Now It Was 1993

I can’t always remember their names, but in my nightmares I can see their faces. As the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections from 1992 until 1995, I oversaw five executions. The first two were Thomas Dean Stevens and Christopher Burger, accomplices in a monstrous crime: as teenagers in 1977, they robbed and raped a cabdriver, put him in the trunk of a car, and pushed the vehicle into a pond. I had no doubt that they were guilty: they admitted it to me. But now it was 1993 and they were in their 30s. All these years later, after a little frontal-lobe development, they were entirely different people.
- Allen Ault, "I Ordered Death in Georgia."

Comments

  1. Anonymous26/9/11 3:19 PM

    Imagine what a gem young Jeff Dahmer would have become, if only he had been allowed time to develop his lobe.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dennis Dale6/10/11 9:44 PM

    The trans-orbital lobotomy does have the most salutary effects!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. Anon21/10/11 6:20 AM

    "All these years later, after a little frontal-lobe development, they were entirely different people."

    Now they are even more different. They are dead. I like them better this way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous21/10/11 7:50 AM

    As a teenager I used to throw water balloons at people from a moving vehicle. I would never do that now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11/12/11 6:33 AM

    As a teenager, I was frequently struck by objects thrown from moving cars. I thank you for stopping that activity.

    Those frequent impacts may well have caused the problem that I encountered when I first began driving, however: while speeding down the highway, I could not rid myself of the concern that I was about to run into an invisible wall stretching across the road, with catastrophic results.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous28/2/12 5:28 AM

    Amazing how many teenagers DON'T rob, rape, mutilate etc., etc., before their brains fully mature.

    ReplyDelete

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