"Fetching Raymond"

The death penalty is always the subject of great debate where the same questions arise from state to state. Is it right to kill humans no matter there crime? Is the method of which they are executed inhumane? The biggest question is always who and what crimes committed deserve the death penalty?
In preparation for this blog post I did some research on the death penalty this is what i found out: Only 32 states still use capital punishment, in 20 of those 30 states execution is done by lethal injection. The other 12 states use various other methods some of which are rather medieval but in most of these states the way of execution is the inmates choice. 

• Florida, South Carolina and Virginia allow inmates to choose between lethal injection and electrocution.
• If there's nobody to administer a lethal injection in New Hampshire, prisoners can be hanged.
• Death row inmates in Washington can ask for the gallows, too.
• Oklahoma allows electrocution should lethal injection ever become unconstitutional. Utah has a similar clause, but favors a firing squad instead of the chair.

All this info. I got directly from this link if you want to read more:7 Essential Questions About the Death Penalty, Answered

In Fetching Raymond, the title character Raymond who hails from a "white trash" family that has had more than one run in with the law, is put on death row for a decade after killing a dirty cop. There are a number of unethical things that Raymond does leading up to his execution, the main thing being Raymond taking advantage of his brothers and his mother by repeatedly asking for money to pay for his "lawyers" which we find out later he fired. He even goes so far as threatening suicide, repeatedly, because he has this sense of entitlement and he knows how to make his family feel guilty and uses that to his advantage. Unlike Raymond and his other brother Butch, Leon seems to be the only one that has put his life of crime behind him and has become the responsible one with a steady job. However, as they are waiting for Raymond's execution Leon keeps looking at his watch like he can't wait for this to be over so Leon can get out of there. Does this mean he thinks his brother deserves what he's getting?Does Leon even care? The story ends with Leon just going back to work as if nothing happened. Through the reading a question arises in Raymond's case of whether or not he killed the cop in self defense. A cop who has had a vendetta against Raymond and his brothers even vowing to kill Raymond. This same cop who has been involved in a drug syndicate. In the course of the trial Raymond never owns up to acting in self defense saying he wasn't there and he didn't do it. In the end though Raymond asks for forgiveness which kind of confirms that he did kill the cop whether in self defense or in cold blooded murder the audience is meant to make their own inferences. But was it ethical for Raymond to have such a heavy sentence when there was so much evidence to cloud his trial and conviction?

When searching for other content to support this blog post I thought of Led Zeppelin's Gallows Pole which goes perfectly with Fetching Raymond especially with the lyrics: "What did you bring me my brother, to keep me from the Gallows pole?" which shockingly sounds like a direct echo from what Raymond said himself.

So what crimes are deserving of capital punishment? I believe in the death penalty when there is undoubted proof that the crime, that deserves a death sentence, was committed by the person they sentence. I don't want innocent people to die by being wrongly sentenced. However, I understand that our justice system is flawed and that a lot of criminals fall through the cracks. In the link below there is a scene form one of my favorite movies, the Boondock Saints. The opening monologue in the clip gives examples of our flawed justice system along with a certain view on how justice should be dealt with, in their opinion.

Disclosure: This clip contains strong violence and explicit language and if you watch till the end, no animals were hurt in the making of this movie.
The Boondock Saints - Cat Scene


Fetching Raymond by John Grisham