The Price Of Justice: Is It Too High?

The Price Of Justice: Is It Too High?


Baton Rouge, Louisiana---On Thursday, July 24, 2003, accused serial killer Derrick Todd Lee underwent surgery to correct a hereditary heart condition. A pace maker was installed and he is expected to recover within a week. Due to this unexpected surgery, a pre-preliminary trial, that was set for Thursday, had to be postponed. Lee, who stands accused of killing at least six women over a few short years, and is highly suspected to have killed at least two more in Zachary, Louisiana and possibly many others through out the state, suddenly developed a hereditary heart condition, requiring surgery. This heart condition, however, had not, presumably prevented him from stalking, deceiving, raping, and in some cases kidnapping and brutally killing these vibrant, healthy women. Taxpayers were forced to pay for this surgery, while Lee worked as a manual
laborer and may have had his own health insurance. The state of Louisiana and it’s
taxpayers were thus forced to pay to allow Derek Todd Lee something that he did not allow his alleged victims - a chance to live.

Lee was arrested after a warrant was issued and he was requested to give a DNA sample, following a lead by a Zachary detective, David McDavid. After submitting his DNA Lee went on the run to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was later apprehended. Lee left after submitting his DNA because it is believed he knew that all of the serial killings had been linked by DNA.

DNA has had a resounding effect on our legal system, causing many who have been falsely convicted and imprisoned to be released and cleared, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone else committed the crime in question. However, in Lee’s case, presumably the opposite is true.

This man has also been a suspect in the killing of two Zachary women, Randy Mebruer, and Connie Warner. He was identified by a women, Michelle Chapman, as the man who attacked her and her boyfriend with a machete in a local cemetery located directly behind Connie Warner’s subdivision. But by the time that they found him for Michelle to identify, the statutes of limitations on attempted murder had run out. Why is there a statute of limitations on attempted murder? Are the authorities saying that if you
want to kill someone, try and if you don’t succeed, wait a set number of years and try again? This is ludicrous! That is the case with Derrick Todd Lee and why after all this time he was asked to submit a DNA sample.

The Zachary police department had informed the Serial Task Force about this man, and their suspicions that Lee might just be the serial killer. But they were not interested. Believing that the serial killer was a white man, Lee, being a black man, did not fit their profile. Yet when the DNA test results came back in, much longer than it would have taken had the Serial Task Force sent it in as a possible serial killer suspect and allowing Lee to get a very nice head start in his futile attempts to escape, the results proved that he was very likely the man for whom they were looking.

Now I am confused. If people are released because DNA proves that they are innocent, how is it that when DNA proves someone is involved that he is still innocent until proven guilty. Doesn’t the DNA prove his guilt?

As a taxpayer, I am personally appalled that the money that I work hard for is wasted. Derrick Todd Lee killed six women and as someone who is from Zachary, I know that he killed Ms. Warner too. Zachary residents have said that the black man who attacked the kids in the cemetery, killed Ms. Warner since the incident occurred.
Although I did not live there when Randy Mebruer was kidnapped and presumably killed, I felt certain, as did many, that she too was a victim of the same person.

Now the defense is stating that they need any where form $800,000 to 1.5 million to defend this man. What is there to defend? Why should my money be wasted when his DNA has already proven him quietly? If Lee’s DNA cannot convict him of his horrendous crimes, than how can it acquit others?

This is a new time in our legal system. It seems that some of the rules need to be changed . When someone is proven guilty by such means as DNA, then there is no need to waste money on a timely and costly trial. It is time that the legal system stands up for the people it is supposed to represent and not for the criminals. Derrick Todd Lee is just an example of the many monetary wastes made by our legal system. We are required to pay for their housing, food, medical and entertainment. The prisoners insist that they have to have cable television or it is inhumane treatment. Yet we must pay for them to have it, while cable television is not a right for the population outside of the prisons. It has been ruled that it is inhumane to put prisoners on a “chain gang,” yet this is one way proven to prevent them from escaping.

