Some juries are indulgent towards even the most vicious and plainly-guilty criminals. A Nashville jury just let a nightmarishly-evil torturer-murderer-rapist, Letalvis Cobbins, escape the death penalty in the rapes, torture, and murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian. Now, he can spend the rest of his life raping and preying on vulnerable prison inmates, like first-time offenders.
The jurors who blocked the death penalty may have mistakenly believed that they were being sophisticated and progressive by rejecting the death penalty, but in truth, they were being cruel, since, as it says in Midrash, he who is kind to the cruel is cruel to the kind. Scholars like Ernest Van Den Haag have concluded that the death penalty actually saves lives by deterring murders. (A recent Emory University study says that each execution deters approximately 18 murders). When I was a young liberal, I used to oppose the death penalty, in part because I was arrogant and it made me feel morally superior to those who support it based on “gut instinct.” But “gut instincts,” such as indignation, are important guides to what is right and wrong. As the great Athenian lawgiver Solon noted, true justice will not be achieved until those who have not been victimized by crime are just as indignant as those who have been.
Some of the horrifying facts of the case are below; if you are squeamish, don’t read further. I describe them in order to explain why it is an insult to justice to give a torturer-rapist-murderer like Letalvis Cobbins the same sentence that many ordinary murderers receive:
"Christian and Newsom had gone on a date at a local restaurant on Saturday, January 6, 2007, but did not return home. During their night out, the couple was hijacked, bound and blindfolded and taken back to Lemaricus Devall 'Slim' Davidson's rented house on Chipman Street.
"According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan, Newsom was repeatedly raped and then blindfolded, gagged, arms and feet bound and his head covered. Barefoot, he was either led or dragged outside the house to a set of nearby railroad tracks. He was shot in the back of the head, the neck, and the back, and his body then set on fire.
"Christian's death would come only after hours of sexual torture, medical examiner Mileusnic-Polchan testified. Christian suffered horrific injuries to her vagina, anus and mouth. She was not only raped but savaged with 'an object,' possibly a broken chair leg, the doctor testified. She was beaten in the head. Some type of chemical was poured down her throat, and her body, including her bleeding and battered genital area, likely scrubbed with the same solution - all while Christian was alive, the forensic expert said. She was then "hog-tied," with curtains and strips of bedding, her face covered tightly with a small trash bag and her body stashed inside five large trash bags before being placed inside a large trash can and covered with sheets. Christian died slowly, suffocating, the medical examiner said."
Yet the defense attorneys for Letalvis Cobbins, one of the five people who perpetrated these atrocities, think that he can be rehabilitated, and will not pose a risk to others in the future. Do you agree? I don’t. If I were a first-time prison inmate, in for something like drug possession, I would be scared to death by this vicious criminal’s presence.
Some have speculated that the jurors refused to impose the death penalty out of racial favoritism, and that some on the “racially-diverse” jury may have had difficulty empathizing with the victims, who were white. When a Brooklyn jury acquitted the killer of Yankel Rosenbaum, who died in the 1991 anti-semitic riots in Crown Heights, commentators suggested that race similarly played a role in the black defendant's acquittal, citing the seemingly “airtight” evidence against defendant Lemrick Nelson, who had been identified by the dying Rosenbaum as his killer. If the race of the victims and perpetrators in this case had been switched, the ensuing media coverage would have dwarfed the Duke Lacrosse case.
The crime didn’t happen in Nashville (Davidson County), where the jury was drawn from. The jury was selected from there, rather than a less pro-defendant venue closer to where the crime actually occurred, by presiding Judge Richard Baumgartner, a liberal Democrat. His excuse was that the jury needed to be selected away from Knoxville due to adverse pre-trial publicity; but even if so, there was no need to select a jury from distant Nashville, 180 miles away. Tennessee voters should ask why Baumgartner did this.
Comments
I don't think the facts you have presented are accurate. I've been closely following the case and your description of torture is wrong. I do think what Cobbins did was heinous and the death penalty may have been appropriate, however, as a journalist you should be sure to have the facts before spewing lies and conservative propaganda.
m: You are full of carp. If you were following the case, you would know that there are no factual inaccuracies in this column. You are a libtard, a fool and liar.
I've read numerous accounts of this and this accoount is mostly accurate...it was horrific.
It was horrific. I will not deny that fact. I'm 99% sure that her breast was not cut off, his penis was not cut off and I KNOW that the trial was not moved to Nashville. The jury was from Nashville and brought to Knoxville. I actually agree with the opinion of this piece...I just don't think it needs to be sensationalized anymore.
M, you have no idea what you are talking about. Telling the truth about the hate crime that these five animals committed is neither lies nor "conservative propaganda."
The author of the post gave a very accurate account of what happened to the two victims. Why don't you check for yourself; this case has been all over the news. You seem to think that raping a man in front of his girlfriend and cutting off his penis is not torture. You seem to think that cutting off a woman's breast and pouring bleach down her throat to conceal the evidence that she has been orally raped is not torture. Please explain to the rest of us what constitutes "torture" in your twisted mind.
