Gratuitous Indeed.

 So, it seems I have a certain cachet.  Despite being mostly retired from the active practice of law (mostly though not quite entirely; "retiredish" is the term I've taken to since another lawyer used it to describe my current status"), and despite this blawg having assumed much the same posture for a few years now), Jack Marshall just referred to me as a "distinguished defense attorney blogger." Then, of course, he does his best to show that my opinions are claptrap.  But hey, I'm a DDAB!*

Yee! Haw! as they sometimes say in west Texas.  

Anyhow, Marshall's takedown led some anonymous guy to see what I'd actually written (thanks, Jack) and to ask how I'd respond.**  Ever obliging . . . .

Start with the instant recap:

Kevin Johnson's on death row in Missouri for the murder of Kirkwood, Mo. police officer William McEntee 17 years ago.  He has a very serious execution date of November 29.  Johnson was 19 when he murdered McEntee whom he blamed (justly or otherwise) for the death of his 12-year-old brother some two hours earlier.  Johnson's daugher Khorry Ramey was 2 at the time.  She's now 19, and both she and her dad want her to be a witness to his execution. But Missouri has a statute saying that execution witnesses must be at least 21.  She sued to delay the execution long enough to allow her to litigate the statute's application to her.  The judge just turned her down.  

Unless things change (always possible), Johnson will be executed Tuesday and Khorry won't be there to witness it.

OK, that's the legal background.

Now, my position, expressed as it often is, with snark and outrage and at least one use of the word "fuck" is that Khorry ought to be allowed to watch her father die.  Missouri didn't have to fight her lawsuit, and the judge didn't have to shut it down.  And they didn't need to.  But doing so, effectively shutting her out of the execution, were gratuitous acts of cruelty by the state and the judge.

Missouri could have done it by simply agreeing to delay the execution until she litigates her right to attend.  Regardless of whether they had a legal obligation to do that, they could have simply decided that in the interests of justice and human decency she should have the chance to make her case.  Hell, they could have pushed things on a fast track to get it all done quickly so they could get on with the killing.

And the court could have held that the the irreparable harm she would suffer missing the execution was sufficiently grave, and the 21-year cut off sufficiently arbitrary (at least as applied to her - Johnson's adult daughter), that her as-applied challenge to the law was worthy of a stay to litigate the damn thing.

I didn't parse the legal issues in my post, and I'm not really interested in parsing them here.  Nor, frankly, does Jack.  Here's his entire legal analysis:

With an opinion that is both reasonable and, frankly, obvious, the judge refused to order the emergency TRO, concluding as I did the second I learned about the case that she didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. The claim of “irreparable harm” from not being allowed to watch the father you barely knew be executed is particularly weak.

And, he adds, that

Judges holding to the letter of the law is neither cruel nor gratuitous. 

Which as an abstract observation is both unremarkable and uninteresting.  Of course judges should do that.  But judges asked to consider whether a law is unconstitutional don't get to resolve the question by saying, "but the law says that so it's OK."  To quote Dickens:

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass - a idiot."

The point isn't that the judge had to grant the stay Khorry Ramey sought.  But he could have without clearly ignoring the law.  And the people of Missouri could have been good with that.  And all could done so have without just saying, "hey, whatever feels good to Gamso" or something.  When there are choices, when there are lives involved, compassion's not an evil.***

Jack believes in the death penalty.  I don't. He sees Johnson as solely responsible for the trauma his daughter will suffer.  After all (and Jack doesn't say this, but it's sort of implicit in the argument), he could have decided, before pulling the trigger and killing Officer McEntee that he could be sentenced to die for it and his daughter might want to view the execution and be denied by the Missouri statutes.  

But putting that analytical silliness aside (anyone who spends much time in the criminal trenches knows that people who commit crimes, especially violent ones, simply don't engage first in long-term cost-benefit analysis or, really, even briefly consider the legal consequences.  It's why you don't deter crime by making sentencing laws harsher), it's not Johnson who's responsible for denying his daughter the viewing.  

And, of course, Khorry could have chosen to litigate the legality of the statute's age limitation years ago on the assumption that her dad's execution would be pretty certain to occur at a time when she'd be an adult but not yet of age.

Sure.  Could have happened.

One more bit.  Jack takes me to task for suggesting that Johnson's race may have had something to do with how he ended up on death row.  Here's what we know.  A mixed race jury hung.  He was tried again by an all white jury and sentenced to die.  Do I know that the jury's racial composition was the reason for the difference?  No, not for sure.  Does it seem like that might be relevant given studies of mixed-race versus single-race juries (or even without those studies)?  Yeah.

