Spring Break
What is the value of justice when dealing with human life?
Seth Anthony
Issue date: 6/25/08 Section: Opinion
I first came to CSU in June of 2005. Less than three weeks after I arrived, CSU graduates Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe were murdered in Aurora.
I never knew them or their families, but they were part of the CSU community, which, by all accounts, was enriched by their lives.
This past week, their killer, Sir Mario Owens, was sentenced to death.
The death penalty isn't something that anyone takes lightly, and Rhonda Fields, Javad Marshall-Fields mother, discussed the evolution of her views on the death penalty in a recent Rocky Mountain News article. Previously opposed to capital punishment, she now supports the sentence passed down on her son's killer.
"You know," she said, "to me [life without parole] would be like he got two free murders."
I can't pretend to understand the emotions and experiences that these parents have endured -- having to bury a child, having to sit through a trial where the details of their deaths are recounted, having to talk to the media about it year after year. The emotional impact of it all has to be overwhelming, and just getting by day to day has to require enormous strength and resolve.
There's a disturbing coldness to this type of reasoning, though.
Rejecting one sentence because it doesn't sufficiently match the severity of the crime feels almost like trying to balance accounts on some sort of cosmic ledger sheet. Deduct two murders from the account of Sir Mario Owens, deposit one execution, and are the books of justice suddenly balanced?
And yet, the merit of the sentence, at least for those who sought it, seems to be couched entirely in the terms of this sort of justice, the idea that one action demands one particular type of response.
"For me, it is not about revenge, it is about seeing justice done for my son and Vivian," Fields said.
Christine Wolfe, Vivian Wolfe's mother, has said, "We only know that we lost our child, and really justice is being served."
I never knew them or their families, but they were part of the CSU community, which, by all accounts, was enriched by their lives.
This past week, their killer, Sir Mario Owens, was sentenced to death.
The death penalty isn't something that anyone takes lightly, and Rhonda Fields, Javad Marshall-Fields mother, discussed the evolution of her views on the death penalty in a recent Rocky Mountain News article. Previously opposed to capital punishment, she now supports the sentence passed down on her son's killer.
"You know," she said, "to me [life without parole] would be like he got two free murders."
I can't pretend to understand the emotions and experiences that these parents have endured -- having to bury a child, having to sit through a trial where the details of their deaths are recounted, having to talk to the media about it year after year. The emotional impact of it all has to be overwhelming, and just getting by day to day has to require enormous strength and resolve.
There's a disturbing coldness to this type of reasoning, though.
Rejecting one sentence because it doesn't sufficiently match the severity of the crime feels almost like trying to balance accounts on some sort of cosmic ledger sheet. Deduct two murders from the account of Sir Mario Owens, deposit one execution, and are the books of justice suddenly balanced?
And yet, the merit of the sentence, at least for those who sought it, seems to be couched entirely in the terms of this sort of justice, the idea that one action demands one particular type of response.
"For me, it is not about revenge, it is about seeing justice done for my son and Vivian," Fields said.
Christine Wolfe, Vivian Wolfe's mother, has said, "We only know that we lost our child, and really justice is being served."
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