I'm Catholic, so I don't believe in the death penalty, but each one of these racist criminals should be locked up in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives so that they can't hurt anyone else who might be incarcerated in the same facility with them.
M, I pray that you develop a conscience.
I'm sorry that it's not clear that I believe the actions were heinous, as some of my comments stating that have been deleted. Please read my last comment from 4:59.
Thank you, MRL. I was starting to doubt myself. I'll say it again, the crimes were heinous, inexcusable acts but I hope that truth can be told about them.
I saw it MRL. Thanks for the support. After this comment, this site is no longer worth my time.
I hope this creature gets lynched in the same way that he committed the murder. I hope they capture it on video and put it on YouTube. Subhuman freak.
M your comment is vile. I could say you spew Democratic hate speech.
You can read the police statements that this racist scum made, they are on record. It's worse than a Friday the 13th movie.
You should keep your pathetic racist comments to yourself.
Well, at least there's a good chance he will get his come-uppins in prison over the next 50 years. There's always a bigger bubba in the big house.
Take these lemons and make lemonade. The police should make some poster with his picture and caption it with "If you do the crime, you spend some time.... with Letalvis" Then list a couple of his wonderful achievements.
Everyone needs to lay off "M"- I am a friend of the victim's family, and I can assure you that reports of their bodies being mutilated are inaccurate- his penis was NOT cut off, her breast was NOT cut off.
Are you a moron, m, or a propagandist, or an apologist for black criminal thug behavior? He is citing direct testimony that has been in many other regular news reports. He did not say anything about any body part being cut off. Nor did he say the trial was moved, but that the jury was drawn from Nashville. Reading comprehension is important. Same to you, Jane, supposed friend of the "victim's family" (which family, exactly? You do know there were two, right?) And by the way, "Jane", their bodies were in fact mutilated, unless you think what is listed in the article above is not mutilation. Do you tell you "friends" what happened to their children wasn't mutilation?
I'm going to say this one more time.
The FATHER OF ONE OF THE VICTIMS has come out and said that the stories of penis/breast amputation are inaccurate, having been embellished by random Internet people. Furthermore, he made statements that the family is hurt even further by the explicit stories of things that DIDN'T happen.
Since it is apparently "liberal propaganda" to point out basic factual errors, I'm done with this site.
Why doesn't MRL read the above story before arguing about whether the victims' penis and breast were cut off?
The above story itself doesn't say that they were cut off -- although one of the stories it links to does.
Apparently, the evidence of such mutilations was not sufficiently strong (maybe given the poor condition of the victim's bodies after being burned, etc.) to be part of the prosecution's case at trial, even if it arguably might have occurred.
Thank you for backing me up, Jane. Hopefully you can see that I am disgusted by the crime and want the truth to be heard and I'm in no way defending the actions of Letalvis Cobbins. I'm also extremely sorry for your loss.
For the record I am a white, moderate individual. Therefore any "racist" and "libtard" insults that have been hurled at me are inaccurate. I only commented on the conservativeness of this article because of the criticism of the judge considering he is liberal.
The author of this piece has changed the story. He corrected the fact that Mr. Newsome's penis and Ms. Christian's breast were not cut off. He also corrected the fact that the trial was not held in Nashville but the jury was drawn from there. So MRL and Jane are correct in their criticisms of the article.
I hope everyone has a great night.
Sad to say, most murderers don't get the death penalty. And it takes years to carry out the execution of those that do, thanks to the endless death penalty appeals and incredibly exacting scrutiny the courts subject capital cases to. Maybe if this were changed, there would actually be deterrence for even the most hardened criminals, and more people like the victims would still be alive.
Debating rat-brained Libtards is like trying to clean up a pile of dog feces with a weedeater. You will just get smeared with their filth. Debate is the wrong tool for the job. Libtards are worthy of nothing but scorn and ridicule.
PS: M is a hysterical, conservative-hating libtard. Period.
Nice to see the "red herring" logical fallacy is alive and well. So he didn't mutilate them as badly as some believed.
He tortured these victims beyond almost all human understanding, and murdered them. The point is that he did these things and didn't get the death penalty. Some are trying to make the issue here that he initially got a couple of deatils regarding the extent of the horrific torture wrong. This does nothing to alter the overall scope of the crime.
Just like the fact that the trial was not actually held in Nashville, but it was a Nashville jury. Where the trial happens is pretty much irrelevant copmpared to where the jury's pulled from. If they could have held it on Pluto, it's still a Nashville jury deliberating the facts.
Oh, and M? Just because an article contains a few minor errors does not automatically mean the author is "spewing lies and conservative propaganda." That's the "leaping to a conclusion" logical fallacy.
I will try this for the last time. If you actually read what I wrote before jumping to conclusions you would've seen this earlier. If you can't comprehend it, then I give up.
1. I would have agreed with the jury if they sentenced him to the death penalty. I feel that this case warrants it.
2. What this monster did is torturous, heinous, and inexcusable.
3. It is not fair to sensationalize the case by reporting facts that are not true to evoke public emotion. The truth of this case is more than enough to do that.
