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EDITORIAL
(8/21/2006)
The Death Penalty in South Dakota: What About the Victim? (continued...)
By Bob Ellis Editor Part 2 (Part 1) ...Since the situation currently before us is not just an academic discussion of the death penalty, we would be remiss not to examine the particulars of this case involving Elijah Page and Chester Allan Poage. According to court reports, Page and his fellow murderers (Darrell Hoadley and Briley Piper) decided in March of 2000 to kidnap and murder their “friend” Chester Allan Poage so they could steal his possessions. At the house where the three murderers had been living, they pulled a gun on Poage and forced him to get on the floor where Piper kicked him unconscious. They tied Poage to a chair and Page forced him to drink a mixture of “crushed pills, beer and hydrochloric acid.” Court documents say Poage begged for an explanation of why his friends were doing this to him, but Page hit him in the face and told him to “shut up.” While the murderers discussed how they might kill Poage, Poage pleaded for his life and offered to give him everything he owned if they would let him live. After getting Poage to divulge the PIN of his ATM card, they put the victim in a car and drove him to Higgins Gulch. They forced Poage out of the vehicle and into 12-inch deep snow where he was made to take off all his clothes except for a tank-top style undershirt, shoes and socks; the temperature was about 25 degrees F. The three murderers then held Poage down and tried to cover him up with snow, then took him to an icy creek about 50 feet from the road. Court documents say Page and Piper admit to kicking Poage “numerous times” in the head and other parts of his body. Poage attempted to escape at one point, but this only brought recapture and more beating. They made Poage lay in the icy creek water “for a lengthy period of time.” Poage begged to be allowed to get in the warm vehicle, saying he would rather bleed to death in the warmth of the vehicle than to freeze to death in the creek. Piper initially agreed to let him in the vehicle if he would wash off the blood from his body in the creek, but after Poage did this, Piper reneged and they continued beating him. After more beating, they put Poage back in the stream where they tried to drown him. Piper stood on the victim’s neck, then stabbed him twice or more in the head and neck. They apparently also beat him with stones. Poage was still moving even after this brutal punishment, so they dropped large rocks on the victim’s head which is believed to have finally killed him. The court documents state that Page admitted dropping these rocks on his “friend’s” head. About three hours after they started beating Poage at the creek, Page and the others left Poage for dead in the water. Page and the others then stole some of Poage's property and used his ATM card to get some cash. Over a month later, Poage’s remains were found in that creek. This is the work of Elijah Page, the man some believe isn’t deserving of execution. Every account of Page’s childhood is a pitiful one. No one seems to dispute that he was ignored, neglected, and even terribly abused. Might his life (and that of his victim, Chester Allan Poage) have been different if his parents had treated him as he deserved? Almost certainly. If we contend Page’s upbringing had no effect on the kind of person he became, we might as well say it doesn’t matter how parents treat their children, what they teach them, or how they raise them. Yet none of us was raised perfectly; all of our parents made mistakes, just as I’m making mistakes with my children. No matter how good or bad our upbringing, each of us remains responsible for what we do with it. Children from terrible backgrounds go on to become tremendously good people, just as people who had every advantage sometimes end up some of the most evil among us. Regardless of what happens to us, we always retain the free will to choose good or evil. Page chose evil. Elijah Page should have been given his justice from abusive parents long ago. But because he was denied justice, should we now continue the circle of denied justice and deny it to Chester Allan Poage? Because Page was abused as a child, should we then excuse him from the penalty he deserves? What would you think if someone caught driving under the influence of alcohol was caught and given a penalty of a $5.00 fee? Would that be appropriate? Would it be appropriate if his father was an alcoholic? It also doesn’t matter that Page might have been under the influence of drugs at the time he murdered Poage. He exercised his free will to take those drugs, just as he exercised his free will to commit the torture and murder of Poage. In order for there to be any rationale for excusing violence under the influence of drugs, every drug user would have to commit violence as an irresistible effect of the drug use. Even then, however, the drug user exercised the free will to take the drug, therefore should own the consequences of any actions he committed after taking the drugs. There isn't even the slightest iota of a question of Page's innocence. He has admitted repeatedly, in detail, his guilt in the murder of Chester Allan Poage. So you can't even invoke an "O.J. Simpson"-like or cop-killer "Mumia Abu-Jamal"-like protest that Page might be innocent of the charges that a jury found him guilty of beyond a reasonable doubt. I don’t normally like to cover the same ground twice in an article, but that “Portrait of Elijah” piece from the Rapid City Journal really bothered me. I’m wondering when they plan to do a “Portrait of Chester Allen Poage?” Was there this kind of outcry, this kind of public hand-wringing after an innocent young man was brutally tortured in a stream bed for hours—by men who ostensibly were his friends? What does this disproportionate response from some in the public say about the moral fiber of our society? More to the heart of why we have the death penalty, it is the pursuit of justice. Justice requires that the penalty for a crime be commensurate to the harm it has caused and its offense to society. A key characteristic of the justice system of a civilized society is the principle of restitution. It was in God’s laws to Israel, and has been in every civilized culture throughout history. What would you think if a man raped a woman and when he was caught, his penalty was 30 days in jail? Would it be appropriate if his parents had allowed him to look at pornography when he was a boy? Of course not—his crime is his crime, regardless of his upbringing. I think we would all agree that giving a convicted rapist 30 days in jail would be an offense to the victim, to the sanctity of her body which had been violated. To treat such a crime with such triviality would also be an offense to the civilized society that has an interest in preventing such behavior through incarceration and deterrence. English philosopher John Stuart Mill once said to the British Parliament: “Does fining a criminal show want of respect for property or imprisoning him, for personal freedom? Just as unreasonable is it to think that to take the life of a man who has taken that of another is to show want of regard for human life. We show, on the contrary, most emphatically our regard for it, by the adoption of a rule that he who violates that right in another forfeits it for himself.” In equating capital punishment with the murder’s acts, we attempt a sort of “moral equivalency” that not only do most thinking people reject, but God himself also rejects. It not only ignores the difference between the actions of individuals and the obligations of duly appointed governments, but also disregards the motivations involved. Throughout the Bible we find that God makes a distinction between the wrongful, malevolent killing of an innocent person, and acts of rightful killing which include self defense, the defense of others, justified warfare, and capital punishment itself. As Don Feder so aptly said, “If capital punishment is state murder, then imprisonment is state kidnapping.” We can understand when a simple child makes the mistake of moral equivalency, but thinking, supposedly rational adults are without excuse. Capital punishment is not an act of vengeance by a hurt or angry individual; it is the impartial, objective rendering of justice to a wrongdoer by duly established authority (established by both God and man). In the end, this really has nothing to do with Elijah Page, what he wants, or what anyone else wants. It has to do with showing the proper value for human life. It has to do with demonstrating to Poage’s memory, to his mother Dottie, and to society that his life had meaning and worth. It has to do with justice for Page’s victim, Chester Allen Poage. Some say that capital punishment offends the value of life. Yet our society, since it has lost it's will to administer the death penalty swiftly and in all cases of murder, has lost the value of life to the point where we viciously defend the right to kill our unborn children in the womb or kill those disabled people who otherwise encumber us. Further, it is not capital punishment that offends the value of life; it is the act of the one deserving of capital punishment who has offended the value of life--by the wrongful taking of innocent life. Failure to execute a convicted murderer erodes human dignity and the value of life. It says that the life of the victim is less valuable and less important than the life of the one who wrongfully killed the victim. That is not the message God sent to humanity, and it is not the message our government should send to its citizens, both innocent and guilty alike.
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