...When All is Said and Dunn

This week, the California criminal system struck again. In their ongoing attempts to speed things along and make sure that they got some kind of conviction, they settled for less than the death penalty and increased the cost to the State at the same time.

On Monday, March 26, a Los Angeles Federal Judge sentenced Buford O. Furrow Jr. to 5 consecutive life terms in prison, thus securing that this psychotic will never see the outside of a prison. Well, that’s just fine and dandy, but that also means that if he lives to say the ripe old age of 79 we, the taxpayers, will be footing the bill for his care and maintenance for 40 years.

In case you were in a coma during 1999 and missed what this dirt bag did, please let me refresh your memory. In August of that year Ol' Buford, an avowed white supremacist and card carrying member of the Aryan Nations, loaded up his van in Washington State with every weapon and bit of ammunition he had and went for a little joy ride to Southern California. His mission was to kill Jews and any other minorities that he disliked.

Upon his arrival here he went on a scouting expedition. Finding security too tight at his first choices, the Museum of Tolerance, the Skirball Cultural Center, and the University of Judaism, he decided to change his game plan. Instead he picked the unguarded and lower profile Jewish Community Center in the San Fernando Valley, which at the time was being used as a summer daycare facility.

He walked through the facility, spraying over 70 rounds of ammunition wounding three children and two adults. But his blood lust wasn’t satisfied yet. He drove up to an unsuspecting mail carrier who was of Filipino decent and because he "looked Asian or Latino” shot him 9 times at point blank range killing him instantly.

Now, if ever there was a murderer who deserved to be put to death this is the guy. The only reason he didn’t kill more people is that in addition to being a moronic, racist, hate monger, he is also, thank God, a bad shot. But what does he get? He gets to have us pay approximately $22,000 a year to keep him alive because of a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty.

The only wish I have is that he is put in a cell permanently with someone much bigger and stronger who finds him irresistibly cute and who is serving an equally long sentence. It would not be as just as having him taking a dirt nap, but it would at least make me feel better about having to pay for his room and board.
Our second murderer, Robert Lee Massie, is equally as vicious but far more accommodating. If there was anyone who went to prison the first time and shouldn’t have been paroled it was this guy. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that didn’t happen. But unlike 99.9% of the convicted murderers on death row, this slimy little weasel knew he needed to die in order to stop the madness.

Back on January 7, 1965 Massie murdered Mildred Weiss, 48, of San Gabriel during a follow home robbery attempt. Massie pled guilty and was about to be executed when then Governor Ronald Reagan stayed the execution. The reason: so that Massie could testify against his alleged accomplice. Afterwards he was returned to prison where he sat just long enough for the incredibly stupid decision by the California Supreme Court to temporarily ban executions.

During this time, Massie began complaining to anyone who would listen about the conditions on death row, claiming that they were extreme and cruel. Hmm, maybe he thought the prison guards were supposed to be caring and nurturing instead. Anyway, Mr. Massie made it known that he did not want to be kept alive and by the early 70’s was dubbed by the press as “the Prisoner Who Wants to Die”.

But as luck would have it, his not ours, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to compound the previous mistake made in California and banned executions all together. So Massie, and more than 100 other inmates on death row, including that monumental waste of space Charles Manson, had their sentences commuted to life with, yes with, the possibility of parole.

Well, our boy Robert certainly must have known how to work the system, because by the summer of ’78 he was a free man. But just like a leopard can’t change his spots, Robert couldn’t change his murderous tendencies. The beast within rose again on January 3, 1979, just a few months after his release, and killed a liquor store owner and wounded his clerk. Once again he was convicted of murder and sentenced to die.

Massie immediately began fighting the appeals process in his attempts to die when fate, in the form of then-Chief Justice Rose Bird, overturned his sentence because he pled guilty against the advice of his attorney. Massie had to be retried and in 1989 he was found guilty of murder once again. For a while the bleeding hearts and lawyers kept him from meeting his inevitable end. But Massie stuck to his guns, no pun intended, saying enough is enough and that he wanted to die.

Well at 12:33 a.m. Tuesday March 27, 2001 at San Quentin Prison, he got his wish. I’m only sorry that he couldn’t have taken Buford along with him for the ride.

The Shrub Speaks: “I assured the prime minister, my administration will work hard to lay the foundation of peace in the Middle - to work with our nations in the Middle East, give peace a chance. Secondly, I told him that our nation will not try to force peace, that we’ll facilitate peace and that we will work with those responsible for a peace.” -- March 20, 2001