death penalty.
At the end of the day it is about justice. It is about civilization.
The penalty must fit the crime.
Mary Phillips and Stacy Errickson did not deserve to die. They committed no crime nor did they aggrieve their murderers.
If they got death for being innocent it’s pretty clear what needs to be the fitting punishment for Jack Jones and Marcel Williams.
It demands death.
Shed your tears for innocent lives lost, not for those who spend 20 years trying to convince everyone society is evil for having state ordered executions after they made it clear where they stand on the death penalty when they were the ones calling the shots.
This column is the opinion of executive editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA. He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209.249.3519.
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/section/38/article/143226/
Cementjungle wrote:
He kidnapped some young couple and eventually shot both, killing the girl... the man survived and this guy was convicted. A month after beginning his sentence he escaped and wound up killing someone else. Later he also admitted to a third murder.
He “apologized” before his execution.
Well apology rejected!
An autopsy should be conducted on the whinny little bitch lawyer. Hopefully while he is still alive. Nothing like the random killing of a few thousand lawyers.
He was sentenced to life for her death, but escaped prison right after he was put in.
Of course, if the victims had been related to the scumbaglette 0bamaJudgePresident Kristine Taylor, Kenneth Williams would have been dead 15 years ago, if not earlier...
I figure maybe a life for a life should apply personally. But I didn’t like the idea of speeding up the executions because the drugs needed to do so were near their expiry date...maybe that caused them to be ineffective. Maybe criminals facing the death penalty should be offered their choice: hanging, firing squad, the chair, or lethal drugs. Put the onus on them.
Every Criminal that is executed should have an obit showing every person they killed or maimed and it should explain the horrendous pain that was inflicted.
I realize I am old but eventually America is going to explode and I dearly would like to face some of these folks that condemn Fences when Obama and quite a few Liberals have them around there residence. We also need to remove them from the White House when a liberal occupies. We also need room remove all weapons from where Congress hold their meetings.
They should wait for the judge’s check paying for the procedure.
WTF for?
It’s still going to say he’s dead and probably from poisoning.
Pointless...
I believe the perp ought to have first been put through a meat grinder, then have the drugs injected into the remains to assure he was dead.
#47
Remember Gary Gilmore? He opted for the firing squad, but I don’t know if the condemned have that choice in every State...
Cruel and unusual? Injections?
Anyone even marginally familiar with a rifle would have no trouble at all discerning the difference between a live round and a blank. A live round was MUCH more recoil. A blank has almost none.
When the man felt better, he went back to work. Once again he became unconscious and had to be dragged out.
Finally it was discovered that he had plugged the line to his breathing mask into the nitrogen line instead of the air line. The mystery was solved.
I don't understand why executions could not be carried out by simply causing the condemned to breath in a nitrogen atmosphere until death. What exactly would be the problem?
As for the death penalty; my opinion wavers some. Some criminals are so clearly guilty and deserve nothing else. Others have been convicted of crimes based on evidence coming from commercial drug testing labs or the FBI, both of which have had instances of fraudulently creating "evidence".
Be assured, after the autopsy he will be.
People choosing the drugs for lethal injections must be doing it wrong.
I would prefer the last word he hears is fire.
Kermit Gosnell could clip the condemned’s spinal cord with scissors.
Bit of a rapist scum too if I remember correctly
Nitrogen Asphyxiation
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