The defense attorneys for Lee have said that they want the funding to buy him some nice clothes for court ... that he cannot be seen in his prison jumpsuit because it might lead people to believe that he is guilty. Won’t the facts lead us to believe in his guilt? Why should our money be wasted on paying for “so called” expert witnesses to give their opinion when it is nothing more than their opinion? In this particular case, their is very strong indisputable DNA evidence that proves his guilt. There is no need to waste any more of our money and it is time that Generation X makes their voice heard, makes it’s mark, changes history. For the most part we have acted immature and still
seem to be playing high school games, even with such prestigious positions as accountants, lawyers, doctors, etc. The government is no longer wasting our parents money, it is our money. Our children’s futures are at stake. It’s also insulting, when someone kills so violently and has such a blatant disregard for human life that even after they are found guilty, and after years of appeals, even if they are sentenced to death, they are simply put to sleep as gently as a beloved pet might be. These injections are expensive, as are the electric chair, which at least caused the criminal pain, and the gas chamber, which was even more so. But they too, cost a lot of money. Why? Shouldn’t
things be done economically? Get a tree, get a horse, get a rope. You can use them over and over again. It’s not the cruelest way to go, but it surely isn’t the nicest either. So, as a member of Generation X, I for one am ready for a change or maybe a return to the ways of the old west.

The world we are in now is not the world our parents or grand parents grew up in. It is obvious that the system, as we now know it, is simply not working! Our jails are overcrowded. Those sentenced to death spend decades wasting our money. Almost no one is reformed. Some prisoners have even said that they did not wish to get out. They had no bills, no worries in prison. The work they were assigned for being a minor offender was not very hard, and they get three squares a day. One made a statement very similar to this right after being convicted of committing the same crime he had just gotten out of prison for, when asked why he had committed the crime again.

Now is the time for a change, and it is up to the members of Generation X to make it happen. It is now time for us to prove to everyone that we truly are adults and are not just overgrown high school kids. Contact your local legislators, mayors, governors, congressmen and anyone else who can help get this much needed change under way. If we do not take the steps necessary to make this change happen, then our legal system will eventually bankrupt us.

Our policemen and women are already grossly underpaid, and with the cost of living going up, each criminal is costing more and more money to house and feed. Eventually, there will not be any money left to support them. Then what do we do, let them all go? We’ve already seen it happen in some states where prison overcrowding has caused governments to release “lower level” criminals. If they have committed the crime,
then they deserve to be in prison. And when they are sentenced to death, then their sentences need to be carried out within a short period of time and not lived out for decades with costly senseless appeals.

When the evidence is DNA, then there is no need for anything more than a mere trial for the criminal to confess his crimes and admit to anything else he has done. If it is as horrendous as Derrick Todd Lee’s offenses were, then they need to give him one chance, two at the most, to answer the questions that are still remaining, then kill him. If he isn’t going to answer the questions: such as why and how he was able to get to these women, where Randy Mebruer’s body is, then he has no right wasting any more oxygen, much less my money.

Yet our legal system says that we cannot do that. He has to have a trial, one that will not start for almost a year, if then. He has to be given this much needed surgery, at taxpayer expense. He has to have nice clothes to wear in court and cannot be seen by the news cameras in his prison issued jumpsuits.

I have the freedom to go where I want, when I want and with whom I want. Lee may not have the right to leave at his own will, thank God, but he doesn’t have any of the worries about where his next meal is going to come from ... how the electric bill is going to be paid ... how the money that is left is going to be able to be stretched so that food can be bought and children can be clothed. Sure, he may be worried about whether or not he will be sentenced to death, but from what I have seen, I doubt it. He obviously has no concern for life and by his cocky behavior, does not believe that he will die. And we all know, as does he, that even if he is sentenced to die, it will take years before it will happen. It certainly didn’t take him years to kill these innocent women. They were not
given any appeals. Their families were put through a living hell, while Lee continued to
live his life without a care in the world. Stalking his next victim.

Now is the time to take action. It is time for Generation X to take a stand and make a change. We do not have the money to continue to allow our legal system to support the criminals and send a mixed message to the innocent, law abiding citizens of this nation. Lets grow up and prove those people wrong who believe that Generation X is nothing more than a bunch of over grown kids, do it in a big way. How better to prove to everyone that we are responsible, mature adults than to demand that our legal system be
overhauled and made accountable in this “new” millennium. Let’s return value to life and those who protect it, rather than putting value on the lives of those who destroy it. Let us take a stand, now before it is too late! As was stated in the movie “Network,” “Baton Rouge- I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!” Join me. Let your voice be heard!