No Justice for Marcia Powell

Marcia Powell was probably not the most sympathetic figure; a middle-aged schizophrenic with no living relatives, and a repeat offender whose most offensive “crime” seems to have been prostitution, she was executed without trial, judge, or jury last May by employees of the State of Arizona corrections department.

And after reviewing a 3,000 page report produced internally, prosecutors have declined to press any criminal charges against anyone in connection with Powell’s execution.

Despite the fact that the county medical examiner cited heat exposure as the cause of Marcia Powell’s death, and despite the gruesome evidence (Powell had burns and blisters all over her body) and despite the fact that she had been kept in a cage in an Arizona desert for (allegedly not more than) 2 hours (but possibly 4 hours or more) on a day when the temperature peaked at over 107 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly without access to any water, and despite the fact that ADC Director Charles Ryan unilaterally (and lacking legal authority) decided to terminate Powell’s life support — despite all of this, those charged with protecting and upholding “the law” can find no evidence of any crime.

Her core body temperature upon examination was 108 degrees Fahrenheit.

Let that sink in for a minute. A human being, in a cage, in the desert heat. Any part of that sound even remotely cruel or perhaps unusual?

Surely no man with even an iota of conscience could fit that torture within the boundaries of acceptable human behavior, nor for punishment save for the most heinous offenses. What sort of animal does this? What monster sits by and watches, tolerates, enables, or allows such atrocities to continue unimpeded?

There aren’t any monsters, at least not in the conventional sense.

Remember that those individuals primarily and unforgivably responsible for carrying out the day-to-day operations that sustain, strengthen and perpetuate the grossest human tragedies, have always considered themselves to be normal people, and largely their neighbors and contemporaries have considered them “normal”, too.

Everyone involved in composing the report who either couldn’t (or wouldn’t) find enough evidence of an obvious crime, every lawyer and prosecutor who refused to see or look for criminal wrongdoing in those pages, every guard who could’ve spoken up, or could’ve offered aid, but didn’t, because nobody’s gonna miss some junkie schizo prostitute.

“Normal” people who can no longer judge the difference between right and wrong. And so they go on about their ways, “just following orders” day-in and day-out.

Original report here




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