September 09, 2002
Justice Delayed
Reginald and Jonathan Carr go on trial in Wichita today for murdering five people, and nearly killing a sixth. They shot her execution style, along with four of her friends, and left them naked and bleeding in a frozen field. This was after raping the women, and terrorizing all of them for hours. As they sped away, they ran over some of the bodies. Once they were out of sight the woman crawled to her fiance', who was still breathing, and wrapped his bleeding head. He would die soon after. Then she stumbled and crawled for what must have seemed like an eternity in that icy cold, to a small house, where her screams and pounding on the door awoke the owners. They brought her inside, and she told them the details -- what the killers looked like, the license plate number of their vehicle, what they had done -- reciting all of it quickly, because she expected to die soon. She asked them to tell her mother that she loved her.
A few hours later, Reginald and Jonathan were captured, with the vehicles and the things they had stolen from their victims. That was nearly two years ago. Then came the attorneys, who have to date filed 140 motions delaying the trial. The argued for a change in venue, citing a survey of Wichita residents which showed that 75 percent believe the Carrs are guilty.
Prejudice, they cried, though good sense is probably a more apt description, given two living witnesses (the brothers stole one of the vehicles they used to commit their crimes from someone who they didn't kill) and a host of physical evidence placing them at the scenes of the crimes.
The brothers have separate attorneys because each, while denying involvement, has offered to implicate the other. Each faces the death penalty. There is a chance, as always, that they will be found not guilty, though a greater likelihood is that there will be years of appeals of the likely guilty verdict. Far worse is the possibility that they will be convicted, but by a jury without the willingness to execute them, which means they will spend years in a penitentiary, with the possibility of release always lurking in the possible future.
I say: kill them, or let them go. If the state won't afford the families justice in a timely manner, there are plenty of folks around these parts who will be glad to do it for them.
Kill them, or let them go. Soon.
Posted by Woodlief on September 09, 2002 at 10:42 AM
It still makes me sick. I have a friend whose boyfriend was one of the victims. The DA has indicated to the victim's families that if found guilty, the Carr brother's and their "families" will have an opportunity to plea for their lives while the victims will be denied the chance to speak. It keeps getting worse...
sb
Posted by: Sheri at September 9, 2002 4:44 PM
I share your anger. However, at least the scum are locked up. Jon Benet Ramsey's murderers have not even been arrested yet. Many times I have wanted to take justice in my own hands. (I don't know why none of my friends will teach me how to shoot. It must have been something I said.)In case I "lose it" someday, and go on a rampage, tell my grandchildren I love them.
Posted by: Llana at September 9, 2002 11:07 PM
Justice delayed is justice denied. So, I'd say, first lets shoot both sets of defense attorneys. Then we ca go to work on the 2 brothers. I dontunderstand defense attorneys. What possesses a person to decide to consort with the scum of the earth, and worse still, spens all their time and energy in trying to make excuses for these scumbags, in the hopes that they will be able to get their "clients" off scott-free. Sometimes I wonder if a lot of defense attorneys themselves are social deviants themselves. I see such attorneys on TV in the metro Detroit area, pretty much every day, and I just see them spouting off, and I wonder how they got to be so twisted, that they stand in public making totally outlandish statements about the supposed "innocence" of their scumbag clients.
I wonder why cops get killed in the line of duty, yet defense attorneys never do. do criminals recognise their own kind?
Posted by: sidss at September 10, 2002 1:21 AM
The noble reason for being a defense attorney is so that no innocent person is ever punished - if the person is vigorously defended and STILL found guilty, then there is a really, really good chance that they actually ARE guilty (or can't find an alibi because they were busy committing some OTHER crime at th time... in which case, it's a wash).
Of course, the problem is that there aren't many defense attorneys (at least not big name one that everyone hears about) that are in it for the noble reason...
Posted by: Deoxy at September 10, 2002 9:23 AM
Very true, Deoxy. Unfortunately the good, noble defense attorneys, like good, noble Congressmen, are surrounded by crooks every day and slowly just come to accept criminal behavior as normal. There should definitely be a rotation process for public defenders: X amount time doing defense, then X amount of time doing prosecutorial work, repeat.
Posted by: Cis at September 10, 2002 10:06 AM
Don't be so quick to give up on our judicial system. The alternatives seen elsewhere in the world do not look so promising...
Posted by: vether at September 10, 2002 10:16 AM
