Ashleigh Banfield Should Read This
My writing this week has been concerning to me for some time.
There’s a show on NewsNation hosted by Ashleigh Banfield. She does reports on crime stories. Sometimes, she has stories on incarceration. I’m writing this because she had followed the murders of four college students from Idaho, which occurred two years ago. Recently the person convicted of the crime pled guilty to avoid the death penalty.
Ashleigh Banfield reported some of the victims’ families felt there was injustice because they wanted the murderer to get the death penalty instead of life without parole. I want to tell you what life without parole means first-hand, because I’m living it right now.
I’ve been incarcerated going on fifty-seven years, and not for murder. If I can ease anyone’s feelings about life without parole vs. the death sentence, it is this. This is quoted out of one of my books published before this crime occurred: “If I would have known over fifty years ago, when I entered the judicial system, that I would still be confined over five decades later, I sometimes wish I would have been sentenced to death.”
Life without parole is by far the most severe form of punishment. It is a slow grind-it-out form of torture that eats your soul little by little, and piece by piece.
With execution, if you waive appeal, they just go ahead and do you in. However if you don’t waive the appeal, they just go ahead and prepare you to sit on death row for decades, which is virtually the same thing.
I guess it depends on the individual, on how strong he is, to determine which method is best for him. I wish someday Ms. Banfield would read my books. Maybe she could get a better understanding of how the system works. Maybe it could help families get some kind of closure.
For years I have prayed for freedom. I try to follow God’s ways, but I still fall short, and my failures sit heavy on my heart. All I’ve ever tried to do is get my message out to help someone not go down the path I did.
Some days, prison tears you up inside. It’s good to hold up and be hard, but if you do it for too long, you lose sight of who you really are. Every day can take you further from yourself. Remember, life without the chance of parole is no cake walk.
The realities of my world are a cell with bars and concrete floors and walls. I know in the eyes of the world I am nobody, but I still want to help in any way I can.
Robert Clark