4. I only said anything about conservatism because the judge was criticized for being liberal. If you know anything about law and if they had a biased Knoxville jury, Cobbins would've gotten a mistrial. Having jurors from outside prevented this.
5. The author agreed with my criticisms enough to change the article.
6. Friend of the victims families have said this wrong information is hurtful to them.
Now, I'm done. If you can't get it, this is a lost cause.
Dwayne, while you're busy lecturing us about logical fallacies, do us all a favor and look up the ever-popular "straw man" fallacy. No one here said that getting some "minor" factual details wrong decreases the magnitude of the crime. Everyone here said that getting the details wrong is in poor taste and disrespectful to the surviving family members, not to mention unnecessarily sensationalistic.
The funny thing is, I've seen this behavior on many conservative news sites: Conservapedia, Breitbart, FreeRepublic. Someone disagrees with someone else on some minor point, or points out some kind of factual error, and they immediately get dogpiled. M went out of his/her way to demonstrate to you that he/she is basically on your side here, but it doesn't matter: the minute he/she disagreed with the hive mind, he/she became Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Karl Marx rolled into one.
Liberals think you're nuts. Moderates think you're nuts. And most honest conservatives think you're nuts.
Voice of Reason's comment perfectly illustrates the arrogance and condescention mixed with irreparable stupidity of the rat-brained Libtard. Libtards' only argument is to provide a misdirection and then to figure out passive-aggressive ways to say I HATE CONSERVATIVES and slander them. Notice "poor taste", "disrespectful", "sensationalistic", "hive mind", "everyone thinks you are nuts". Meanwhile, missing the whole point that M started the whole thing by hysterically insulting Conservatives.
AR15's comment brilliantly illustrates another problem with predominantly conservative news sites: it's impossible to tell who's a genuine poster and who's a liberal parodist.
Another arrogant, condescending, passive-aggressive insult to Conservatives by 'Voice of TReason'. No logic and no intelligent argument offered, just the flinging of feces. See folks? It's never an honest debate with a Libtard. Debating a Libtard is like standing beside the monkey cage trying to reason with them as they defecate in their paws and sling it in your face.
Voice of Reason,
I would just give up. Whether anyone wants to acknowledge it or not, my point was heard and justified. The author changed the article, so I think that says a lot. As angry as this site has made me, there are some people who will never understand.
Thank you very much for the support,
"M"
Way to stay on topic, guys.
This bastard deserves to die, and if it can't be by jurisprudence, then by God let it be at the hands of "Bubba";
let it be slow, painful, OH so painful, and strung out over the life of his sentence.
Keep on slinging M!
Vicious savages raped, tortured, mutilated and killed an innocent couple, and your main paranoid concern is that a white, male columnist might somehow use the story to convert more people to Conservatism or something.
M is for Monkey. Rat-brained, Libtard, feces-slinging Monkey.
Hey Voice of Reason. I did not use a strawman argument. M focused on a couple of minor details, and tried to use them to discredit the writer. Read his posts. It's pretty obvious. That's a red herring.
He also jumped to a hasty conclusion (based upon his own bias) in accusing the writer of spewing lies and propaganda based upon a couple of minor errors.
Not only did you incorrectly apply the strawman argument to me, but you then took part in a blatant ad hominem attack.
And yes, I am lecturing you. Hoepefully you can learn from me.
Hey M. You just posted this:
"3. It is not fair to sensationalize the case by reporting facts that are not true to evoke public emotion. The truth of this case is more than enough to do that."
Do you have some sort of proof that the author intentionally misreported those facts in an attempt to "sensationalize the story to evoke public emotion?" Or are you choosing to draw such a conclusion based upon your own bias?
Also, doesn't the fact the he quickly corrected the items in question show otherwise?
Dwayne:
Yes, you did.
Seems like a lot of you are arguing about completely invalid things. The bottom line is the Death Penalty. You can argue whether or not it is a deterrent, but it gets scum like this out of our society forever.
About the only thing that needs to happen with the death penalty is it needs to speed up: like texas does: 3 credible witnesses or a complete confession... SEE YA within a year.
Those people have forfieted their rights to live within a civilized society.
My god Americans and their ugly "compassion" turn my stomach -- what a sick sick toilet this country has become...
Well - depending on the facility, life in prison is far worse than a death sentence. If he's in a supermax, that would be worse than gitmo... Death penalty only makes sense from an economic standpoint. Why pay to house and feed this... vicious thing? These people went far beyond even the Manson Family. There's no sane reason for not gassing them to death. If the goal is to get even, obviously life in a Supermax is a far worse fate.
Hey Voice of Reason. Please provide a detailed explanation as to how I made a strawman argument. It isn't a strawman just because you say it is. I explained my reasoning. The burden of proof is upon you to prove your point.
We all know that non-whites are treated with favor in the justice system by non-white juror's. I didn't see the evidence against Letalvis, but I did see the evidence against O.J. Simpson. I believe OJ got judge "Eato" to move his trial in order to get a black jury. It worked. He got off, even though his blood was mixed with the blood of the victims at the crime scene. When OJ was tried in his neighborhood in the Civil trial, he was convicted. Facts are Facts.
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