It was 2003 and the Monday we buried my grandmother. The family was around in particular my oldest brother, Dale.
Those who know Dale know he’s the smartest, handsomest and most annoying individual to be around. In spite of his annoying tendencies he’s also my favorite brother, sorry Torrie. We have a lot in common; he’s one of the main reasons why I chose to write, and I thank him every day for that. His story is the reason I do not believe execution should be legal.
After my grandmother died my brother was anticipating his trip to Miami, Friday of the same week. My mother told him not to go because she had a bad feeling about it. Contrary to my mother’s belief my brother still went. Everything was normal up until Wednesday of the following week. My mother received a devastating call stating that my brother was in an accident in Florida, and he’s in fatal condition. They didn’t explain how horrific or serious the problem was; they just stated she come as soon as she can. My mother left for Florida that Friday and I went to stay at my Aunt’s house. I remember the conversation when I heard my aunt pick up the phone. She told my mother to stop crying and that everything will be ok. No one told me what happened until years later; I was only nine.
The words my mother uttered to her sister went a little something like this “Dale went to a club in South Beach. Two men drugged him and brought him to a rooftop. They split him wide open with intentions of stealing his organs. They did not succeed because they saw a helicopter flying overhead and panicked. They left my son to die. He was still conscious, he crawled in his blood to knock on a door to save his life. Lucky someone heard him and called the paramedics. The detective said ‘we won’t find who did it’, but the God I serve knows who did it and will bring them to us.”
My mother was right they within two weeks they found the guys. By that time my brother was getting better, the twenty plus tubes he had when my mother first saw him decreased down to five. The ten percent survival rate went up to eighty and my brother was on his way to recovery. The day brother was able to leave the hospital the detective asked my mother does she want to give the guys who did this the death sentence? My mother said no, I want them to live and to know what they did to my son was wrong. I want them to know that they almost took someone from me. My son is not an object but a person and every time they think of they did I want them to know, he survived. The guys are now facing life in prison.
Execution is a touchy subject. It makes sense why people believe they should kill the person who killed their loved ones. Some people like Deryck Alexander believe “Nobody has the right to choose when another person should die.” Others like Ramel Goins say, “If people think they can just murder people anyway, then they should be killed too.” Although they don’t execute criminals unless they have a history of killing individuals. There are still some innocent people who fall through the cracks. Currently, 62 people are on death row as of March 2015. 61 of them are men and only one woman. The three oldest convictions were sentenced 22 years ago, and all three of them have one thing in common, they are being punished for drug-related killings. Of course, no one has the right to die, and if you have lost anyone because they have been murdered, I send my condolences. But killing someone because they hurt you, makes you no different from them. I feel if we put individuals in prison for doing wrong things like murdering someone instead of having drugs on them maybe we wouldn’t have to kill so many people. Prisons are already over capacitated. Most people spend the rest of their lives in prison over stupid convictions. Hopefully, this gets settled, and we don’t have to execute anyone because honestly your concious is the best murderer.
By Chloe Ridore
