On the famously liberal TV network, CBS, there is a program called “48 Hours” which recently ran an episode on the efforts of two women to keep a murderer, Wesley Wayne Miller, in jail.
Wesley Miller was a football player. He looked like Tom Cruise. He was a star of the team– or is that just a cliché offered by “48 Hours” to hype the story?– and you know how America treats athletes. You can be a complete moron and a good athlete and everyone will love you. It’s hard to tell if Miller was a moron or not. He doesn’t get to express himself very much in this piece.
Wesley Wayne Miller was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to 25 years in jail. I have no sympathy for Wesley Wayne Miller. He had a parole hearing after two years. That was probably due to some legal technicality and I doubt he had the slightest real chance of getting paroled– this is Texas– but it seemed disturbing.
I do have a lot of respect for the concept of “rule by law”. That means that a society agrees on a way to create and amend laws, creates and amends the laws, passes them, and then insists that they be applied equally and consistently to all citizens. The point of all this is that just because you like someone doesn’t mean you can give him a lighter sentence than someone else you don’t like. Personal bias should not be a factor. There should be clear and objective criteria. We don’t invite the family of the victim to determine what the punishment should be, for good reason: it would lead (as it has in the past) to blood feuds.
All of us, through our votes, determine what kind of justice system we have.
Well, now that I mention it– I don’t think that is true anymore. We do allow families of victims to give impact statements, though they still do not directly determine the sentence given.
The reporter of the piece, Susan Spenser professes astonishment at the “light” sentence Wesley Miller received. I was astonished that she considered the sentence light. That’s a pretty amazing judgment: 25 years locked up in a prison cell is a “light” sentence? I suppose it is, compared to floggings or torture or slow strangulation.
The program proceeded to ascribe guilt for three or four other rapes to Wesley Wayne Miller, in spite of the fact that he was never charged or convicted of them. One victim now just “knows” it was him. He “probably” committed the others. Why bother with a trial? Who else could it have been?
And now that the viewers “know” (they do not “know” this) that this man has committed all kinds of other crimes, over and on top of the one murder and rape, don’t you just share the absolute horror of the reporter at the idea that a man could serve his sentence and then be freed?
Miller applied for parole and was turned down several times. He was ordered to attend classes to remediate his sexual deviancy– is this some kind of joke? He refused. A psychologist regularly employed by the state certified that Wesley Miller had no redeeming characteristics whatsoever– a fascinating conclusion based on some kind of amazing insights that only a framed degree can give you.
Rona Stratton is the sister of Miller’s victim, Retha Stratton. She and her best friend, Lisa Gabbert, have made it their life’s mission to ensure that Miller pay forever for murdering Retha Stratton. They made sure that he never got parole by attending all of his hearings and organizing petitions.
They express deep pleasure– almost a sense of taunting– in watching Miller walk by during these hearings, knowing that they are partly responsible for keeping him in jail.
When he was finally released under Texas’ obligatory early release program (designed to reduce over-crowding in their despicably ill-managed prisons), they tried to get every community he could be assigned to to reject him. He ended up living in a county jail instead of a half-way house, where he was locked up for 23 hours a day. That kind of defeats the purpose of a transition home. Miller didn’t get any chance at all to adjust to life on the outside.
Now, I could see how the two women might take some grim satisfaction in seeing that Miller was not released early. But I was fascinated by the pleasure they took in it, their delight in hounding the guy. It’s almost impossible to feel sympathy for a former high school football jock, rapist and murderer, but you almost start to– he was told his sentence was for 25 years. They didn’t tell him that he would be fair game for family and friends of his victims to do whatever they could to increase his suffering as much as possible.
The two women succeeded in lobbying for a new law that created a special category of sexual offenders who could be controlled in various ways indefinitely by the state even after they had served their sentences. Is this constitutional?
More importantly: if a person is so psychotic that he deserves to be held indefinitely by the state, how can he be held to be criminally responsible for his crimes?
If Wesley Miller was criminally responsible, and not “psychotic”, then he would be sentenced to jail time. He wouldn’t get to go to a “cushy” psychiatric hospital, from which suspiciously intellectual and effeminate psychologists would be able to eventually release him as cured. No, no, no.
So he is a criminal. So he is criminally responsible. So, all right: he gets 25 years. I don’t think that’s a light sentence but some do. Well, tough. That’s the jury system. He was tried fair and square. If you don’t like the results, complain to the jury.
But don’t try this: change the laws afterwards so you can get back at him some other way. And that’s what they did. And now they are trying to get the law applied to Wesley Miller even though the law was enacted well after he had committed his crimes and been convicted and sentenced for them. Is that fair? Is it constitutional?
It is absolutely not constitutional.
These two women are immune to any kind of backlash: they are family and friend of victims. How dare you think they might just might be vindictive or cruel, or that the sense of purpose they have found for their lives, inflicting suffering on another human being, is anything less than righteous, virtuous wrath?
That it might be misguided, narcissistic, and demeaning?
The sheer joy with which America punishes criminals with long, brutal sentences, makes you wonder if this will ever be a civilized society. It’s easy to be civilized if you think it means donating to charities and having award shows. It’s a lot harder if you think the heart of civility is the ability to see beyond personal payback.
2015-11-24 Update: And Just What is “civil commitment” anyway?
After serving his 25 years, and ending up in a county jail, authorities charged him with violations of the terms of his “civil commitment”. What did he do that was so awful? He received visits from his brother and his father. While incarcerated.
What did he receive for allowing his father and brother to visit him? (Presumably, it was his fault, even though you might think the prison authorities were partly responsible for letting them in when they presumably shouldn’t have.) Ten years, on each count.
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals– in a rare moment of sanity– overturned the sentences because, after all, he was incarcerated at the times of the visit, so the restriction, which applied to a person on parole, did not apply.
So what is “civil commitment”? It’s a way to get around the law to punish people we particularly don’t like. This statement from another report sums it up perfectly: “He was required to live at the jail after his release”. I’m sure Wesley Miller can’t afford the kind of constitutional lawyers who could tear this kind of law to shreds.
I remain baffled at the fact that some states have been allowed to use the results of lie detector tests to determine if a person remains in “civil commitment”. Lie Detectors do not work. Has no lawyer been able to challenge this rule yet?