Convince me two wrongs don't make a right

[MrRant 0]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...us/precious_doe

 

Stepdad, Mom Charged in Precious Doe Slay

 

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - For four years, she was known only as Precious Doe, a little girl whose headless body was found along a road. On Thursday, police identified the girl, arrested her mother and stepfather on murder charges, and pronounced the sad mystery solved.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

The girl with big brown eyes and neat cornrows in her hair was identified as Erica Michelle Marie Green, just shy of 4 when she was found.

 

Her mother, Michelle M. Johnson, 30, and stepfather Harrell Johnson, 25, were charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. Police said the mother told them Harrell Johnson killed the girl with a kick to the head and used hedge clippers to sever her head.

 

Both suspects were being held in Oklahoma, where they live.

 

"We have closure," Police Chief James Corwin said. "The little girl that we've known for four years as Precious Doe has a name."

 

Police said a tip enabled them to identify Erica, but they would not elaborate. And they gave no motive for the little girl's slaying.

 

The girl's body was found near an intersection on April 28, 2001. Days later, her head was found nearby, wrapped in a trash bag.

 

In the months after she became known as Precious Doe, hundreds attended candlelight vigils, volunteered to answer witness hot lines and passed out fliers with an artist's rendering of the girl. The

FBI took blood samples from family members of missing black girls, and the case was featured on television's "America's Most Wanted."

 

A makeshift memorial of poems, teddy bears and flowers was eventually replaced by a permanent memorial in a park near where her body was found. On Thursday morning, among flowers and balloons, a handwritten sign announced the news: "My Name Is Erica Michelle Maria Green."

 

Authorities said the little girl was killed in Kansas City, where the family had been staying with a friend. According to court papers, Johnson said her husband kicked Erica in the head, and they left her on the floor for two days. They did not seek medical help, she said, because both had warrants out for their arrest.

 

The child died, and the couple carried the body to a church parking lot, then through the woods, where the stepfather cut the girl's head with hedge clippers, police said.

 

The break in the case apparently came after community activist Alonzo Washington, who has long championed efforts to find out who the little girl was, placed another advertisement seeking leads in a local paper.

 

"There's something about it that just bothers me that a child could be thrown away and people forget about it," said Washington, who has worked to raise awareness of missing black children.

 

Washington said a grandfather of one of the individuals involved in the case came forward, talking with him and detectives last weekend. He said the source, who had spoken to police before on the case, sent photographs of the child as well as hair samples from the child and the mother.

 

Police and prosecutors refused to confirm specifics or identify the source. Washington declined to be more specific.

 

A photo displayed by police during a news conference, showing the girl with a slight smile and adornments in her braided hair, may have been a picture of the wrong child. Oklahoma police saw the picture and said it appeared to be one of the girl's cousins.

 

Michelle Johnson was being held on $500,000 bail in her hometown of Muskogee, Okla., and will be brought to Kansas City as soon as possible, prosecutor Michael Sanders said.

 

The prosecutor asked that her husband be held without bail.

 

Oklahoma records show Michelle Johnson has convictions for theft and forgery. The stepfather has convictions for several offenses, including assault with a dangerous weapon and possessing a sawed-off shotgun.

 

In Kansas City, police closed off the street in front of the run-down home where authorities said Johnson and her husband had been staying at the time of the killing.

 

People who long had been transfixed by the case welcomed news of the arrests.

 

Billy Stegall, a retired post office worker and Army sergeant, discovered Erica's head in 2001 and has gone back to the site regularly to pray.

 

"This is a day I have been looking for," he said. "I just asked the Lord to say who she is so she could be at peace, because she wasn't at peace and I wasn't at peace."

 

 

I'm really waiting for the anti capital punishment bunch to tell me why we shouldn't just try and hack these two's heads off with some hedgeclippers. It would take a good goddamn long time as well.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Because they'd suffer longer if they were made to rot in prison every single day for the rest of their lives.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Uh.........maybe they didn't do.......

