Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Getting it wrong

I'm always telling friends who read this blog to please, please email me if they see some stupid typo or other dumbass mistake. I know I shouldn't expect other people to save me from myself, but god knows I need some help from somebody. Case in point: My two posts last week that mentioned executed killer Daryl Holton had his name as "Horton." Actually, I used both names, getting it right one time out of four. The AP feed used by a lot of local news outlets contained the same mistake (see here and here), but that doesn't make me feel any better. I had been looking at the TCASK site, where his name is never misspelled.

It just adds to the sadness of the whole business that this poor guy counts for so little that some of us can't get his name right, even as his life is snuffed out. And, of course, it makes his victims' fate a little sadder as well. It was their name, too.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You've got it right, BG. We execute a man only after we've thoroughly de-humanized him and so sanitized the process that it resembles a simple medical procedure more than a cold-blooded killing. By the time he went to his death I wonder if Holton had been so de-humanized that even he didn't know or care if he had a name.

Anonymous said...

Would you rather sit in jail the rest of your life, or be killed?

I'd rather be killed.

BitterGrace said...

The question I ask is, would I rather be a killer, or would I rather not?

I'd rather not, and I'd rather the state didn't have the power of life and death over its citizens.

I don't know what Holton wanted, though he quit participating in his appeals, so I assume he preferred death to a lifetime on death row. I'm not sure what I think about giving people the option of suicide over a life sentence, especially someone as impaired as Holton.

FWIW, he seemed like someone who would have been best served in some more humane institutional setting. He was not a predator, but he was very ill.

Anonymous said...

At the risk of trivializing the issue, Merle Haggard would have agreed with Renee:

"...I prayed they'd sentence me to die/But they wanted me to live/And I know why:/So I'd do life in prison/For the wrong I'd done/And I'd pray every night/For death to come..."

Anonymous said...

Well, there y'go!

Here's what the man in question said:
"I think the death penalty is proportional to the crime for which I was convicted," said Holton. "I'm not going to change my views just because I am facing it."

I would rather not be a killer, but since people do so often take it upon themselves to commit murder, I'd rather see them put down than have to pay for them to sit in jail the rest of their lives. I think that's cruel.

I don't know that I'd trust such a person in any environment. He was vengeful and punitive and very frank about it. That turn of mind would extend itself to any situation it was put in. I'm sure it wouldn't be long until he decided the caretakers in his facility needed to be taught a lesson or some such.

BitterGrace said...

Well, see, that phrase "put down" gives me the creeps. We "put down" dogs and cats and horses. When I start talking about putting down somebody, I'm saying he's no longer human. Who am I to say that? More to the point, do you really want the fucking government to start deciding who's fully human and who isn't? George Bush signed off on more than 150 executions--the Decider at work. I am most definitely not okay with that.

If it's cruel to let Holton live, and he doesn't want to live, then maybe it's okay to give him the means and let him do the deed himself. I don't know. The fact that he can't be trusted doesn't justify killing him. And it's impossible to say what kind of condition he might have been in if he'd been incarcerated in a different environment with treatment for his illness. Not that he would have become a saint anywhere, but he could only deteriorate on death row.

Anonymous said...

He dehumanized himself. He knew what he was doing and he knew what the outcome of that deed would be, and he felt it was fair. Who is the state to kill him? Well, it's part of the state's job to protect the populace from murderers. He separated himself from the human race when he killed his children in cold blood.

BitterGrace said...

The state didn't protect anybody from Holton--on the contrary, it was the state that trained him to kill. He was a veteran, and he murdered the kids with military precision and efficiency. In any case, I have my doubts whether I want the state to assume responsibility to protect me from anything. The whole notion is the perfect tool of tyranny--look at the Iraq war.

Do we really care whether he thought his execution was fair? By that logic, we'd have to turn loose all the murderers and rapists who think their sentences aren't fair. Anyway, this is a guy who thought it was right to slaughter his children. I think his judgment is a tad dubious.

As for resigning from the human race, we just differ on that. I think a person can forfeit his right to live freely in society, but I don't think he can do anything that makes him fundamentally less than human.