Justice Finally Served?

A saying states that justice delayed is justice denied ...

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

 ... and this can certainly be affirmed by the relatives of the murdered victims, of men sentenced to death for the crimes in the USA.

They often never see "justice" being served, in the form of the death sentences ever being carried out, and in fact its more likely that they themselves will die, before the murderer does ... a fact examined in an earlier blog post. 

This is because being sentenced to death in the USA, doesn't automatically mean that you will ever be executed. The convoluted and slow appeals processes available to defence lawyers, pretty much guarantee the convicted at least a further decade and more of life for the condemned, plus the state may ban or suspend state executions, and of course the Governor may grant clemency. 

So much has been made in news reports worldwide, of the fact that in the USA, three executions occurred on the same day (the 13th of August 2026), in the USA. Of course that's not any sort of record number, as it happened in 2010. This time, they took place in three different states (Tennessee, Oklahoma and Alabama), and as far as I can determine, the fact that they occurred on the same day was merely coincidence. 

The three men executed were absolute scum, and frankly deserved to die in my opinion (so you know my general views on this question), but that aside, and I accept that views on this vary. I fully understand that 'life sentences' allow any wrongful convictions to be corrected later, whereas death sentences, swiftly carried out, don't. But in my opinion, one appeal should be enough to discover wrongful convictions, otherwise what's the point of the original trial, if you just keep retrying someone? However what struck me once again about these executions, was the inordinate length of time it took to carry out the three different courts sentences.

Anthony Darrell Hines, the Tennessee man, was executed for stabbing and killing Catherine Jean Jenkins, a 54 yr old maid, at a motel in 1985 ... so just forty one years on death row ... yes, FORTY ONE YEARS! What the F**k! How can the appeals processes be strung out for this length of time and at what cost to the taxpayers? Probably nearly all Ms Jenkins immediate family and friends were now deceased ... so justice delayed far too long for them, but her surviving son Dennis Jenkins, was in no doubt that at last justice was served by Hines death, "I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through."

Cuesta-Rodriguez, (originally from Cuba), the Oklahoma man executed, was convicted for killing his girlfriend in 2003, and said he regretted killing Olimpia Fisher, after she told him she was leaving him. But this hides how brutal the killing was. He shot her in one eye, and then waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help, before he then fired what was the fatal shot into her other eye. He made no plea for clemency at the end of all his appeals ... so, just a mere twenty three years on death row.

Finally Jeremy Williams, the Alabama, man was executed after being convicted for the rape and killing of Kamarie Holland, a 5-year-old girl he had paid $2,500 to her mother to film, and sexually abuse in 2021 ... the 'mother' of the child was sentenced to just a 20-year prison sentence, after pleading guilty to sex trafficking. He had requested the death penalty, and declined to appeal, but it still took five years to reach the execution date. He was suspected of doing the same thing to a child in Alaska in 2005, but charges were only filed after his conviction for the later offence. 

As I said, all three were monsters, and I guess Williams was the worst of them ... the jurors found Williams guilty of one count each of: sodomy, sexual abuse of a child less than 12, production of obscene material involving a child, human trafficking, conspiracy to commit human trafficking and abuse of a corpse .... don't try and tell me that he deserved to live.

But I leave it to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, to explain why the state of Alabama still has the death penalty. Following the execution of Williams, she said "The unspeakable nature of this crime is exactly why we have the death penalty statute in the state of Alabama.” But I might point out that Alabama is not normally that fast in carrying out death sentences, for instance, Jeffery Lee was due to be executed this year, after being on Alabama's death row for the past 26 years, for the 1998 killing of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson, and the attempted murder of Helen King. He was granted a reprieve by the courts, because of on-going litigation surrounding the States execution method of nitrogen gas hypoxia. Its not clear if or when, he will ever be executed for the double murder. 

So, in reality this triple day of executions was just a strange coincidence of scheduling, and while 52% of Americans still support the death penalty, this figure represents a fall in support over the past few decades. Perhaps, with death row stays of up to 40 plus years (the average is between 15 and 20+ years), death sentences are no longer relevant in the USA. Statistically, 24% of death row inhabitants die whilst on death row, of suicide, illness and old age ... in fact, only 1 in 6 death sentences (roughly 15%) result in an actual execution.