Almost 20 years ago one of things I was assigned at my firm to do death penalty appeals. The firm was assigned to do this by the district court. I ended up writing 6 appeals. All were pretty interesting.
I am personally very supportive of the death penalty. I had no problem writing the appeals, in spite of my support. I support the death penalty but want to ensure that only the correct party is executed.
In this case, my client was convicted of 1st degree murder for killing two men. You decide if he was even guilty.
My client, let's call him Juan, was part of a Mexican drug cartel. He told me about This was well before Breaking Bad. My client was a low level boss. He had a few guys under him, but was way down the food chain.
One day two of his low level dealers were robbed by some buyers. It was just the hazards of the business. A few days later Juan went to jail for a month for unpaid speeding tickets. It was a crazy amount of time for that given that most DUIs and drug possession convictions got less time.
While Juan was in jail, his two minions moved to a different drug house. And who would show up but those same two druggees who had robbed them weeks earlier.
So Juan's 2 minions grabbed the thieving addicts and tied them up and beat them for days. Juan's boss even came and visited the drug house. Juan's boss didn't know where Juan was and even harassed Juan's girlfriend, but she was too wasted to tell him anything.
3 days later, Juan got out of jail and went to the drug house. He saw the mess and that the guys were almost dead. Then he recognized one. He had gone to school with him.
Juan and his classmate decided that Juan would take the two guys and drop them off somewhere remote and then the two sides would call it even.
Juan then got supplies to transport the men and huge their presence, including two over-sized duffel bags. Unfortunately, Juan needed rope and asked a neighbor. This was his prime mistake.
Juan and his minions took the two to his car and drove them to let them out. When they opened the bags in the trunk, both were dead.
Now it was likely from the days of abuse. Juan and his minions just dumped the bodies.
On a news program a few items related to the murders were displayed. One of the items displayed was the rope. ⁴4⁵ neighbor saw it and turned Juan in.
Juan didn't kill anyone. He didn't kidnap anyone. He was just trying to resolve the problem and let the men go.
Yet he was the only one prosecuted. 2nd murder or manslaughter, maybe, but not 1st degree murder and the death penalty. Luckily this state is one that hasn't executed anyone in forever, so he was just really looking at life, but still, they knew he was in jail when the victims were kidnapped. And his minions and boss got away without a problem.
I don't believe he deserved the death penalty. What do you think?
It sounds to me like the death penalty would not be warranted in this case. I used to be wildly in favor of the death penalty, however, my stance has softened since I've read so much over the years about how it is abused by government bureaucrats (especially in communist banana republics, which is what we are now...). I found this book to be absolutely riveting. https://www.amazon.com/Innocent-Man-John-Grisham/dp/0440243831?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218567638&sr=8-3