RICHARD ROJEM JR. had 20 minutes to address the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. Wearing a maroon prison uniform, he raised his cuffed right hand and swore to tell the truth, then gave his pitch for why his life should be spared. It would take less than 90 seconds.
“This hearing didn’t have to take place,” he began. Prosecutors had offered a plea deal right up until the day of his 1985 trial; if he’d admitted to abducting, raping, and murdering his young stepdaughter, Layla Cummings, Rojem could have avoided a death sentence. But he refused: “An innocent man doesn’t ever plead guilty to a crime he hasn’t committed.”
Rojem spoke via video link from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. It was June 17, and his execution was 10 days away. At 66, he’d been on death row for virtually his whole adult life. He’d survived for so long in part because appellate courts had deemed his original trial to be unfair, upholding his conviction but twice overturning his death sentence. Meanwhile, fingernail scrapings taken from Cummings revealed an unknown male DNA profile and nothing from Rojem. This was potentially powerful exculpatory evidence. But a third jury, unaware of the DNA testing, resentenced him to die.
The death penalty doesn’t work on irrational actors - ie the desperate and the mentally unwell. Those who commit most crimes. The death penalty as a deterrent to rational actors (such as opportunistic politicians) is very much part of the mental calculus that goes into decision-making.
No, that’s actually pretty normal. People agreeing with genocidal dictators is a bad thing, and taking out the dictator is greatly preferable to taking out all the people who agree.
Rarely is it a rational gov’t/populace that takes out its own dictator tho. Usually it’s a military coup, so just substituting one dictator for another.
Uh, I don’t exactly know how you square that with the large number of countries which successfully overthrew their own dictators in the past century.