Roger Rabbit 
“I’m on death row and yet I didn’t commit the act of murder. I was convicted under the law of parties. When people read about the case, they assume I killed the victim, but the facts are undisputed that I did not kill the victim. The one who killed him plead guilty to capital murder for a life sentence. He admitted to the murder and has never denied it. Under the Texas law of parties, they say it doesn’t matter whether I killed the victim or not, I’m criminally responsible for someone else’s conduct. But I was the only one given the death penalty.” — Ray Jasper, Texas death row inmate
Texas executed Ray Jasper this afternoon. Probably few people would have paid attention if Jasper hadn’t written a superficially poignant letter about prison conditions and the death penalty that has received considerable play in the media.
Strictly technically speaking, what Jasper said is correct — he didn’t kill the victim, David Alejandro. He certainly intended to, when he grabbed Alejandro by his hair from behind, yanked his head back, and slashed his throat from ear to ear. But Jasper’s slicing motion didn’t cut deeply enough to sever Alejandro’s jugular. One of Jasper’s accomplices finished off Alejandro by stabbing him 25 times; the autopsy determined Alejandro died from the stab wounds inflicted by the accomplice, not the throat slashing inflicted by Jasper.
But, in every other meaningful way, Jasper caused David Alejandro’s death. He was the ringleader who conceived of the robbery, planned and organized it, recruited accomplices, and made the premeditated decision to kill Alejandro to prevent him from identifying the robbers.
By way of background, Alejandro was a recording engineer, and Jasper, an aspiring rapper, was one of his customers. Thus, they knew each other, and Alejandro certainly would have fingered Jasper as one of the robbers if he had lived. The motive behind the robbery and murder was to steal Alejandro’s recording equipment, which was worth somewhere between $10,000 and $30,000, and fence it for cash. To carry out this crime, Jasper arranged a recording session with Alejandro, then he and an accomplice attacked the unsuspecting Alejandro with knives. After killing him, they loaded Alejandro’s recording equipment in a van and drove off, leaving Alejandro’s blood-soaked body behind in his studio where he was killed.
Jasper isn’t some poor black guy who was railroaded to death row. His father was a career military officer and his family was comfortably middle class. Jasper was defended by a private law firm hired by his family, not an overworked public defender. The appeals court did not find the jury selection or conduct of the trial to be tainted by racial bias. In the sentencing phase, the jury weighed such factors as Jasper’s prior criminal history, lack of remorse, and whether he posed a continuing threat to society, and concluded he deserved a death sentence. Another 14 years of appeals and legal arguments passed before the sentence was carried out. The case was thoroughly reviewed before Jasper was put to death.
Basically, Ray Jasper was a bad kid from a good family who began committing crimes in his early teens and escalated to ever-more-violent behavior. A few weeks before Alejandro’s murder, Jasper assaulted an off-duty cop who caught him in the act of committing a residential burglary, and Jasper was out on bail for that crime when he robbed and murdered Alejandro.
Jasper argued he shouldn’t be executed because he didn’t personally kill Alejandro. That’s not very relevant, when you really think about it. The Israeli court that sentenced Adolf Eichmann to death found he hadn’t personally killed anyone, but concluded that did not absolve him from responsibility for helping to organize and carry out the Holocaust. It takes both mind and hand to commit murder, and both are responsible; but between the two, the mind is more responsible because that’s where the intent comes from. Thus, as between Jasper (who got death) and his accomplice (who got life), the Texas judicial system got its priorities right and executed the perpetrator who was most responsible for Alejandro’s death and most deserving of the harshest penalty.
The death penalty is criticized on many grounds, and with ample justification. It doesn’t deter crime; it’s more expensive than incarceration; there are other ways to assure violent criminals don’t return to the streets; it’s applied unevenly, and has a sordid history of singling out minority and poor defendants; it’s irreversible, and we know the judicial system makes mistakes; it’s traumatic for the prison officials and staff who must carry it out; and all of the methods used to inflict death are flawed and have resulted in bungled executions. A majority of the world’s nations, and many America states, have abolished the death penalty and there is much to be said against what opponents label “a barbaric practice” that arguably does nothing to make our streets safer.
But if you’ve read Ray Jasper’s letter, it’s only fair that you read another letter, written by David Alejandro’s brother Steve. In it, Steven Alejandro tells us he’s personally opposed to the death penalty, but also says this:
“After everything, I’m still opposed to the death penalty. … I say to my fellow death penalty opponent friends: Keep up your fight. It is an honorable one. The death penalty should be abolished because it is wrong to kill another human being. But do not use this man, Ray Jasper, as your spokesperson, as your example of why the death penalty should be abolished. Ray Jasper is not worthy of your good and kind hearts. He has never accepted culpability or expressed remorse. He is responsible for viciously ending the life of ‘the nicest man he ever met,’ David Mendoza Alejandro.”
I fully agree with the sentiments expressed by Steve Alejandro. By all means, let us have a vigorous debate over whether we should abolish the death penalty. My personal position on the issue has been that I think it should be used very sparingly, but I’ve supported keeping it in reserve for exceptionally heinous crimes, although I’m keeping an open mind even on this.
For whatever it’s worth, the next Texas inmate scheduled for execution is Tommy Sells, a self-proclaimed serial killer who asserts he has killed 70 people, although law enforcement has connected him to only 13; he’s on death row for the throat-slashing murder of a 13-year-old girl. In the same incident, he also slashed the throat of a 10-year-old girl who survived. I’m no fan of Texas’s assembly-line execution factory; but if Sells goes next month, he will be no loss.
I remember reading several years ago about a retired prison warden who had presided over several executions. He personally opposed the death penalty, and found the task distasteful (as any normal person would), but described one serial killer in particular as so vicious it was like “putting down a mad dog.”
It should go without saying that even the worst of criminals should get a completely fair trial, not for their sake, but because it’s extremely important that we convict and punish only the guilty and not exact society’s justice for these horrible crimes from innocent people. And, as we have learned following the advent of DNA evidence, the judicial system is imperfect and makes mistakes. But an even larger issue here is that when the state kills in our name, perhaps it demeans and diminishes us all, and lowers us to their level. That, too, should be part of our death penalty debate; it really may be the central issue of the whole thing.
Be that as it may, Ray Jasper didn’t merit the fawning attention his letter got him. He has now left us for good, and you should shed no tears for him. If you feel like crying because the State of Texas has deliberately killed another human being, then cry for us and our civilization, but don’t waste your tears on him. He wasn’t born into poverty or oppressed by racial discrimination; he was given the opportunity to live a respectable and productive life, and it’s his own damn fault he threw his life away.
Roger
You convinced me. Mr. Jasper was guilty of murder under the law. He did not convince me that his death totally made any sense.
Surely if the objective of the death penalty is to achieve some kind of revenge on the part of the family the the victim’s brother’s words should show that this goal is not achieved.
If the goal of the execution was to seek revenge on the part of society, that too makes no sense. If we want revenge we need to use more grisly form of of execution. Public hanging is not bad, until one realizes that it is a fairly benign form of execution where death is instantaneous. Surely a more lingering form of death is needed if the goal of society is to seek revenge.
I am actually serious about this. I suspect for the worst of murderers, benign execution is actually a form of reward.
Given how many murderers ask for the death penalty and instruct their attorneys to not pursue appeals, it appears that at least in the minds of some, life without possibility of parole is harsher. If it’s revenge you’re after, give child killers to the other inmates and let them do what they want.