N.C. death row inmate taunts, 'Kill me if you can, suckers'

[Jean V. Dubois]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-death-row-20120126,0,7076813.story

Danny Robbie Hembree considers himself a gentleman of leisure. He enjoys color TV, air conditioning and abundant food. He naps pretty much whenever he feels like it. He also happens to live on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C. But that's not a bad thing, he wrote in a taunting letter to his hometown newspaper, the Gaston Gazette. In fact, Hembree wrote, the state of North Carolina has taken the "death" out of death row. "Kill me if you can, suckers. Ha! Ha! Ha!" Hembree gloated in his letter, portions of which were published by the Gazette on Tuesday.

Hembree, 50, was sentenced to death in November for suffocating a 17-year-old girl in 2009, and is accused of killing two North Carolina women. But no one has been put to death in the state since 2006 because of legal challenges over lethal injections and whether a physician must oversee executions. "Is the public aware that the chances of my lawful murder taking place in the next 20 years if ever are very slim?" Hembree wrote on lined notebook paper in what he described as an editorial.

Meanwhile, life is sweet.

"Is the public aware I am a gentleman of leisure, watching color TV in the A.C., reading, taking naps at will, eating three well-balanced meals a day?" he wrote. Oh, and he also receives free government healthcare, he pointed out.

The man who prosecuted Hembree, Gaston County Dist. Atty. Locke Bell, was not amused. Bell said Nick Catterton, the father of Heather Catterton, the 17-year-old murder victim, has called him twice in tears after reading details of Hembree's letter. "It's ripping the family to pieces," Bell said Wednesday in an interview with The Times. "He's sitting on death row, just laughing and taunting them." He added: "Everybody should read this letter and see what's happening with death row in this state."

(more at link)

[gratuitous]

1. And you'll never draw a free breath again, Mr. Hembree

Meanwhile, I get to bicycle commute every day through some of the most gorgeous scenery ever put on this planet. On any given day, I can see an eagle biding his time waiting for breakfast to surface on the river. Or pass a couple of deer watering at the slough. See a kit fox eye-balling me as I roll past his den. Or watch a magnificent blue heron wade through the marshes.

Whether you live or die makes no difference to me or any of my companions on my ride. Have a nice day, growing older, fatter and lonelier.

[gateley]

2. I love your post. nt

[Jean V. Dubois]

10. That reminds me of an interview I saw with a young convicted murderer some years ago.

In the interview (a rather obvious attempt to make the killer seem sympathetic), the murderer (convicted as a teenager but tried as an adult) was lamenting all the things he'd never be able to do. "I'll never kiss a girl", "I'll never drive a car", "I'll never see the ocean"...etc.

My immediate reaction was, "Good!"

[zappaman]

11. Excellent post! nt

[sufrommich]

3. What kind of newspaper thinks giving

this idiot a public voice is a good idea? He got the attention he wanted and no doubt caused the pain he wanted.

[immoderate]

4. He can describe his whole existence in one sentence.

This is not luxury or gentility. It's a baseless taunt.

--imm

[bluestateguy]

5. Take him out of death row and then throw him into a medieval dungeon

Where he is cut off from all contact with the world and the only food he gets is bread and water.

[Jean V. Dubois]

6. How about we just kill him instead?

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be in the cards...as he points out in his letter.

[bluestateguy]

7. I no longer favor the death penalty

Would I mourn his passing? No, but I don't think governments should be in the business of killing people, including wars based on false pretenses.

[Jean V. Dubois]

12. Some people need to be killed.

This is one of them.

[sabrina 1]

20. And to satisfy that opinion, 'that some people need to be killed' someone has to do it.

We are the only country in the civilized world that still engages in this barbaric practice.

I do not want to stoop to his level just to get some momentary, primitive satisfaction that 'revenge is sweet'. It isn't. All it does is bring us down to the level of those we condemn for killing.

As Bush once said when asked, by of all people, Bill O'Reilly (who does oppose the death penalty) why he, a self-proclaimed Christian had killed so many as Governor of Texas.

His response was 'If we kill them we stop the killing'. This after claiming that 'Jesus is my hero'. Someone I can't see Jesus supporting the death penalty which he himself was a victim of.

[Jean V. Dubois]

32. I don't think you'll find a shortage of volunteers.

I do not want to stoop to his level just to get some momentary, primitive satisfaction that 'revenge is sweet'.

