Rumpole, this is the most insightful post ever.
I was Marshall Gore's trial judge on a number of cases in the early 1990's. I really got to know him -- or at least who he wanted me to know. He is a very intelligent man. He is obviously a sociopath, but on the other hand, a very interesting and personable man to have spoken to over the months of his case.
In later years, I bumped into him on a jail tour that I was leading at the DCJ. He was in a safety isolation cell. His tiny dark cell was stuffed with legal pads and his thoughts and writings on an appeal. He was protesting that the jail was failing to serve him Kosher meals and that he was Jewish. In fact, the jail was serving him ham, bacon and everything that they could get that would piss him off.
One of my best friends is a world renowned psychiatrist who had interviewed Gore and felt that he had genius level IQ. I always thought of what a waste of life. but for genetics, environmental factors and "mommy daddy" issues, Gore could have been a charming successful charismatic human being.
Even though I presided over Death Penalty cases ... I am now adamantly against the Death Penalty. It is medieval, barbaric and not reflective of what our society should be.
Executing Marshall Gore tonight will be a notch in the Governor's belt for reelection, but it will be a sad night for civilized humanity. If the public could see the horrible inhumane conditions that Gore has lived in, mostly in isolation with limited hygiene and much darkness, they would say that life in prison under these conditions is punishment accomplished.
Marshall Gore is most certainly guilty of the charges which will lead to his lethal injection in a few hours. I will be sad for his victims, their families, for our society ... and also for Marshall Lee Gore.
I was Marshall Gore's trial judge on a number of cases in the early 1990's. I really got to know him -- or at least who he wanted me to know. He is a very intelligent man. He is obviously a sociopath, but on the other hand, a very interesting and personable man to have spoken to over the months of his case.
In later years, I bumped into him on a jail tour that I was leading at the DCJ. He was in a safety isolation cell. His tiny dark cell was stuffed with legal pads and his thoughts and writings on an appeal. He was protesting that the jail was failing to serve him Kosher meals and that he was Jewish. In fact, the jail was serving him ham, bacon and everything that they could get that would piss him off.
One of my best friends is a world renowned psychiatrist who had interviewed Gore and felt that he had genius level IQ. I always thought of what a waste of life. but for genetics, environmental factors and "mommy daddy" issues, Gore could have been a charming successful charismatic human being.
Even though I presided over Death Penalty cases ... I am now adamantly against the Death Penalty. It is medieval, barbaric and not reflective of what our society should be.
Executing Marshall Gore tonight will be a notch in the Governor's belt for reelection, but it will be a sad night for civilized humanity. If the public could see the horrible inhumane conditions that Gore has lived in, mostly in isolation with limited hygiene and much darkness, they would say that life in prison under these conditions is punishment accomplished.
Marshall Gore is most certainly guilty of the charges which will lead to his lethal injection in a few hours. I will be sad for his victims, their families, for our society ... and also for Marshall Lee Gore.
Item: Marshall Lee Gore is scheduled to be executed tonight for crimes for which he was convicted in Miami Dade.
Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 141, 114 S.Ct. 1127, 1130 (1994) (Blackmun, J, dissenting)
From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years, I have endeavored - indeed, I have struggled - along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. 1Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The basic question - does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants "deserve" to die? - cannot be answered in the affirmative. It is not simply that this Court has allowed vague aggravating circumstances to be employed, see, e.g., Arave v. Creech, ___ U.S. ___ (1993), relevant mitigating evidence to be disregarded, see, e.g., Johnson v. Texas, ___ U.S. ___ (1993), and vital judicial review to be blocked, see, e.g., Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. ___ (1991). The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
John Donne.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
