Too Difficult To Understand

2 men died tonight.  Put to death, executed by our legal system.  A system I so struggle with when it comes to the death penalty.  There are many, many things I think are right with our legal system but this is one I wrestle with (and maybe you do too).  To me it is not always black and white.  But then again I have not lost a loved one to a violent crime, therefore again - the struggle comes forth.

At 11:08 pm EST Wednesday 9. 21.11 Troy Davis was executed by lethal injection in GA for a crime he may or may not have committed.  In my opinion there was reasonable doubt as several witnesses in Davis' initial trial signed affidavits recanting their testimony and saying police had coerced them into implicating him.  However the victim's family said they believe Davis is guilty and they are tired of dredging up old memories with each review of the case.

Then the flip side of my emotion and opinion comes in when I realize that this same evening in Texas another execution took place.  A white supremacist gang member, Lawrence Russell Brewer, was executed for the infamous dragging death of a black man who was chained to the back of a pickup truck and pulled whip-like to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate crime murders in recent Texas history.

I happened to live in San Antonio TX when this took place and there were no words to express the level emotion and grief I felt at that time for such a hanus act.  No human being regardless of color, sex, creed, I mean nothing I can think of in my world would justify such a cruel act.  I was, and am still to this very day, just sick to think of such a crime.  Especially because of a person's color...no words!!!!

At that time I thought and said to many people.....whoever did this should die!!!  And I meant it.  No one has the right to do that to another human being without being punished to the most extreme level of the law. 

And that is exactly what happened this evening.  "An eye for an eye".  And for the victims families I'm certain they feel justice had been served.  Then why am I perplexed.

What follows are my layman's opinions based on what I have heard, read and experienced.  In GA there may be doubt as to the validity of the confessions of several people who sentenced a black man to death for the murder of a white man.  In TX there are only eye witness accounts of a white man who murdered a black man and was sentenced to death.  How odd and amazing that both of these men would enter the after world (where ever they are headed) on the same evening. 

I can almost not comprehend this.   Did they meet up somewhere and discuss this???  Weren't they both 'guiilty of the same thing?'  Or perhaps both innocent?  And both deserve the same 'judgement'? 

One prior to death, Troy in GA, offered to take a lie dectector test and Brewer in TX, was asked if he had any final words, to which he replied: "No. I have no final statement." A single tear hung on the edge of his right eye.


Matthew 7
Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

John 8:7

Jesus said:

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone" 

Romans 12:19

"Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. 

As I contemplate all of this I'm listening to an album I loved years ago "Buckingham Nicks".  And the song "Races Are Run" plays and the lyrics startle me with:

"So many different kind of people

Trying to be the same"......
"Races are run

Some people win
Some people always have to lose"

Does that say it all?  Some people win and some people lose?  And even after the executions there are still many losers.  The obvious loss of life on the evening of Wednesday September 21, 2011.  But mainly the lost lives on the day of the murders that took place.  The victims and their family's must never be forgotten in this debate.

Officer Mark MacPhail - Age 27 - August 19, 1989

James Bird Jr. - Age 49 - June 7, 1998

Obviously neither of these innocent men deserved to die almost 10 years apart.  For those deaths, in my eyes, there can be no justice.  Nothing makes that right, nothing!

So tonight (or yesterday as I actually get around to getting my thoughts together for this) are there really any winners?  Was justice served?  Does a life for a life wipe the slate clean?  Are we resolved?  Are families at peace?  Or are we still just in the same place we were hours before these executions....not sure, confused, conflicted....and yes unresolved and definitely Not At Peace?

Are we better or worse for this?  Determined not to judge I refrain from an opinion - but I know for certain I'm remain confused and sad. 
 
RIP:

• Officer MacPhail

• Mr. Bird
• Mr. Davis
• Mr. Brewer