Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Let Him Live!

A heinous crime was committed by a fellow Jew by the name of Martin Grossman. He murdered a Florida law enforcement official with her own gun while in a drug induced state. My heart goes out to the victim’s family. As I said in the past I cannot imagine what it must be like for them while this man lives awaiting his execution. And yet it would be a miscarriage of justice if he were to be executed. Why? As famed legal scholar Alan Dershowitz was quoted saying on Matzav.com:

“Even those who strongly support capital punishment would limit it to recidivists or people who ‎commit the most heinous of crimes. Martin Grossman fits neither of those categories. He does ‎not belong on death row. His crime, committed when he was a teenager, was unplanned, ‎unpremeditated and impulsive - the product of a serious mental illness, that can now be proved ‎by medical technology that was unavailable at the time of his sentencing.

“He has been in prison ‎for more than a quarter of a century, during which time he has been a model prisoner who has ‎shown great remorse for what he did. All that he is seeking now is a 60-day postponement of his ‎execution, so that his supporters can martial the evidence and present his case for clemency.

“No ‎one should be rushed to execution while doubts remain unresolved. Justice demands that he be ‎given the 60 days to prove that he does not deserve to die at the hands of the state.”


I could not agree more. I have previously stated that in my view the most just sentence in this case would be life imprisonment. I still believe that to be the case.

While I have expressed my dismay that Orthodox public service organizations like Agudah and Young Israel seem to be more pre-occupied with Jewish criminals than other issues of great import to the Jewish community, I nonetheless also said that I agree that justice should be vigorously pursued. And justice here is not the death penalty in my view.

So even though I wish it weren’t needed; even though I wish this was not the issue we were working on; even though I can think of many issues I wish we were working on instead; and even though I can think of many reasons why we shouldn’t be doing this … a man’s life is at stake. A life which in my view should be spared. And that trumps everything else. I therefore ask people to sign this petition. It’s the least we can do. And may God grant comfort and closure to the victim's bereaved family. Thank you.