A slim majority of the Supreme Court has granted convicted rapist and murderer Marcus Wellons another chance to keep appealing his case. Because the appeal is based on a bizarrely distasteful incident, it has attracted media attention.
Whereas a run-of-the-mill appeal by someone who merely tortured, raped and murdered a high school girl wouldn’t merit any attention at all:
Something strange happened during the 1993 murder trial of Marcus Wellons. Outwardly, the Supreme Court observed Tuesday, the trial “looked typical.” But “there were unusual events going on behind the scenes.” For example: The Georgia judge in the case spoke outside court to jurors who had gathered at a local restaurant. And after Wellons was convicted and sentenced to die, jurors presented the female judge with a gift of “chocolate shaped as male genitalia,” as the Supreme Court recounted it. If that were not enough, they gave the bailiff a chocolate gift “shaped as female breasts.”
Justice Samuel Alito, dissenting from the majority opinion to send the case back to a lower court to be reconsidered, called the jurors’ gifts “troubling,” “strange and tasteless.” On that, anyone could agree. Why would jurors do such a thing?
Though it hasn’t been widely reported, Wellons’ attorney is actually arguing that the gag gifts are “evidence of the jury’s racial bias” against Wellons. In other words, she is saying that the chocolate genitalia represents Wellons. So what do the chocolate breasts represent? The 15-year old victim? Would jurors be that racist? That callous towards a dead young girl?
Or were they, perhaps, merely blowing off steam after a long trial and sentencing? Remember, the jurors had just been subjected to horrifying evidence of cruelty, endless legal posturing (while their lives were put on hold for weeks or months), and then the netherworld of post-conviction testimony, in which a parade of character witnesses and hacks for hire wax poetic on the defendant’s qualities, spinning fairy tales out of pig’s ears.
I don’t wish to excuse the jurors’ extremely bad taste, but could anyone emerge from such an experience without getting a bit punch-drunk? Could a civilian witness the clown-car pile-up of criminal procedure and walk away feeling merely refreshed?
Well, that hardly matters now. File it in the same trash-bin that holds the facts of the actual crime, and the defendant’s actual guilt, which nobody is questioning: Marcus Wellons has been appealing the minutiae of this case for twenty years now on your dime, and he’s going to continue doing the same, also on your dime, for the next five, or ten, or twenty years, as his violent actions and his victim’s life both fade from memory.
And that is the really distasteful joke.
Tomorrow: Lack of Remorse, Parade of Appeals
Your facts are ass ways backwards
Wellons was found guilt of murder and rape.
The choclate penis was the result of one stupid person. Wellons is guilty or maybe you would like him out of prison living next to you. Dn’t forget about his prior criminal record armed robbery plus other, Wellon’s brother is a Miami cop also. Why is his brother not calling for an appeal???
I actually agree with your thoughts about why the jurors MIGHT have given the gifts, but I don’t think that makes their verdict beyond question. I am opposed to the State taking life in MY name. It’s barbaric and inhumane. Executions are murder and the Lord Jesus Christ tells us not to return evil for evil. I hope Marcus Wellons has found salvation, because I don’t expect him to receive mercy from the government of our beautiful State. Yes, he gave no mercy, but does that allow us to do the same? If anyone agrees or wants to see many reasons to stop executions in our nation, check out http://www.ncadp.com and http://www.gfadp.com and join us. We are 90 million strong and we will be heard!
I agree with PieCatLady.
This guy should never see the light of freedome again, but killing him will do nothing.
His act was sick and evil. He had no right to take a human life.
So why would we imitate his behavior?