Jimmy Lee Grays Trial and Execution Process - Case Study Example

JIMMY LEE GRAY CASE STUDY by of the of the of the School 19 March, Introduction Jimmy Lee Gray’s trial and execution is one of the outstanding cases that led to questioning of the American criminal justice system. He was accused of a murder charge on a three year old girl, which led to his conviction of capital punishment after a series of trials. His past record before the case was an unfavourable one too, since he had been imprisoned in Arizona prisons for the murder of his girlfriend (a teenager) some years in the past. Just like many cases, his also stood out for the murder reasons, and people tend to forget other crimes of molestation to the kid he killed. According to Jimmy lee Gray v Eddie Lucas, Waden et al [1982], Jimmy had been the last person seen with Derissa Jean (the deceased girl), and claimed that he had taken the girl for a ride in the country, before he stopped the car they used on the road to molest the child, when she wandered away from the car only to fall into a shallow ditch filled with water; Gray admitted to having pulled her from the ditch unconscious, put her into the vehicle trunk and thrown her into the waters from the bridge over Black creek on his way back to Pascaugola. First was the offence of the child’s disappearance from her parents’ apartment in Pascaugola, which involved an offence of kidnapping, then molesting the girl child by touching her virginal parts before she tried to move away from him in the car, and finally charged with murder of the three year old, Derissa. Derissa’s incident took place while Jimmy lee was on parole from Arizona prison for killing his sixteen year old girlfriend (Ingle, 2008, p.95). Although it is a case that people always want to judge from an emotional point of view, there was discovered evidence, which showed that Derissa had been choked with her panties that had been pushed with a stick into her throat, as well as raped and sodomized, before being suffocated in a muddy ditch and thrown in the stream (prodeathpenalty.com, 2008). After his arrest for the murder of Derissa, he was prosecuted by the grand jury of Jackson County in Mississippi, whose verdict for the horrible crime after the heated trial was a death sentence. His appeal against the decision of the court was futile, since the prior verdict was upheld. According to Jimmy lee Gray v Eddie Lucas and the State of Mississippi [1983], on appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court repealed his conviction and provided him with an opportunity for a new trial; the retrial was unsuccessful, since his petition was denied, and again convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, hence affirming the previous verdict and punishment. He was indicted 8 years before his execution that occurred in 1983, after having spent his time in the famous maximum security unit in Parchman Mississippi. He was put to death in the Mississippi gas chamber in September 1983, for his crime under statutory and decisional procedures. US History on Capital Death From a historical point of view, death penalty in the US was practiced intensively based on the comparison of the death penalties before and after the period of 1970s, when Furman’s legal challenge struck down the federal US and states capital punishment laws. Sometimes people may question the law on capital punishment, but it remains the authority and only way people can seek justice in a legal framework. It got to be admitted that before the Furman challenge on the law, the number of executions in the US were alarming. Between 1930 to 1967, 3859 persons had been executed under civil jurisdiction in the US, and with the new death penalty after the legislation revision, from 1977 to 1999, at least 598 people were executed, not to mention the over 600 people whose death sentences were lifted between 1967 and 1972, as a result of the Furman (University of Alaska Anchorage, 2012). Basically, the point was to control the capital deaths and avoid discrepancies that would lead to innocent deaths of humans, as a result of misinformation, uninformed decision, and unfair trials. (University of Alaska Anchorage, 2012) From the above data, it is evident that jimmy Lee’s execution took place after the revision of the capital punishment law, meaning that chances of unjust trials were limited under the new death penalty law, considering the law providing for guided discretion was upheld. Jimmy lee Gray’s crime took place in Mississippi State, which had a revised capital punishment law. With the provision for guided discretion that facilitated a two stage trial (determination of defendant’s guilt/innocence and determination of sentence after hearings), Jimmy Lee’s appeal for a new trial after his first conviction was granted in reference to the included guided discretion law. This is just a way to prove the credibility of the justice procedure that lead to his unfavourable punishment. This was a man who had not only been accused of murdering, but suppose offences were treated separate from the incident, he would have been first charged with sexual assault or even kidnapping before murder. Strictly following the law, his punishment was inevitable and even if death penalty over rape cases was shunned by the Supreme Court in 1977 (University of Alaska Anchorage, 2012), slightly after evidence of his crimes, there was a strong