ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 6, 1996 TAG: 9612090012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CABELL F. COBBS
YOUR DEC. 3 editorial (``With truth in sentencing, life life'') caps a series of news articles and comments on the number of executions in Virginia this year. Calling the situation ``disgraceful'' and a ``gruesome holiday prelude,'' you reiterate your opposition to capital punishment with little more than airy statements to support your position. In fact, I suggest capital punishment is quite appropriate in an increasingly violent society to protect those who have fallen victim to the predators among us.
In 43 years of law practice, I have prosecuted and defended a large number of cases. I have come into close contact with a number of those who prey on society. By and large, those who are finally sentenced to death are psychopaths who will continue a career of mayhem and murder if allowed to continue to inhabit this Earth. In this country, each has received every possible bit of due process in his trial and unending appeals, as well as final considerations of clemency from executive authority.
Can mistakes be made? Certainly, as no system is perfect for determining guilt or innocence or for adjudging punishment. But it's no answer to abolish the death penalty because it's possible to make a mistake. The answer to that lies in working on the system, not eliminating a punishment that most who receive it have richly deserved.
Take Gregory Beaver. What sort of process did he hand out to Trooper Leo Whitt when he shot Whitt as he approached the stolen vehicle that Beaver was operating? Is there any doubt of his guilt? Is there any doubt that he was directly responsible for causing a mother to be widowed and two children to be fatherless?
Or take Lem Tuggle, twice a murderer, who last killed after being freed from prison on parole. He preyed on defenseless women. Is there a need for society to continue to house and feed him at the risk of having him once more escape and become a deadly threat?
To me, as one who has known and represented many of this type, the answer is obvious. Penology's greatest failure is its proven inability to rehabilitate criminal psychopaths. Society cannot tolerate their continued existence and, hence, the death penalty remains as a civilized punishment.
I believe your views might change substantially if you were to study these people as closely as those who have had to deal with them over their lifetime and know that, absent the existence of capital punishment, they will - in the main - continue to threaten the very existence of those who abide by the law and are entitled to walk in this world without fear.
Cabell F. Cobbs of Roanoke is a retired attorney.
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