The Voice
A man was executed Tuesday night, and most probably don’t know who he was.
His name is (or was) Tony Mobley and he was convicted of murdering a late-shift pizza worker in Hall County. He shot the man in the neck, ran into the woods and successfully illuded police for about a month before he was caught.
Mobley was executed on the eve of a landmark Supreme Court case that will change the lives of 72 death row inmates and the countless family members who suffered at the hands of their crimes.
The Court handed down a 5-4 decision that bans the execution of death row inmates who committed their crimes before the age of 18.
Mark Anthony Duke was only 16 when he and two of his friends, who were both 15, shot and slit the throats of Duke’s father and his fiance, and her six- and seven-year-old daughters–all because he couldn’t borrow his father’s truck. After the murders he went to the movies for an alibi and the next day he called the police, reporting his family had been killed.
Duke was doomed to die at the hands of the state until the Courts dropped their bomb earlier this week.
So, now then. On one hand there is Mobley, who killed one person during a robbery-gone-wrong and on the other, there is Duke who killed four people.
One gets death, one gets life and justice has yet to be served.
Death is a tricky punishment. Some call it an easy way out, some call it cruel and unusual. Is death the worst possible consequence? Is life in prison any better?
The decision issued by the Court is irresponsible to society. Regardless of one’s position on the death penalty, making a blanket statement like “no person under the age of 18 will ever be given the death penalty, regardless of the crime,” just doesn’t make any sense when there are others who have committed lesser crimes as adults and are serving on death row.
Duke may not have been an adult numerically, but what difference would it make had he been two years older? Does he deserve a different punishment than an 18-year-old who killed four people? Does he deserve a different punishment than Mobley, who killed one man?
It’s not wrong to protect minors from execution if the crime was committed out of naivete, but a 16-year-old who murders his family deserves the same opportunities at trial as an adult: due process, equal representation and just punishment that fits a crime he committed and tried to cover up.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Mar 4 2005. Filed under Our Voice.
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