Jack can disagree all he likes. 

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*Marshall bestows the same honorific on Scott Greenfield, implicitly referencing his post on the same subject that mine riled him up about.

**This sort of thing was common back in the days of the active blawgosphere when bunches of lawyers would routinely discuss and debate (and sometimes eviscerate) issues and attitudes, and other blawg posts).  I kind of miss those days.

***As I explained elsewhere, the late Antonin Scalia disagreed.  

Gratuitously Cruel and Unusual

 July 5, 2005.  Kirkwood, Missouri.  Police executing a search warrant.  Joseph Long, 12 years old, suffers a seizure and collapses to the floor..  Police stepped over him - repeatedly.  Failed to offer him help.  Refused to let his mother in the house to help him.  Joseph Long died.  Kevin Johnson, Long's older brother, stood by helplessly.

Two hours later,  two hours after Joseph Long died, police, including officer William McEntee, returned to the neighborhood after reports of fireworks.  It was McEntee's second visit that night as he'd been part of the search time.  Johnson, still and understandably distraught, saw him. "You killed my brother."

Then Johnson shot him.  Multiple times.

As you might imagine, Johnson being black and facing an all white jury for killing a cop, Johnson ended up on death row.  The good people of the State of Missouri plan to kill him next Tuesday.  Ho hum.  Shit happens.  Especially (but really not exclusively) to black guys caught up in the Missouri Criminal Justice System.  

OK, nothing new here.  The usual voices (mine is one, but you knew that if knew me or you'd been here before) oppose the execution for all the usual reasons - both the general ones about the death penalty in general and the specific ones about the facts and background of this case.  To date, they've had no effect.  The courts so far have all signed off on the killing, the governor is unmoved.  Unless something breaks, always a possibility with several days to go, they'll strap him down and kill him next week.

But see, there's something else.  Really, someone else: Kevin Johnson's daughter, Khorry Ramey.  She's 19 years old now.  Nineteen.  That's the same age her dad was 17 years ago when he watched his kid brother died and then killed Officer McEntee.  Johnson wants her to be there.  More importantly, she wants to be there.  Needs to be there.  To watch ti happen.  To say good-bye in the most intimate and personal way she can.  

To help her, somehow, this victim of the state's killing machine, deal with the trauma those good people of the State of Missouri are inflicting on her by killing her dad for the trauma he . . . . OK, you, know the drill.

Anyhow, here's the thing.  Missouri has a statute, Revised Code Section 546.740 saying who can watch when it kills someone:

546.740.  Execution, witnesses. — The chief administrative officer of the correctional center, or his duly appointed representative shall be present at the execution and the director of the department of corrections shall invite the presence of the attorney general of the state, and at least eight reputable citizens, to be selected by him; and he shall at the request of the defendant, permit such clergy or religious leaders, not exceeding two, as the defendant may name, and any person, other than another incarcerated offender, relatives or friends, not to exceed five, to be present at the execution, together with such peace officers as he may think expedient, to witness the execution; but no person under twenty-one years of age shall be allowed to witness the execution.

It's that last clause,"no person under twenty-one years of age," which Khorry Ramey being 19 and all, just doesn't qualify.  

And so Missouri said no.  And so Khorry Ramey sued.  And so, Missouri could have said to the court,"OK, in the interests of common decency and since we're already committed to a course that will certainly damage the kid maybe we can just let it slide and agree that, as applied to Johnson's kid this is unconstitutional."  And the court would have said, "Dandy.  Khorry wins.  Case dismissed.  Let's eat some leftover turkey."

It could have done that.  It would have been the decent thing to do.  It would have been fair and just and morally right.

Of course, that's not what happened.  Today, the Honorable Brian C. Wimes of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Central Division (let's make this as wordy as possible) issued his opinion.  Missouri wins.  Oh, sure, 

Plaintiff alleges she will suffer harm that is “real, palpable, and devastating,” and no remedy is available at law to compensate her for the emotional harm she will incur if she is barred from attending her father’s execution. (Doc. #8). The Court does not discount these allegations of emotional harm and does not dispute they are irreparable, both in a personal sense and a legal sense.

But tough noogies.  And fuck you.

Strictly speaking, it's not cruel and unusual punishment because it's not punishment at all.  But this is a blawg, not a court.  And what the prison system and the good people of the State of Missouri and the Honorable Wimes are doing is sure cruel, and damn well ought to be unusual. And, oh yeah, gratuitous.