About That Death Penalty...

This morning, I was reading an article on Wired about death row inmates having their writing and art posted on the Internet. The article focuses on the effect that the postings have on the family and on the first amendment rights afforded inmates. While I have much to say on the subject (see the extended article for the synopsis), what caught my eye was the following snippet of information about one of those killers.

In one letter posted on the Internet, Trawick reveled in the Gach slaying.

"I would do the whole thing again knowing death row was waiting for me," Trawick, 56, wrote from Holman Prison.

Trawick confessed to kidnapping Gach, 21, from a Birmingham-area shopping mall in 1992. He took her to an isolated area where he beat her with a hammer, strangled her and stabbed her through the heart.

Gach's body was thrown off an embankment, where it was found the next day. Trawick was convicted in 1994, and he was convicted the next year in the slaying of Aileen Pruitt, 27, killed about four months before Gach.

Trawick has yet to exhaust his appeals, and no date for his execution has been set.

This guy gets more court dates? This guy gets more chances and appeals?

In his own writings he has admitted to the killings, he enjoyed the killings, and he would happily do it again even knowing that death row awaits. I realize that there are good reasons for consistency in sentencing and legal process. Still, shouldn't there be some button that can be pushed that lets a case like this one go straight to the head of the line?

I may be opposed to the death penalty (though this guy dying would be no one's tragedy) but if the penalty is legally imposed it really needs to be used. And, c'mon, he practically volunteered for the job...

Read the story.

My thoughts boil down to this: once you step that far outside the bounds of the law, the law no longer protects you in the same way that it does another citizen. Should death row inmates really have full free speech privileges? Though the postings are usually made through intermediaries, could there be a legitimate curb on allowing information like that to be spread?

My gut says that for a problem as small as this--though obviously much more important to those families of the victims, the numbers effected still must be pretty limited--that curtailing privileges is an unnecessary step. Even more, unless there is a very compelling case to be made for a law restricting rights (even those of prisoners or their twisted followers) then there is no reason for me to support that law.

I recognize the questions, but there simply isn't a compelling reason to put the legal mechanism in place to stop the activity, as odious as it may be.

Posted by zombyboy at January 14, 2004 09:39 AM | TrackBack