North of the Stupid Line

There have been a number of articles published about Daphne Wright here and here

There are some arguments circulating that because Wright is deaf, she shouldn’t be given the death penalty. Others say that she should be treated the same as everyone else.

Background

If Daphne Wright, 43, is convicted, jurors will be asked to sentence her to death by lethal injection in the slaying of Darlene VanderGiesen, 42.

VanderGiesen disappeared on Feb. 1, 2006. Wright was arrested 10 days later after a search of the basement of her Sioux Falls house yielded bone fragments and tissue that matched DNA samples from VanderGiesen’s toothbrush, according to court papers and testimony.

Parts of VanderGiesen’s body were later found in the Sioux Falls landfill and in a ditch near Beaver Creek, Minn.

In a videotaped police interview shown at an earlier hearing, Wright said she and VanderGiesen had fought weeks earlier because Wright, a lesbian, suspected VanderGiesen of trying to break up her relationship with another woman.

An autopsy determined that VanderGiesen was killed by either suffocation or a blow to the head. ((Detroit Free Press))

Arguments against the death penalty

The Defense (sic) has put forward arguments to the court specifying that Wright should not be sentenced to death should she be found guilty of the crimes committed. Note that the trial hasn’t yet started in earnest; jury selection is currently in progress, and is expected to take up to two weeks.

Court papers filed by Daphne Wright’s lawyers say that people who’ve been deaf since early childhood have severely limited vocabularies and a hard time understanding English. The lawyers call this an “information gap” that “produces a subtle, though highly significant cognitive deficit.” As a result, Wright’s lawyers argue it would be impossible for her to understand the legal process of her trial and therefore, she would be unable to defend herself in a death penalty hearing ((Keloland.com)).

browneyedgirl65 took issue with this argument, stating: “This is insane … whatever her state is, it’s not her deafness that is causing it … If she has psychological issues that prevent her from clearly understanding whatever it is she has done, that can be used instead of raising the old deaf=stupid canard” ((What’s that you said?)).

I would be inclined to agree with browneyedgirl; I object to any Deaf person using their Deafness as an excuse for anything, in the same way I object to a person’s successful attempt to reduce the cost of a ski lift pass using his Deafness as the reason. If Wright is as intelligent, coherent and fully understands the events unfolding around her, then she just because she is Deaf doesn’t mean she can escape the death penalty.

There are suggestions that the provision of ASL interpreters will not be sufficient to ensure that Wright is in full understanding of the whole judicial/criminal process. I disagree. If Wright does not have any issues relating to her mental health, and her only issue is that she is Deaf, then provided there are suitably qualified ASL interpreters during the trial and subsequent appeals, then she should be treated as a hearing person would.

The death penalty

I would like to stress that, despite the above comments, I am opposed to the death penalty. Having recently read The Innocent Man by John Grisham, I now further convinced that the death penalty is wrong. Why? Simply because if a person is in fact innocent, and they are put to death, then it’s too late to acquit them. Also, what of the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill”. It’s not ok to kill people, but it’s ok to execute them? That doesn’t make sense. Particularly as the USA has such strong religious faith; you’d think they’d be following the Ten Commandments.