|
CounterPunch
January
23, 2003
The Price of
Despair
DA: Prisoner
Suicides Save Money
by KELLY NOLAN
Is it ever right to take delight in the death
and despair of another? Shasta County District Attorney McGregor
Scott called the suicide of inmate Benjamin Matthew Williams
"the best thing that could have happened for everybody"
and added that Williams' actions will save the taxpayers money.
Matthew Williams was a murderer and an
arsonist. He was a religious fanatic who believed Leviticus 20:13,
that homosexuals would be punished by death. What you may not
know is that he was raised in a strict Christian family with
a long history of mental illness. He was the recipient of abundant
discipline. He once left anonymous Hanukah gifts on the doorstep
of a low-income Jewish family who lived near him. He was the
father of a 9-year-old daughter. He was, until recently, on medication
for a mental disorder. He was extremely religious and felt, at
the end, that he had been forsaken by God.
None of this information justifies Williams'
murder of the couple in Happy Valley or his attack on the guard
at the Shasta County Jail or setting fire to synagogues in the
Sacramento area. What this information should do, however, is
remind us that Williams was more than just a burden to taxpayers.
He, like many of us, was a person who experienced loneliness,
confusion, uncertainty and, ultimately, despair. He was a very
disturbed man, and had he lived he would have spent the rest
of his life in jail.
I don't expect District Attorney Scott
to feel the slightest bit of compassion for Benjamin Williams.
However, for Scott to exhibit such delectation over the suicide
of an inmate demonstrates both a lack of decency and a disregard
for justice, neither of which one ordinarily wants to find in
a district attorney. A district attorney should be seeking justice,
not worrying about how to save the taxpayers money. No justice
was served by Williams' suicide, not even for those who hold
with the principle of lex talionis, an eye for an eye. Now there
can be no verdict of guilt, no public sentencing and no punishment
dispensed in severity to the gravity of the offense. Death is
the last place of refuge, and Williams can now take up his defense
with his God.
My concern is why a district attorney
is making statements that an inmate's suicide is the "best
thing that can happen," rather than demanding an investigation
into why there have been so many instances of prisoners having
access to razor blades? (Williams' is the fourth reported incident
of an inmate with a razor blade known to this writer and another
suicide was attempted on January 11th, by an inmate who hung
himself with a sheet.)
My concern is that Mr. Scott has come
to the point in his career where the death of a man, even a confessed
murderer, means nothing more to him than a way to save time and
money.
My concern is that instead of a public
outcry for McGregor Scott's ouster, his nomination is expected
for the new U.S. attorney for the federal court district based
in Sacramento. (Scott is currently undergoing an FBI check and
his nomination is expected to become official later this month).
Whether one feels any sense of compassion
for Benjamin Matthew Williams is a personal matter. Whether one
feels disgust with the statements of District Attorney Scott
is not. Williams is dead; Scott is delighted. We should all be
dismayed that such a man holds a public position of trust.
Kelly Nolan
lives in Chico, California. She can be reached at: Knolan13@aol.com
Yesterday's
Features
Harold Pinter
God
Bless America
Tom Gorman
How
Alec Baldwin Outted the Fox Blowhard
Bill O'Reilly's Fascism
Richard Thieme
"Why
Are So Many of Your Heroes Assassinated?"
Whistleblowers and Team Players
Kurt Nimmo
Rambo
vs. Bin Laden
Ellen Cantarow
We
the People:
"How Did Our Oil Get Under Their Sand?"
Reza Ladjevardian
Dissenting
Voices in Iran
Joanne Mariner
Hamdi,
Enemy Combatants and the Courts
Brett Eartheart
From Baghdad with Love
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
January 18
/ 19, 2003
William Hughes
Rockin'
DC
100,000 Plus for Peace
Wayne Madsen
Deceptions
& Illusions
How the Press Downplayed the Protests
Alexander Cockburn
American Journal
Paranoid? North Korea?
Kevin Gray
Born
Again
Can MLK's Legacy Be Reclaimed from Its Abusers?
Edward Said
An Unacceptable Helplessness
Saul Landau
Mt.
Whitney Towers Above Death Valley
Eric Ruder
Death Row Shut Down
How Victory Was Won
Anthony Gancarski
Is
the Vatican Part of the Axis of Evil?
Ray Hanania
Likud and Hamas: the Ties that Bind
Walt Brasch
Bush Dances with the Supremes
Carol Norris
Rumsfeld's Paradigm Shift
No Evidence is Evidence
Adam Engel
The Armageddon Jamboree
Anis Shivani
Is It Time to Move to Canada?
Krieger, Smith
Carson
Poets' Basement
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|