As I mentioned below, I was in Kenai (pronounced "Key - nigh". I know it doesn't look it, but go with me on this) doing a sentencing hearing about a week or so ago. Kenai is about a 4 hour drive south of Anchorage, but it's only about a 25 minute flight because the drive has to detour substantially to the east to avoid a fjord. Anyway, client was charged with murder 1 and a slew of other charges. Proof was rather strong. Client winds up in Anchorage with several friends in a stolen car. Car breaks down so he says he will go to Kenai to get one. Hitches down to Kenai. Catches a ride with three people. Two of the people have not so nice cars. The third, though, has a nice car so client tries to steal it. In so doing, driver is shot twice. Client's caught driving this guy's car. I worked out a substantially better deal than he would get at trial and sentencing is set for July 8.
At the sentencing hearing, the courtroom is packed with people who were family of the deceased. There were probably 8 - 10 letters from various family and friends attached to the pre-sentence report. All of them wrote what a wonderful guy the deceased was. A few of them spoke and re-iterated their statements. In the middle of this hearing, I wondered what real difference it made what the deceased was like. Should the fact that the deceased was an all around good guy mean my guy gets more jail time? If that is the case, if the deceased is not so reputable, then my clients should get less jail time. Nobody ever wants to admit to that, but doesn't it work that way to some degree? If the dead guy had been a drug dealer or had a long history of violence, do you think I would have gotten a better deal? If there had been a long history of violence, I might have gotten a better deal if for no other reason than the history might have given rise to a self defense claim, however weak it might be.
If the relative worth of the deceased is not supposed to be figure in sentencing, why do we let this string of family and friends stand up and go on about it? I was also reminded of Socrates, who deplored the Athenian condemned who would have their family come down and beg for the lives of the condemned. Whatever effect the punishment had upon the family of the condemned was irrelevant, so he wondered why they allowed it. He refused such pleas in his case, if memory serves. (It has been many years since I've read Plato.) Does such an emotional catharsis, however beneficial, have a place at sentencing hearings? If so, why? Should it influence the court? I've been to sentencing hearings for clients charged with vicious, brutal sexual assaults where nobody showed up for the complaining witness. Does that make the crime less serious or less worthy of the court's attention than if the court room is packed?
I am not really positing any answers right now. Just ruminations, I guess. I am truly sorry for the deceased's family and friends in this case and I do not mean to diminish their loss, but their allocutions got me to thinking about the relative worth of various crimes and why some crimes are given more weight simply because of who they were committed against.
In a small part, this is one reason why I am against the death penalty. If the deceased is particularly vocal, the jury is more likely to impose the death penalty. Why should that be? Why is one person sentenced to death simply because the family pushed harder? While it is not the only reason, such arbitrariness factors in my opposition to the death penalty. Feel free to comment or to further ruminate below. I don't really have an answer and would thus appreciate any insight.
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