 

Ah, fuck it. Take an AK-47 to their kneecaps and then cut the heads off.

[Carnival 0]

Ya they need to be killed. By papercuts.

[EricMM 0]

What Maniac said. I'm against the death penalty. But I'm not pro-prisoner. Make them work hard the rest of their lives until they die. Make them service society by doing the worst of the worst. Keep them in fetters until the last day of their miserable lives.

[Vyce 0]

Because they'd suffer longer if they were made to rot in prison every single day for the rest of their lives.

You're not selling me on the concept.

 

Unless you're advocating we spend a few hours out of each day torturing them in fun and inventive ways. Then maybe we can make some sort of connection.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I"d be content with confinement, minimal lighting and soundproof walls.

 

Forget the work-hard-the-rest-of-their-lives. They're black, so they'll find ways around the hard labor...

[Highland 0]

Put them in general pop.

Make sure everyone knows what they did.

[Guest MikeSC]

Because they'd suffer longer if they were made to rot in prison every single day for the rest of their lives.

To give you a hint:

 

If life imprisonment WAS worse, people wouldn't find so hard to avoid the death penalty.

-=Mike

[2GOLD 0]

Put them in general pop.

Make sure everyone knows what they did.

 

Tell general pop they sexual assaulted her while she was on the ground dying.

Then give prisoner 45782 a knife and all be well.

[The Czech Republic 0]

What Maniac said. I'm against the death penalty. But I'm not pro-prisoner. Make them work hard the rest of their lives until they die. Make them service society by doing the worst of the worst. Keep them in fetters until the last day of their miserable lives.

A certain someone sure sounds like Bill O'Reilly!

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Wow, Czech has my quote in his sig.

 

Kinda honoured.

[Vern Gagne 0]

Why is what the state might do to this woman a wrong? Assuming she's found guilty in a court of law, and sentenced to death. Her execution imo isn't a wrong, but justice.

[2GOLD 0]

I'm starting to think the anit-capital punishment are more demented than the pro-capital punishment people.

 

One group wants them to be forever treated like scum, working every minute of every day in a cold dark place. While the other wants to give them the mercy of death.

 

It's actually kind of interesting when I think about it.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

You're not selling me on the concept.

 

Unless you're advocating we spend a few hours out of each day torturing them in fun and inventive ways.

 

Does locking them in a cell with a big lonely guy named Bubba count as inventive?

 

To give you a hint:

 

If life imprisonment WAS worse, people wouldn't find so hard to avoid the death penalty.

 

I'd say it's debatable at best, and really depends on the person. Some people (most, actually) naturally fear death, and thus consider anything to be a better alternative to it.

 

Some people, on the other hand, would rather be dead then live in jail. Hell, there's been people who actually fought to BE executed (Carl Panzram and Gary Gilmore, for example).

 

But myself, I look at it like this: Locking someone in jail for the rest of their life *is* a death sentence. They will never leave that building as long as they live. Thus, eventually, they die, which is what you want in the first place, right?

 

But instead of being killed painlessly after only serving a few years in jail (actually, I shouldn't say that, since I believe that people on death row tend to remain there for a long time, what with appeals and all), they get to die at the same time they would have died anyway, except that they had to live every single day in between locked in a box they can never leave.

 

Assuming, of course, they they don't get killed by an inmate before they grow that old.

 

But hey, I'm the sort of person who would much rather be dead now then in jail forever, so that's just how I see things.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Same here. I couldn't bear to live knowing that the rest of my life I had no chance or hope of freedom. Unless I planned a daring escape, of course, in which case, even if I get gunned down, would still be way cooler than a life sentence.

[Guest MikeSC]

To give you a hint:

 

If life imprisonment WAS worse, people wouldn't find so hard to avoid the death penalty.

I'd say it's debatable at best, and really depends on the person. Some people (most, actually) naturally fear death, and thus consider anything to be a better alternative to it.

