Listening to NPR this morning, I heard a rather bizarre story about one schizophrenic rapist murderer who just can’t catch a break. Homie’s name is Warren Wesley Summerlin and he’s on death row out in Arizona but his case is being appealed in front of the Supreme Court today on account of a whole mess of screw-ups in the US justice system. Now, I’m not for the death penalty, but I’m also not all “David Gale” either. I figure you know that it’s out there, so if you go around killing people and stuff you know full well what’s coming to you. I just find this guy’s case an interesting symphony of errors.

Here’s the low-down:

• April of 1981 a collection officer stops by Summerlin’s house to inquire about a late-payment on his wife’s Piano. Things go awry he rapes her and bashes her head in, wrapping her in his step-daughter’s bed sheet and dumps her in a trunk. Heinous deed, no doubt- but then things become increasingly strange.

• Summerlin’s mother in law tips off the police, claiming psychic premonition.
• His first defender wrangles a plea bargain, but it falls through when it’s discovered that she is sleeping with the prosecutor
• The new defender basically argued nothing for the case- even neglecting to mention that the guy is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who is considered mildly retarded and unable to control his anger.
• The judge who sentenced him was later disbarred for getting high all the time. Apparently he was reportedly looking confused during the sentencing hearing, uttering stuff no one could understand and may have confused the case with another death penalty case that day with a victim that had the same last name.

Dang. You’d have a hard time making up a story this good. This case is being used as a basis to see if a court ruling that juries, not judges, should make the final decision as to whether a person should be put to death or not will be applied retroactively to re-sentence 111 inmates across the US.

I’m against the death penalty, but mostly since it costs a lot more than life in prison. The new ruling about juries doling it out seems like a reasonable safe-guard against the guilty getting the chair (or needle or firing squad) due to errors in the process, but there’s still the chance that an innocent person could wind up on death row and make it all the way to the great beyond. Any takers on this one?

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