Today's local news: jurors deadlocked on the issue of the death penalty for triple-murderer Ali Elijah Davis. Assistant District Attorney Terry Houck was quoted post-judgment, saying "We got a very dangerous man off the street ... hopefully he'll rot in jail."
Obviously, systemic flaws are at issue here. Individual joins gang to fill a void. Does not join gang when immediate family is essentially functional. Joins gangs when circumstances are just the opposite.
Ask anyone: gangs are bad. Are people inherently bad? Besides Adolf Hitler & friends, Idi Amin, Osama Bin Ladin, etc (who are in a class of their own) - the jury is still out on that one. Given dire circumstances, people have been known to do bad things. These things can be sorted but usually they are all varying forms of terrorism. I am not excusing the triple murder. It was, and remains, a tragedy.
What is also tragic is the failure of our criminal justice system. Defense attorney Brian Monahan alludes that this conviction came with no physical evidence linking Davis to the crime.
Three young lives were taken in 2007. There are still a great deal of young lives caught in this vicious gang cycle. Davis has been made an example for anyone who commits gang-related crimes.
Had Davis been sentenced to death, he'd have rotted posthumously. It takes a whole lot of irrefutable evidence and threat to society to prove that an individual is deserving of death. Now that Davis is going to arguably spend the rest of his life in prison, I certainly hope that he does not rot there.
An eye for an eye... you know the rest.
More at The Morning Call:
'Please find it in your heart...'
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