Sometimes, it feels like things are “just supposed to happen.”
This seems true, no matter what you believe in. If you believe in a God, or you do not. If you think the Universe is a pre-determined masterpiece or you think it is random chaos. It doesn’t matter. Some things happen in life that make you breathlessly exclaim: “Whoa.”
Like those YouTube videos where a semi-truck skids out of control and narrowly misses a baby in a stroller. Or when a tree is struck by lightning and falls to the ground, right on top of a person standing there, but somehow the person is in the perfect spot in between two giant limbs.
Those things.
Well.
Today I read a story about a convicted murderer who was sentenced to hang. This happened in England in February of 1885.
His name was John Lee, a 19-year-old man who lived in Exeter, England. Apparently, he was found guilty for the murder of Emma Keyse, a rich older woman for whom he had worked.
John Lee repeatedly, and heartily, insisted he was innocent. Right up until the time he stepped onto the platform of the gallows.
They put the noose around his neck and pulled the lever that would release the floor beneath his feet. And nothing happened. Nada. John Lee did not drop through and hang. Something malfunctioned.
The strange thing was that the equipment had been tested and found to be in working order. In fact, weights used in a test run plunged to the ground as expected. The weights dropped right on through.
So. They tried to hang him again. Lee stood on the trap door, and the lever was pulled, but nothing happened. Okay. So they tried it a third time. Nothing. There he stood.
He was then sent back to prison. Something tells me he didn’t do it.
You see, on November 15, 1884, the old woman, Emma Keyse was found dead in a pantry next to Lee’s boarding room. Her head was severely battered, and her throat cut. But. There was no direct evidence of Lee’s guilt. The case was made solely on circumstantial evidence. His room was right there, after all. And that was it. The alleged motive was that Keyse was a mean old woman, and no one really liked her.
The authorities, who were absolutely mystified at the gallows’ inexplicable malfunction, decided to ascribe it to an act of God.
Lee was removed from death row, his sentence commuted, and he spent the next 22 years in prison. After he was released, he waved goodbye to England and emigrated to America. And lived out the rest of his life.
But here is the thing. Condemned prisoners no longer have a chance at such reprieves. Even when there are mishaps in carrying out an execution (in one case, an executioner failed to properly find a vein for a lethal injection), authorities follow through until the prisoner has been put to death. No ifs, ands, or buts. No skidding trucks in the YouTube videos. No acts of God.
I find it interesting that these same people want to put the Ten Commandments on the walls of schools, and teach the Bible in the classrooms. But when it comes to killing a guilty sinner, they don’t believe that God might reach down and spare them. The things that make you breathlessly exclaim:
“Whoa.”
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“I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don’t think it’s human to become an agent of the reaper.” – Richard Attenborough
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“I oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crimes, but for what it does to all of us – it offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life.” – Martin O’Malley
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“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, do we deserve to kill?” – Bryan Stevenson
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Those things that were meant to be? Or just because.
