Already dealing death
Naturally, people are calling for Nicholas Sheley’s head.
Outraged by the crimes he’s accused of committing, the words “death penalty” now are as frequently associated with his name as the words “spree killer.”
And it’s not just online commenters, empowered by anonymity, who are saying things like, “fry him” or worse.
All of this, of course, is premature, given that Sheley hasn’t been convicted of anything related to the eight slayings police say he committed.
The string-him-up mentality was so prevalent last week that it rose to a furor. Americans ran out of patience for career criminals a long time ago, and Sheley qualified for the label in spades.
But it wasn’t his considerable stack of courthouse files that pushed public sentiment to the gallows. It was the little boy and the old man.
Homicide is cause enough for outrage. But accusations that Sheley beat a 2-year-old and a 93-year-old to death are the real reasons behind the noose tying.
Maybe there’s some tiny bit of civility hiding in the fact that many people who fantasize about not-so-humane ways of punishing accused killers almost always take the victims’ families into account. We’ve all heard ideas about what kind of access families ought to be afforded to killers.
But therein lies the best argument against it.
I spoke at length last week with the father of one of the homicide victims from Rock Falls. Dallas Branson was the one who discovered the bodies of the four people, including the 2-year-old, who were found in an apartment there.
He sounded entirely too sad to have the emotional space for rage. Maybe there’s more room for it now. I don’t know.
But it would be a crime itself, I believe, to even consider letting Branson “at” Sheley if he is convicted. All that would do is reduce a peaceful, gentle father to violent vengeance. He is above that. What good would it do to make terrorists of the innocent?
While wondering what Branson would think of such a notion, I called Tony Reynolds. The East Moline man lost his daughter, Adrianne, to murder in 2005. In all the conversations and interviews with Reynolds, I never heard him talk about the death penalty for Adrianne’s two killers.
On Thursday, I asked why.
“Sure, you’d like to see them dead,” he began. “But to kill ’em, they wouldn’t suffer at all that way. They might worry about the time coming for them to die, but that’s not so bad. We all gotta die.
“It’s a hell of a lot tougher sitting in prison for 40 years. When you’re dead, it’s over.
“They’ve got to pay first.”
And speaking of paying, some people argue that a benefit of the death penalty is that taxpayers aren’t on the hook for a killer’s lifetime of prison maintenance. We don’t have to feed, shelter and clothe them.
But, as tempting as it may be, a civilized society doesn’t kill people to save money.
“I’ve never actually seen anybody die that way — lethal injection — but it seems easy to me,” Reynolds said.
Well, I have seen two men die by lethal injection. I witnessed a double execution at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Ill., about a dozen years ago. Both killers fell to sleep before they drifted off to death. One even snored.
Maybe some of the victims’ family members felt better for it. Maybe they perceived the executions as justice. Or maybe they were disappointed that the killers stopped breathing, but the survivors didn’t stop hurting.
Killing a killer may deliver a moment or two of get-back satisfaction. But then what?
Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.