South Dakota just executed a man.
Last Wednesday at 10:00 PM CDT.
Two drug 'cocktail'.
Dead.
Why?
The killer tortured this guy he knew from Spearfish in a cold-water creek for two hours and with assistance from two others beat him to death. Robbery was the ostensible motive. Who knows how the motive evolved. They crushed his skull with rocks. While the victim, according to the perpetrators, begged for his life. Begged for his life. Begged.
Judge Warren Johnson pronounced a sentence of death.
I spent two years working for Judge Johnson (my nickname was Seldom Seen Dean - guees I was off playing golf or something). If I was to be judged though, I would want Judge Johnson on the panel. He was fair and forgiving, a second chance kind of Judge. I know he knows he made the right decision but I also know that this decision is kicking his ass, personally and publicly.
Judge Johnson is a fair man, not a hard man. He is also a strong man who will live with his decision.
I stand with him, but whether it's wrong or right, killing man is like staring at the sun.
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When did that incident happen? I swear the exact same thing went down once when I was in HS. But they weren't sentenced to death.
ReplyDeleteIn March of 2000, Elijah Page, Briley Piper, and Darrel Hoadley robbed Chester Allen Poage's mother's home in Spearfish.
ReplyDeletePoage happened to be there at the time.
The three men took him to Higgins Gulch, west of town.
According to court testimony, the three men made Poage take off his clothes and forced him into the snow and an icy creek.
Over the next two hours, they stabbed him, hit him in the head with large rocks, and kicked him so hard his ears were torn off.
Page says, "He kept saying, Ow, let me, please let me go. He was just talking to us, asking us to let him go."
Piper is on death row for the same crime.
Hoadley opted to stand trial, he was found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison.
Page ended all appeals and asked for the execution.
"killing man is like staring at the sun". Yes, yes it is,one way or another they both have serious reprecussions!
ReplyDeleteAhh, so that DID happen when I was in HS. Or shortly thereafter, anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnd no comments from the peanut gallery about the "shortly" ok?
I remember hearing all about that and being very disturbed by the events. I think the right decision was made.