I am a Death Row inmate responding to the letter you published by Marco A. Davidson, about inmate Carpenter. I don’t understand how you would acknowledge such animosity, let alone publish in your paper. On page 18, it specifically says, “Please do not use offensive language. Articles that are newsworthy that will encourage and help the prison populace are welcomed.”
I don’t see in anyway how this person’s article made it to your paper. Especially when it spewed nothing but insults and what he perceived to be the truth. Rather than you do your homework, you just publish it.
Here’s my rebuttal to that letter.
I want it to be clear, I am in no way sticking up, defending, or condoning what David Carpenter did or didn’t do. I am objecting to this guy’s attitude towards another human being.
This person has no respect for another human being by calling another person an animal. He has no respect for humans period. To point out another person’s physical infirmities, mocking him for his personal characteristics which he has no control is like mocking someone in a wheelchair who’s deaf, blind, etc.
One day this guy is going to get out and people higher on the totem pole are going to look down on him. They are going to judge him for being a convict. He will be looked at like nothing more than a menace to society for having been in prison. By his vindictive attitude, what is he going to do?
Let me drive my point home, who knows if David Carpenter or the David Carpenters in all prisoners and all Death Rows is redeemed or not. But, the Marco Davidson’s of the world and their attitudes forecloses the possibility of redemption, not just for Carpenter but for the writers of the letter.
We live in an environment that is very invalidating. We are not defined by the changes we have made or the men we have become, but by the crimes for which we have been incarcerated, or the file in which someone looks in. This goes for all of us, especially us men on Death Row.
Everyone has a story. No one wakes up one morning and just decides they want to be a murder, robber, carjacker, rapist, thief, etc. I know redemption is possible because I have seen it up close and personal. I have seen guys help those I need. I have seen guys mourn for a family member or friend who has past. I have seen guys mourn and get angry because of the attack of 9/11. There are those who are sorry for their crimes, get education, and take self-help groups to learn and better themselves. These things are never told or advertised. You know why, because they don’t do it for the publicity, parole hearings or to earn some certificates. They do it for themselves, to become the best people they can. They want to show that the best way we can that they are sorry for the things they have done.
In closing, I truly hope that the people who see Marco Davidson as society’s waste; don’t have to encounter people like himself. Give him compassion and redemption that he is not willing to give.
