It's that time again, folks. Killin' time in North Cackalacky. After taking a hiatus for several weeks surrounding St. Valentine's Day (because you just can't show love with lethal injection), the State scheduled the execution of Patrick Lane Moody for last Friday, March 17, coincidently, St. Patrick's Day. Indeed, we in the Bible Belt State of North Carolina killed a man on his patron saint's feast day. Folks, I don't make this stuff up.
Although I find it impossible to justify any execution, this senseless death is particularly hard for me to stomach. There is no doubt Patrick Moody was guilty of killing Donnie Robbins September 16, 1994; Patrick confessed to first-degree murder and conspiracy midway through his trial. You could argue that Patrick wasn't a good person and I might agree; after all, he did kill someone and had planned to kill someone else years before. I have nothing when it comes to making excuses for Patrick Moody's actions.
But do any of us have excuses for the wrongs we've done? Yes, I haven't ended a life per se, but my God says that being angry at my brothers and sisters (meaning anyone and everyone) is paramount to murdering them. Lord knows how many times I have been angry at someone. I wince when I think back to this morning when, within a two-minute span of time I behaved or thought about behaving badly to at least half a dozen people, all out of frustrated anger. If we were to mix North Carolina statutes and God's law, I would have been found guilty and sentenced to die six, maybe more times, all before my morning cup of coffee.
I feel lucky that North Carolina doesn't hold me to the same standards as God does: God is merciful, whereas we in the state of North Carolina are merciless.
Case in point: Patrick Moody was kicked around as a kid. Neither of his parents liked children, and therefore neither of them wanted anything to do with Patrick. His stepmother paid nothing but cruel attention to him. Before his eighteenth birthday, Patrick had been beaten nearly every day of his life, shot, and hit by a truck. Extended family, teachers, social services, and the local church failed to see the hell on earth Patrick was growing up in; or, if indeed people recognized such a horrible place, no one lifted a finger to save Patrick from it.
Can you imagine what feeling worthless can do to a person mentally and emotionally? Can many of us claim we've ever felt that not one other individual in the world cared a damn for us? At his trial, experts testified Patrick's intelligence quotient measured between 60 and 81 points. North Carolina law prohibits the punishment of death for anyone exhibiting an IQ of 70 or below if the defense can prove the lack of mental capacity manifested before the defendant turned 18 years of age. Now, I know we don't want every Tom, Dick, and Jerry to claim they're retarded just to beat a first degree murder rap, so there is some, albeit little, valid reason such a stipulation exists. However, if you murder someone after your 18th birthday and have somehow slipped undetected through the proverbial social services crack, how are you supposed to prove you were never given a chance in hell to distinguish between right and wrong?
Reading interviews given by Patrick prior to his execution cuts to the core of my soul. I learn of a man who is remorseful, who, if given the opportunity to live, would want to spend his days meeting with school children to warn them against the decisions he's made. As much as I or anyone else would want to see Patrick Mooday as a villain, all I see is someone who was manipulated into doing the unthinkable by someone he cared about. I did mention Patrick killed someone he thought was beating on his girlfriend, didn't I?
Yes, this all sounds like the Dukes of Hazzard run amuck, but it isn't. It's someone's life...Or was someone's life. How many more men and women on death row have similar stories of childhood abuse and bad, bad choices? Are we really that different from these so-called monsters? How many of us had made decisions we wish we could do over, but instead must live with the consequences?
Hmm...To live with the consequences. Maybe not such an easy punishment to swallow.
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