"State's death penalty should be reconsidered," is the editorial in the Wilmington News Journal.
Gov. Markell was right to commute the death sentence of Robert Gattis. Enough questions had been raised about his sentence to warrant reducing his sentence to life in prison.
And:
The jury in Mr. Gattis' trial split 10 to 2 in recommending the death sentence for his actions. A year earlier, that would have spared Mr. Gattis the death sentence because the law required a unanimous recommendation. But the law was changed because of public outrage over another case a year earlier. Judges were allowed to impose the death penalty despite such split verdicts. That difference of a year raises questions about the arbitrariness of Delaware's death penalty law.
Our society holds that the imposition of the death sentence should be fair and swift. Automatic legal appeals have extended capital cases into decades-long affairs. Rulings, such as the one that recently overturned Jermaine Wright's 1992 death sentence, bring into question the fairness of the process.
These questions will not go away. It is time to rethink Delaware's law.
The News Journal also carries a news article, "Gattis agrees to commutation conditions," by Sean O'Sullivan.
In exchange for his life, Gattis agreed to abandon any future legal appeals and to never challenge in any way his conviction for the May 1990 murder of his onetime girlfriend Shirley Y. Slay. He also had to agree to spend the rest of his life in the maximum security unit at the state prison near Smyrna.
Sitting in the back of the courtroom Wednesday were Shirley E. and Willie Slay, the parents of Gattis' victim.
Gattis did not make a statement and instead answered a series of "yes" and "no" questions from Superior Court President Judge James T. Vaughn Jr. designed to ensure that Gattis' waiver was knowing and voluntary.
At the conclusion, Vaughn made the document Gattis and his attorneys signed agreeing to Markell's conditions an official part of the court record, closing the case.
"It's done. It's done. There is nothing else to say," said Shirley E. Slay, shaking her head as she exited.
And:
Gattis' attorneys Karl Schwartz and John Deckers reiterated that both they and their client were grateful and humbled by Gov. Markell's decision to spare Gattis' life."He doesn't take this lightly," Schwartz said, adding it has added to Gattis' resolve "to do right and to be a better person."
WHYY-FM Newsworks posts, "Before commuting death sentence, Markell met with victim's family." It's by Shirley Min. There is audio at the link.
On Monday, the night before announcing his decision to commute Robert Gattis' death sentence to life in prison, Delaware Governor Jack Markell visited with victim Shirley Slay's family.
"It was a very difficult thing to do and I went and apologized to them, but I told them that I wanted them to hear it from me personally."
A judgement call Markell says he felt was the right thing in this case.
"I lost plenty of sleep over it. I read everything very carefully, I prayed about it and it was just, it was an incredibly difficult decision because of the impact on the family of Shirley Slay," said Markell. "In the end, I know, there's a lot of people unhappy about it, but in the end I just was not prepared to go through."
Earlier coverage of Robert Gattis' commutation begins at the link.
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