The death penalty debate continues
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Belleville News-Democrat is quite disappointed that a local judge didn’t hand down a death sentence in a highly publicized local multiple murder case…
Christopher Coleman was convicted of taking three lives, but St. Clair County Circuit Judge Milton Wharton has decided that Coleman gets to keep his.
Given Illinois’ plans to abolish the death penalty later this year, we didn’t expect the state to actually carry out the sentence. Still, we thought it would be Gov. Pat Quinn trying to explain why Coleman received mercy rather than the judge who knew the cold-blooded details of how Coleman plotted then strangled his wife Sheri and sons Gavin and Garett.
The judge said sentencing Coleman to life in prison would be the most expedient means of disposing of the case for the victims’ family. But after a two-year wait for the trial, they were much more interested in getting the full measure of justice than expediency.
Wharton said it would have been disappointing for Sheri Coleman’s family to have the governor later commute a death sentence as he had indicated he would. But having Coleman spared that sentence is also highly disappointing.
Just because the death penalty has been abolished doesn’t mean that the public debate is over. Far from it. Search Google News for Gov. Pat Quinn and the death penalty and you’ll get a whole lot of results. His name comes up all the time in stories about murder cases.
I’m not sure how long trend this will continue, but it can’t be good to constantly be associated with society’s worst of the worst. However, despite the BN-D’s editorializing, the jury struggled with this Coleman case according to the AP…
One juror, Kimberly Ferrari of Pinckneyville, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Tuesday’s editions that all 12 members of the panel believed Coleman was the killer. But the nurse said several jurors initially were unwilling to convict him because the prosecution’s evidence was largely circumstantial, with nothing directly linking Coleman to the crime.
Early into deliberations, Ferrari said, jurors voted 8-4 in favor of convicting Coleman, though hours later that weakened to 7-5.
“Nothing solid or concrete, no murder weapon,” said Ferrari, who said she voted for guilty all along. “They all believed he did it. They were just trying to figure it out.”
The next day, she said, jurors shifted to 9-3, with jurors agreeing that dates listed on photographs on the cellphones of Coleman and his mistress, Tara Lintz, showed deception.
Discuss.
- Steve Downstate - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 9:54 am:
I am against the DP and appreciate Quinn’s courage (as well as that of the legislature) in abolishing the DP. Also appreciate Quinn’s decision to commute any DP sentences handed down before the law takes effect.
Having said that, if there was ever a poster-boy for the DP, Chris Coleman would be it. Those of us in the Metro East who have followed this case closely since the family was slaughtered two years ago (and particularly those who followed the trial coverage closely) are cognizant of the fact that BOTH pathologists put on the stand (Michael Baden for the prosecution, and the local person for the defense) agreed that the deaths occurred before 5:00 a.m. (Baden said the deaths occurred between 3:00-5:00; local ME said no later than 5:00.) Coleman was at home until 5:43, when a video camera across the street captured him leaving. Same camera indicated that the “suspicious” vehicle Coleman claimed he saw as he backed out of his driveway never went down the street. He began his alibi-establishing phone calls home within two minutes of leaving his drive. (The bodies were discovered an hour after Coleman left the home.) The threatening messages he claimed had been sent to his home over the course of the previous six months were traced to his computer. The spray paint at the murder scene was matched to the brand and exact color of paint that Coleman purchased (with his own credit card, signed receipt) a couple months earlier. He had abrasions on his arms, consistent with a struggle that evidently occurred with his wife, before he was transported to the police station an hour after the bodies of his young sons and wife were discovered. Not to mention his texting of his mistress during breaks in his interrogation. And the quarter of a million insurance policy he took out on his wife the previous fall.
I mention all this not to undermine the seriousness with which the jury examined the case, not at all. However, just because Coleman did not commit the murders in front of a crowd (how often DOES that occur?) does not mean the prosecution presented a weak case. And while I’m glad the DP is gone, it’s only natural for folks on both sides to continue to feel ambivalence when a man is cold-blooded enough to strangle his family…after months of planning at that. Those of us who oppose the DP wouldn’t be human if we were full of happy thoughts for Chris Coleman and those like him. He is among the worst of the worst, and I hope he lives to extreme old age in his prison cell.
- Cincinnatus - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 10:05 am:
There is, unfortunately, no point in re-litigating this issue until there is a pro-death penalty Governor, and a significant number more of like minded legislators.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 10:15 am:
Sad story, but Illinois has proven time and again that it can’t be trusted with the death penalty. The risk is just too great.
- Son of a Centrist - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 10:20 am:
Newspapers should avoid criticizing court rulings, since attempts to do so usually miss the mark and are almost always based on an unfamiliarity with the law.
- Vote Quimby! - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 10:24 am:
Coleman obviously thought himself to be much smarter than he is, and if anyone deserves to die it would be him. Killing your two kids and their mom because they are “in the way”….
Since St. Clair is one of a few who voted for Quinn last fall, I wonder…
- Bemused - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 11:10 am:
What might be interesting here is to find out how many people here have sat on a jury. Maybe more to the point the jury of a murder trial. I have done exactly that. The defendant was found guilty after approx. 11 hours deliberation. The whole thing was quite an eye opener for me. Investigation by police stunk, evidence and testimony was confusing. First vote was 6to6 for conviction of 1st degree with some wanting to go for a lesser count and get out of there. getting eveyone on the same page mostly came down to the defendants story did not match bullet track thru body. Some of the ladys held out for a long time because they did not want to put such a nice seeming young man in the joint that long. Had this been a DP case I think it might have been a hung jury. I would be quite afraid if my life were in the hands of the justice system.
- dupage dan - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 11:40 am:
It should not surprise anyone that horrific events such as this will come along. DP advocates will always be able to point to one particular crime as proof for the need for the death penalty. I think that there could be a class of crimes that justify the DP. Word is right, tho. There are 2 many cases happening 2 often where the innocent are railroaded. We should not be parties to that horror.
- Wensicia - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 11:49 am:
I wonder how many killers have escaped justice because a jury wouldn’t convict with the death penalty looming over the defendant’s head.
- BIG R. PH - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 12:21 pm:
Not to get too dramatic about it but…
There is something sacred about a Dad and his kid playing catch. Almost a “Field of Dreams” kind of thing.
But to actually have the opportunity to have a game of catch in the evening and then to strangle your kid in the early morning (which incidentally takes 4-5 minutes to accomplish) is just sick.
Quite frankly, I wish he had done it in Missouri where justice could be served.
- Why - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 12:51 pm:
If the jury convicts in a DP case, then they have another hearing to decide whether to advance to the DP hearing; this requires a
12-0 vote. Then you have the DP phase which will require a 12-0 vote. So, as just recently happened in the Lovejoy case you must have three successive 12-0 votes when a jury decides to issue the DP.
- Why - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 12:55 pm:
Clarify
Lovejoy (Dupage Co) was convicted but didn’t get past the second phase because the jury didn’t have a 12-0 vote.
- D.P. Gumby - Wednesday, May 11, 11 @ 4:14 pm:
One of the problems w/ DP is this fatuous notion that some killers are “more deserving” of the death penalty than others. Such a notion denigrates all victims. Better to have abolished the DP given the banality of its misapplication.