It's not stooping to his level; his level is killing the innocent, whereas this would be killing the guilty. What's more, it wouldn't be for momentary satisfaction; it would be quite permanent.

Someone I can't see Jesus supporting the death penalty which he himself was a victim of.

If I were a Christian I might find that argument persuasive. Since I'm not...

[Arkana]

9. Better: solitary confinement, 23 hours a day.

No phone calls, no communication with the outside world, except 1 hour where he gets to leave his cell.

That's what should happen with serial murderers and monsters like this. You can only strap them down and put a needle in their arm once--but throwing them in solitary and cutting them off from human contact will kill them a thousand times over.

[Jean V. Dubois]

14. And yet, given the chance, most people will not kill themselves under those circumstances.

Which tells me that they prefer life, even under those conditions, to death. I don't want murderers such as these to derive the slightest comfort or pleasure from their remaining decades of life. One life is all we have, and to take it away from an innocent person is a crime that cannot be repaid through years of punishment. There is only one penalty that exacts an equivalent toll, and that is to execute the murderer in a timely fashion.

[sabrina 1]

21. 'An eye for an eye'?

'Makes all the world blind'.

[Jean V. Dubois]

33. I have no desire to blind the entire world, just to deprive murderers of life.

In any case, quoting Ghandi is hardly a trump card.

[Matariki]

8. I keep seeing this article

Is it part of some sort of campaign to make prisons even more horrible than they already are?

Are for-profit prisons behind spreading this article trying to get public support for cutting even the most basic provisions - like health care and 3 meals a day?

Here's a description of what prison is like in Haiti, coincidentally I just read this today: "Prisoners are expected to provide their own bedding and their own food and their own medications if they get sick." - is this the model we want to emulate?

[Blue_Tires]

22. that was my question as well

or is it some covert campaign to 'grease the skids' and not let condemned inmates exhaust the appeals process for years??

[surrealAmerican]

13. I, for one, am glad to hear we are treating prisoners humanely.

In a few more months, perhaps this fool will realize this is not the life of a "gentleman", but that of a "murderer".

[a simple pattern]

15. So the Republicans want to amend death penalty laws, and lo and behold this miraculous letter.

I bet it was real hard to get this nutball to write it in exchange for some smokes or some porn magazines.

[snagglepuss]

16. nail meet hammer.

[renie408]

19. Bingo. And what responsible newspaper would give this whack job a voice? One with an agenda...n/t

[msanthrope]

17. I think the governor ought to commute his sentence to LWOP.

Gen pop could be a learning experience for him.

[RZM]

23. I just can't get behind a post like that

Although I wouldn't mind if he got LWOP and was removed from death row, you seem to be implying that it wouldn't be so bad if he were murdered, raped, extorted, or beaten by other inmates.

While again, I wouldn't shed a tear for him, it's indicative of the incredible amounts of violence that go on in our prisons and the fact that some members of the public sometimes express tacit approval of it. But most likely the people victimizing him would be gang members who are just as bad or worse as he is. He wouldn't be the first or last person they victimized either - many of their other victims would probably be inmates who are targets solely because they are weak. And since he's already shown he has little regard for human life, he could very well kill again in prison as well, especially if he thought he was going to be the target of a 'learning experience.'

We need serious prison reform in this country.

[msanthrope]

26. I am not advocating violence, but a loss of death-row privileges.

Please do not mistake me...this prisoner seems to like the privileges that death row affords him.

Take them away, and you have true punishment, true deprivation.

I do not condone prisoner violence.

[RZM]

28. I see what you're saying

Makes sense. I'm confused as to why death row privileges would be better than those in general population in the first place. I don't get that.

[msanthrope]

31. Well, because of the nature of the machinery of death....

Death Row inmates are given privileges so they cannot claim an 8th amendment violation on their way to the death chamber...all part of the insanity of the DP.

[trumad]

18. Don't care how this guy acts...

The death penalty is bullshit.

[white_wolf]

25. My thoughts as well.

The death penalty is barbaric. The sooner it is is abolished the better.

[sabrina 1]

27. Mine too.

Barbaric is the right word imo.

[Logical]

30. +1000, he is evil and I have no problem with him rotting in prison. But the Death Penalty is wrong.

[xchrom]

29. He has right to his fucked up opinion.

He'll never be free. & that is the end of him.