conviction, that of his murder charge. The conviction and execution of Jimmy Lee was among the first 10 after death penalty revision, and is worth noting that justice according to the law of the Mississippi state took its course. Political Issues and their Consequences The public and the politics over the issue of capital death are the most controversial entities that criticize and shape the law. According to Lowenstein, results from Harris polls indicated that 94 % of Americans believed that innocent people get to be sometimes convicted of murder, while 67 % still supported the death penalty (2001). As mentioned earlier, the murder of Derissa occurred while jimmy was on parole for his previous crime; he had served 6 years in prison though imprisoned for 20 years. For such a man who had been accused and evidence over his crime identified, spent most of his lifetime in prison away from the general society for at least over 10 years, there could have been doubt over his mental fitness. The prison is meant to correct an individual over his or her past illegal activities, but this was not the case with Jimmy Lee. The fact that he confessed to have taken the girl out of the ditch, put her in the car but thrown her into the stream is an indication of a conscious human being, trying to conceal the crime committed. So, was his act out of fear of been imprisoned again, an act carried out in a state of psychological distortion, or was it conscious intention to kill? One of Jimmy Gray’s contention questioned comportment of capital punishment over unintentional killings with eighth amendment standards, which could claim an evidential hearing to revoke his execution for his alleged insanity (murderpedia.org, n.d.). Even though he claimed that the jury imposed a death sentence on him without evidence of intentional murder, the jury disagreed with him holding that he killed Derissa to silence her and escape arrest. Although most people view capital punishment from an emotional or religious point of view to discredit it, it has been helpful to prevent dreadful crimes in the society. The society must admit that faith and religion are just a guiding principle, and there should be an ultimate judge of challenging the reality that the society deals with. The penalty in large helps the US and its states to deter the population of America from further committing crimes, and safeguard its society from loss of life by criminals. The deterrent effect infers that executions give a warning message to potential criminals and decrease crime rates, as people opt to obey the law due to the threat of severe capital punishment (victimsofviolence.on.ca, 2011). Moreover, it “establishes an adversarial system that deeply impacts both the victims and the offenders’ families” (Puma, 2013). In reality the families involved always want to seek justice for their loved ones, and that was exactly what Derissa’s parents did under the state prosecution. However, the American citizens ought to admit the federal government and the states have been working towards constitution amendment of the death penalty law over time, and there have been numerous changes made. Since the enactment of the death penalty statutes, the 38 states legislature, the federal government, and the congress enacted and expanded federal death penalty law for a peacetime espionage, but afterwards in a range of felonies committed, the public has witnessed prohibition of death penalty on mentally retarded criminals, and on offenders who were below 18 years of age when the crime was committed (ACLU, 2012). Jimmy Lee’s execution still holds doubt over his mental state in the general public, and was one of the strong reasons that contributed to uplifting of capital death to psychological disturbed criminals in the US supreme courts. Execution Issue of Jimmy Lee From a legal and human point of view, the execution of criminals has always been expected to be humane and with respect, but not as a result of anger and cruelty. Jimmy Lee was the first Mississippi inmate to be executed by means of lethal gas injection in the Mississippi gas chamber, under the enactment of the new law. Lethal injection has been the common method of execution for the US federal government and most of its states adopted the lethal injection legislation. However, with the wide acceptance of lethal injection as a better human form of execution, criticism and reports in the recent years after its application have demonstrated people’s concern, arguing that it causes the inmates an extremely inhumane painful death; this is just but a developing opposition (clarkprosecutor.org, n.d.). Jimmy’s death was one of the accounts of the presence of inhumane and rather cruel aspect of the gas chamber and its electrocution execution that was reportedly, never to have gone well as the executioner claimed. After the cyanide pellets dropped in the acid, Jimmy Gray flailed and gasped for a recorded eleven times in the 8 minutes stated struggle convulsing wildly on the death chair, while slamming his unrestrained head against the metal pole positioned right behind his death chair, creating a horrible force that shook the gas chamber and caused the witness room to be cleared, even before the end of the affair (Headsman, 2012). Arguably, the horrifying incident had witnesses cleared from the room and hence creates a moment of doubt over the human aspect of his death. His reactions alone by shaking