Some excerpts from this Argus Leader article about jury deliberations in the Daphne Wright murder case shows how completely adrift many people are these days, both logically and morally.
"I felt like it was all 12 of us saying, 'We grant you mercy,' " said Frost-Elshami, a 38-year-old housewife and mother of two.
The jury wasn't there to grant mercy, they were there to ensure justice was done. Looks like we missed the boat on that one; missed the justice boat and took the mercy ferry instead.
"We wanted her to know that we were more merciful to her than she was to Darlene," said Lisa Wise, 42, a John Morrell employee who also sat on the jury.
Reckon the murderer will get it? I suppose the endless appeals we'll see clogging up the judicial system and burning off tax dollars will reveal whether she appreciates the mercy or not. Maybe she will learn something from it, maybe she won't; in either case, that lesson would come too late to do the victim any good. And it might teach other potential perpretrators that they can expect a better deal than they give their victims.
This is what happens when criminal sentencing becomes more about the people on the jury than about the crime and the perpetrator. When we become more concerned about making ourselves feel good and noble ("Look at me, I showed mercy where the perpetrator showed none") than about rendering a punishment appropriate to the seriousness of the crime, justice is the casualty.
Besides, the perpetrator had an obligation not to injure or kill another innocent person; the jury has no obligation to show "mercy" to someone who has show callous disregard for human life.
But the moral question of a life or death sentence didn't take long, with seven jurors set on life without parole and at least four on the fence. Wise said none wanted to impose the death penalty, but Frost-Elshami said there was one.
So now we know there was only one person on the jury who recognizes the value of a human life wrongly taken.
Both jurors said Thursday that Wright's being black and a homosexual were not discussed in deliberations, but her challenges growing up deaf contributed to their decision.
"I didn't look at what color she was, whether she was a lesbian, but the deafness played a role," Wise said, adding that the sentence might have been death had the defendant been a man.
So this was a pity sentence? People with disabilities are somehow less culpable, less responsible for their actions? Do you think God gives us a pass for our moral failures if we have a disability or had a tough time growing up? Our society might, but I don't see any evidence in the Bible that God gives us a "Get Out of Hell Free Card" if we had "challenges." If I were deaf, I would be supremely insulted by this.
I note also that justice depends on your sex: "the sentence might have been death had the defendant been a man." I don't think justice is blind, anymore.
Wise said she strongly considered the death penalty as the horrific photographs of the victim's body ran through her mind. It was the religious convictions and sense of forgiveness in VanderGiesen's parents that helped her agree on the life sentence.
People can and should forgive; governments have a duty to render justice and punish the guilty. The Apostle Paul stated as much in Romans 13.
"I can live with her never being able to get out of prison again. I can live with that," Wise said.
Whether this juror can "live with" the perpetrator's sentence is irrelevant; if she wasn't able to render justice, she shouldn't have accepted a seat on the jury.
And while Juror Wise may be able to "live with" this sentence, meanwhile the victim isn't living at all--which is what the trial was all about.
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