December 13, 2005
If not Death, then what? Thoughtful individuals across the social and political spectra ponder this question today as they search for a suitable punishment for history’s longest-running crime.
Capital crime and punishment is not a subject I enjoy. It became personal on Oct. 26, 1981. Don’t let anyone tell you time heals all wounds. It does not. And the recent debate over whether a state should execute a convicted murdering thug just keeps open the wound.
Sometimes I bring it upon myself. Back in February, I received an email from Karen in Indiana. Karen wrote, in part: “What can you tell me about William Minnick? I am writing to him from an anti death penalty web site. I have not asked him, ‘Did you do it.’ I do have many pages of court papers he has sent to me. I cannot find info about Martha Payne on the web. I can only find info to help Minnick. My search found your article (Death Penalty Over Coffee at Sparky’s).’ What really happened? Was he the killer? Is he a sociopath?”
So many questions, and so little reason to answer.
My brother-in-law came home from work and found Martha’s body on the bedroom floor of their Greencastle, Ind., home. She had been raped, anally sodomized, and stabbed in the upper back. The knifing killed her. Her body also bore ligature marks on the neck and burn marks on the ankles, which indicated her killer tried to electrocute her. Minnick told his girlfriend that he raped Martha, but that “Ace” killed her. He never gave up his phantom accomplice.
A jury found him guilty, and on June 10, 1982, two and a half months after the birth of my first daughter, a judge sentenced Minnick to death
An appeals court overturned the conviction on technicalities.
A second jury found him guilty, but did not recommend death, because they did not have access to all of the evidence from the first trial. The judge did, however, and sentenced Minnick to death on Oct. 16, 1985, nearly four years from the day he murdered Martha.
The judge wrote in his order of execution: “. . . The court further finds as an aggravating circumstance that the crime mutilated her body and defiled her even after death, that the crime was the kind of horrendous crime that the legislature anticipated when it listed rape or robbery as aggravating circumstances and, therefore, the court specifically finds that the circumstances of the crime, the violence of the attempted electrocution, the strangling and the knifing are those kinds of aggravating circumstances.”
Other “aggravating” circumstances turned up beyond the crime scene. They turned up when the courts overturned his first conviction. They turned up when my in-laws returned to court to relive the horrific details. They turned up each time Minnick filed briefs and appeals. They turned up when the Indiana Supreme Court set aside the death sentence of another murderer [Saylor v. State, 808 N.E. 2nd 646 (Ind. 2004)], because the trial judge overruled the jury’s recommendation against a death sentence. They turned up when the court agreed a year ago that he is incompetent, then delayed his sentencing until the State of Indiana determines he is competent to stand before a judge and face a maximum of 160 years in prison.
They continue turning up when an email prompts me to do a web search and I discover dozens of sites devoted to a vicious killer. The aggravation transcends believability when a smirking Minnick, a crucifix around his neck and another on the wall behind him, mocks me from my computer screen.
He asks for “correspondence and support from all (both men and women), from all professions examples journalists, United Nations Personnel, Foreign Government-officials, United States Supreme Court’s law clerks, and citizens from all across the nations.”
He concludes with “Hopefully we’ll help expose the corruption inside the judiciary and bring end to death penalty in U.S.A.”
The latest aggravation occurs when I realize we have something in common: An end to the death penalty. Except, I don’t think he would like my suggestion.
It’s real simple. If not Death, then the closest thing to it.
Martha will never have children, will never see her nieces and nephews, will never open presents at birthdays and Christmas. She will never see a sunrise or feel a cool breeze blow across her brow.
Her family will never speak to her. They will never share the dramas and traumas of every-day life. They will never share cards and letters. They will never experience the joy of her company.
So it should be for Minnick and for everyone convicted of a capital crime. If not Death, then the closest thing to it, which would be total removal from society, where they will never open presents at birthdays and Christmas, never see a sunrise, never speak to a family member or friend or another living soul, and never share cards or letters. Or emails. Or their ramblings on personal web pages.
If not Death, then the closest thing to it. Otherwise, we show distain for the victim, the victim’s family, and a system that demands justice for all.
