John Grisham, famous novelist, and death penalty opponent wrote a piece in the Op-Ed Section of the Washington Post Sunday September 12, 2010 about an impending execution in Virginia. Teresa Lewis is not the easiest case for death penalty opponents, but Mr. Grisham gives it a shot. Ms Lewis was living with her recently married second husband, and having an affair with man named Matthew Shallenberger whom she worked with. He was a thug who wanted to become a contract killer (notwithstanding the small market for that trade in semi-rural Virginia). She was a woman who wanted out of her marriage and some money to boot. Who manipulated whom is open to question, but suffice to say that they had a common goal involving cash. Shallenberger and another man named Lewis Fuller, who Lewis was also having sex with, got the job done. As Grisham writes:
"Shallenberger, Fuller and Lewis -- participated in a scheme to kill Lewis's husband for his money. At some point, the plans broadened to include the murder of her 25-year-old stepson, a National Guard member with a life insurance policy.
On the night of Oct. 30, 2002, Lewis left a door unlocked, got into bed with her husband and waited. Shallenberger and Fuller entered through the unlocked door, as planned. Shallenberger blasted the husband with a shotgun while, at the other end of the trailer, Fuller shot the stepson."
Mr. Grisham is too kind. The appellate opinion in the case, is available at :
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=759844078413784182,
"At some point the plans broadened . . . ", should really read when she found at the she was the contingent beneficiary on her stepson's life insurance policy, she suggested him as a target too. She also figured out which night would be best to kill both of them at the same time.
Grisham in her defence states that the actual trigger men got life imprisonment. A true statement which was an unfortunate ruling by the sentencing judge. Grisham also states that:
"(1) She has an IQ of just above 70 -- borderline retarded -- and as such lacks the basic skills necessary to organize and lead a conspiracy to commit murder for hire;
(2) She has dependent personality disorder and therefore complied with the demands of those upon whom she relied, especially men;
(3) Because of a long list of physical ailments she had developed an addiction to pain medications, and this adversely affected her judgment; and
(4) She had not a single episode of violent behavior in the past."
As to "lacking the basic skills necessary skill to organize and lead a conspiracy", apparently not! She lacked the skills to get AWAY WITH murder, an entirely different concept.
Her need to comply with the demands of the men she relied upon, apparently did not include her husband who might not have demanded to live strongly enough! I say that because she was not a mere contractor. She was in the home when the murder was committed. She remained there with her dead stepson and dying but not yet dead husband AFTER the killers left. She waited about 45 minutes until he finally expired before dialing 911.
Finally, as to the episodes of violent behavior, she pimped her 16 year-old daughter out to Fuller, the man she was also having sex with, but it's probably bad form of me to point that out, since Grisham doesn't.
You really must read the facts portion of the appellate case to get a sense of how horrifying her behavior was. Far from being a case for clemency, Teresa Lewis is a poster child for the death penalty, which is really the purpose of this blog.
I can appreciate those who simply believe that all killing is wrong on a theological or moral basis. There is no argument for that, as long as it is consistently applied. I am not that good of a person, so I have an appreciation for those who are.
My argument is with those who try to make the case for ending the death penalty on grounds of logic or humanity. Those arguments usually follow the line that sentencing to life imprisonment ends their danger to society and is more humane to the prisoner. Those who feel that way must be selective in that part of society they feel responsibility toward. Prison sentences don't stop killers they just take the faces of their victims out of the newspapers and into the anonymity of prison rolls.
It is difficult to get nationwide statistics after 2002, because reporting requirements were changed to obfuscate the numbers. In 2002, according to the Department of Justice 68 prisoners were murdered nationwide. There were also 478 "suicides". About 120 more deaths fell into the category of
"accident" or indeterminate. Most followers of these statistics believe that many of the suicides and accidental deaths were really murders. It doesn't do a prison administration any good to have too many murders in it's prison.
It is safe to say that well over 100 prisoners a year, minimum, are murdered nationwide. Most of these murders do not result in a conviction due to obvious difficulties with finding witnesses who will testify.
Needless to say the prisoners committing these murders are not car thieves and bad check artists. They are often gang members, but almost always prisoners serving a sentence for murder or attempted murder. Those statistics don't even scratch the surface of the number of vicious assaults and rapes committed by those who are locked up forever with nothing left to lose. So if you say that life in prison is a "better" sentence, please acknowledge that you are also saying "I just don't care about the class of persons who will be his next victim".
I also consider it dubious that a life sentence is "humane". Most of us if told by our veterinarian that our family pet would spend the last year of their life in constant pain would have the animal put down as being the humane and civilized thing to do. Yet, we apply a much lower standard of humanity to these prisoners. The fact that they might spend the rest of their life as either the perpetrator or victim of vicious crimes in prison seems to faze us not at all. This does not even account for the psychological damage to the prisoner of knowing that the BEST life they can make for themselves is to merely stay alive.
The Andrea Yates case is another example of misplaced compassion. She is the Houston woman who drowned all 5 of her children in the bathtub. She was originally sentenced to life in prison, which was overturned on appeal to not guilty by reason of insanity. She will probably spend the rest of her life in a mental hospital. Her lawyers were congratulated and went back to their careers and their vacations. The judge will no doubt spend time with his or her children or grandchildren, giving little more thought to Yates. Meanwhile she exists in a nether world. If her mental illness is successfully treated then she has to live every single day with the thoughts of killing her children with her own hands. Society will probably never allow her to be released no matter the testimony of her doctors. What kind of humane treatment is this? Wouldn't a death sentence from the mental prison where she must spend the next 30 to 40 years be arguably at least as humane?
The death penalty is a badly functioning system. That cannot be argued. If we as a society want to outlaw it entirely, rather than attempt make it more responsible, that is understandable. Just realize that when the last death sentence is commuted, and the last John Grisham, or Norman Mailer, or Sean Penn, goes off to a round of self-congratulatory interviews, the killings, the horror show, the nightmare will continue. It will just be in a place that your mind will not allow you to go.
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