Thursday, August 7, 2008

Crime and Punishment

At one time, the United States had a reputation as a country in which, for the most part, punishment followed crime as night follows day. No longer. Now, the most heinous crimes often go completely unpunished in some of our more liberal states. Particularly egregious are the states, such as Vermont, which claim to believe in so-called "restorative justice," which, in practice, means letting defendants who are unquestionably guilty of the most heinous crimes against children off with a very mild slap on the wrist.

Even in our toughest states, particularly Texas, justice is commonly delayed for years, and even decades, by the actions of liberal lawyers and organizations.

One such particularly flagrant case was just brought to satisfactory closure after a delay of fifteen years. Even then, it was a close thing, decided at the last minute by a Supreme Court which voted 5-4 not to impose a stay.


Early yesterday morning, a piece of human dog feces named Jose Ernesto Medellin was finally put to death by the State of Texas for his part in the spectacularly brutal 1993 gang rape, torture, and murder of two Houston girls. Two friends, 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena, were walking home from another friend's house, trying to get home by their 11:30 PM curfew. They never made it.

Jennifer and Elizabeth could have stayed on the main street, but had they done so, their route would have taken them past an X-rated adult bookstore known to attract a rowdy crowd at night. Therefore, they chose to take a familiar shortcut --- a short walk along a railroad track, then through a city park, directly back to their neighborhood. As they approached the park, they had no way of knowing that unspeakable atrocities and death lay directly ahead in the form of Jose Ernesto Medellin, his younger brother, and four other gangbangers who were in the process of initiating one of their number into the gang.

The mainstream media has reported on this story in a strangely stilted and restricted manner. To them, the big story was the protest by the Mexican government and their idiot liberal US allies that Medellin's rights had somehow been violated when he was not automatically given access to the Mexican consul upon his arrest. Not once have I ever heard them mention what Medellin had done to deserve arrest. Nowhere did I see any sort of reasonably complete account of his actions toward Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena on that fateful 1993 night.

For the full, horrifying details of this story, we must thank radio talk show host Michael Savage, who related it earlier this evening in one of the best broadcasts I have ever heard him, or, for that matter, anyone, do.

Savage has linked to the two current news stories, "Mexican-born killer put to death in Texas" and "Divided U.S. Supreme Court Allows Mexican National's Execution," but his greatest contribution was to publicize this account of exactly what Medellin and his five fellow gangbangers had done to deserve their punishment: Kill the killers so no more innocents die.

In fact, not only did Michael Savage let his listeners know about it, he read the story over the air, while the chillingly beautiful strains of the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem Mass played in the background.



Savage did not attempt to dramatize the account, for no dramatization is needed, Instead, he read it in a cold, barely-controlled fury.

Before you click the link to read the account, let me warn you – it is very, very graphic. If you read it, you'll undoubtedly be left wondering, as I was, why it should have taken fifteen long years to carry out the death penalty upon this piece of human garbage. Even at that, we must recognize that had the crime occurred in any other state (sadly, including Tennessee), Medellin would almost certainly still be among the living instead of freshly arrived in the nether regions of Hell.

Just think – had their lives not been so suddenly and brutally snuffed out by Medellin and his compadres, Jennifer and Elizabeth would now be young ladies of 29 and 31 years of age. Undoubtedly, they'd be married by now, and have children of their own. These girls had the whole rest of their lives to live until they happened to take that fateful shortcut through the park. Their parents have suffered wounds from which they will never heal. Yet, only yesterday was one of these killers executed, while another, supposedly the ringleader of the gang, still sits on Death Row while a gaggle of liberal lawyers try their best to get him off.

In a way, it's easy to understand why, despite the overwhelming wishes of the citizenry, most states either no longer authorize the death penalty, or no longer impose it in practice even though it is still theoretically available for the most heinous cases. It takes a great deal of determination to impose the ultimate penalty in the face of loud and emotional opposition from liberal lawyers, the ACLU, the American Bar Association, nearly half of the U.S. Supreme Court, the International Court of Justice ("World Court"), the Government of Mexico, and, shamefully in this case, even the President of the United States, who attempted to intervene. Thank God for Texas, its long tradition of hard-nosed, yet scrupulously fair, justice, and its blessedly stubborn governor, Rick Perry.

And may Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena rest in peace.