 

Some people, on the other hand, would rather be dead then live in jail. Hell, there's been people who actually fought to BE executed (Carl Panzram and Gary Gilmore, for example).

 

But myself, I look at it like this: Locking someone in jail for the rest of their life *is* a death sentence. They will never leave that building as long as they live. Thus, eventually, they die, which is what you want in the first place, right?

 

No, they always have the possibility of escape or finding some idiot to play enough of a sympathy card to get them out.

 

Or, in the case of cop killer Mumia, probably make enough money to keep their family comfortable.

But instead of being killed painlessly after only serving a few years in jail (actually, I shouldn't say that, since I believe that people on death row tend to remain there for a long time, what with appeals and all), they get to die at the same time they would have died anyway, except that they had to live every single day in between locked in a box they can never leave.

 

Assuming, of course, they they don't get killed by an inmate before they grow that old.

 

But hey, I'm the sort of person who would much rather be dead now then in jail forever, so that's just how I see things.

You'd be in jail for about 10 or so years, on average, before you even have to think about dying.

 

And why does the death penalty cost so much? Because criminals don't have to pay to constantly file suits and, thus, they sue over everything and appeal ad infinitum. Most people have to pay filing costs and the like to even file a suit.

-=Mike

[The Metal Maniac 0]

No, they always have the possibility of escape or finding some idiot to play enough of a sympathy card to get them out.

 

Honest question: How many death row inmates, on average, escape from US prisons per year?

 

I can't imagine the number is very high. And hell, if there were no death penalties, there'd be no lengthy appeals process, which would free up some money to hire more guards and be used for other saftey-increasing measures.

[Guest MikeSC]

No, they always have the possibility of escape or finding some idiot to play enough of a sympathy card to get them out.

 

Honest question: How many death row inmates, on average, escape from US prisons per year?

Not many.

 

But the POSSIBILITY exists for them.

 

Hope is a powerful thing.

I can't imagine the number is very high. And hell, if there were no death penalties, there'd be no lengthy appeals process, which would free up some money to hire more guards and be used for other saftey-increasing measures.

We could trim the appeals down markedly and kill them quicker.

 

TX new "express lane" for people who committed a capital crime with multiple eyewitnesses is something the entire country should do.

-=Mike

[The Metal Maniac 0]

Not many.

 

But the POSSIBILITY exists for them.

 

Hope is a powerful thing.

 

Is it powerful enough to get them out of jail?

 

I dunno, it just seems silly to use "they might escape" as an argument when even you seem to admit that the chances of escape are slim. Besides, couldn't you argue that a prisoner might be more likely to attempt a desperate escape if he knew he was going to die in a week? And even with the death penalty, couldn't they escape prior to their execution anyway? I mean, if the possibility of escape is such a big worry to you...

 

We could trim the appeals down markedly and kill them quicker.

 

This worries me though, because I do not feel the Judicial system is perfect. What if someone is convicted of a capital crime, sentenced to death, and because of this speedy new process, is executed mere days before evidence of their innocence is found? I mean, isn't that why there's a long appeals process in the first place?

 

At least if you're just gonna lock someone up forever, you can always let them out if it turns out they didn't do it. You can't un-inject someone.

[The Czech Republic 0]

That's why I feel the death penalty should ONLY be done in cases where the "express lane" would apply: multiple eyewitnesses or surveillance tape. The evidence has to be nothing less than incontrovertible, no doubt whatsoever, in order to give someone the chair. So I wouldn't give Scott Peterson the death penalty unlike California, because it's all quite circumstantial and there's nothing that's incredibly damning past the point of no return.

[Ripper 0]

Way too many people believe that prison is just a fun and happy place that isn't that bad. it really isn't. And the suicide rate for people there in the first 6 months is pretty high. Even when they have alike a year to serve. The shit is tough.

 

 

BUT.

 

 

 

Kill these fuckers in a painful way. Death penalty smeth penalty. I am all for vengence so kill them and kill them slowly if they did it.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I think executions should be public, personally.