the chamber with such a force and slamming his head over the pole were due to excessive pain. There have been evidence of painful death in the cases of asphyxiation as demonstrated by Jimmy Lee and Donald Eugene (case no. 3 and 17 respectively), involving agitation, distress, and violent spasm and movements, while in the lethal injections, pain has been the likely consequence of the death chambers official s missing the veins during catheters insertion to deliver the lethal drug, besides mentioning the distress some criminals go through; this procedure shows evidence of lingering death when it takes longer than necessary (some half an hour or more), which may be against the eighth amendment (Hodgkinson and Schabas, 2004, pp.154-56). Jimmy’s case is just but one; even though they switched to lethal injection some years after his death, the new states protocol of execution is still no better. Though it is difficult to measure pain in the execution process, there is need to understand that the physical situation the deceased criminals have always been kept limits true reaction, and to some extent, the pain will always be exaggerated by human error in execution. Against Capital Punishment Arising from the cruel cases of victims execution under legal procedures, it is seems rather impossible for the society, especially based on their religious faith to agree with the federal and states law over capital punishment. Capital punishment in the American criminal Justice system has been an a deeply embedded institution in the nation, but with the social changes over time, the dignity, common good, and equal application in a racial context has been criticized. There is still an aspect of reliance on past political and government cultures, which had borrowed the capital punishment concept from the ancient Roman times, entirely dependent on Old Testament when applying religious principles to uphold it (Cabana, 2004). Truth be told, it is neither favourable for the offender nor the defenders, not even their families or the executioners themselves. It does not bring back the earlier life taken, it seems rather to occur in a cruel manner after periods of long imprisonments (making it a double punishment) and carries chances of executing innocent people, nor does it freely provide other alternatives in the manner of execution. The capital punishment law, just other laws was made by men for men and though there have been changes over time to regulate its validity, the human aspect to its composition makes it prone to errors. The federal government and United States that approved the legislation defend the human life and the death penalty in same name of justice; as a contradiction to their values, while upholding the human sanctity, they conduct the inhuman punishment as a premeditated and planned killing of humans by the state or federal government in the name of justice (Grice 2013). Even though the pain of loosing someone is excessive and demanding, it does not basically mean that the death penalty gives the satisfaction and restitution to all. Most of the hurting families will have healed and moved on in life by the time the execution occurs. There ought to be other better ways of condemning the murder criminals, rather than exposing them to the cruel painful death. For once, recommendations on the punishment of life imprisonment with no reserved parole to avoid future conflicts, and repetition of crime or voluntary will to undergo execution based on available options, where law upholds capital punishment should be considered. References 1980s Execution. 2008. [online] available at: [accessed 18 March 2013] ACLU. 2012. The Case against Death Penalty. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 March 2013] Cabana, D. A., 2004. [online] Available at: [accessed 19 March 2013] Edwin Hart Turner. n.d. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 March 2013] Grice, J., 2013. The Governor of MS: Abolish the Death Penalty/Capital Punishment in Mississippi. [online] Available at :< http://www.change.org/petitions/the-governor-of-ms-abolish-the-death-penalty-capital-punishment-in-mississippi>[accessed 19 March 2013] Headsman. 2010. 1983: Jimmy Lee Gray, Drunk Gassed. [online] Available at: [accessed 19 March 2013] Hodgkinson, P., and Schabas, W. A., eds., 2004. Capital Punishment: Strategies for Abolition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ingle, J.B., 2008. Last Rights: 13 Fatal Encounters with the States Justice. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing company, Co., Inc. Jimmy lee Gray v Eddie Lucas and the State of Mississippi [1983] 710 F. 2d 1048, No. 83-4404 https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/710/710.F2d.1048.83-4404.html Jimmy lee Gray v Eddie Lucas, Waden et al [1982] 677 F. 2d 1086, No 81-4018 https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/677/677.F2d.1086.81-4018.html Jimmy lee Gray. n.d. [Online] available at: [accessed 18 March 2013] Lowenstein, T. 2001. The Burden of Execution. [online] available at: [accessed 18 March 2013] Puma, E., 2013. The Complexities of Capital Punishment: Effect on Families [online] available at: [accessed 19 March 2013] Research – Capital Punishment. 2011. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 March 2013] University of Alaska Anchorage, 2012. History of the Death Penalty & Recent Developments [online] available at: [accessed 18 March 2013] Read More