Letter to the Editor: No mercyA few times, you notice an order like this at the USSC website and it usually is a summary dismissal of a death inmate appeal. This case has shades of both sides of a debate found here (it is a bit weird that a specialty blog attracts knee-jerks like at least two people on that thread): the person doesn't seem overly sympathetic on some level,* but on another, the machinery of death seems perverse. 37 years? Calling Justice Breyer! The perversity of a sentence being commuted to life in prison and then on retrial decades later given the death sentence again under a revised statute is also noted though there is some logic to it.
Once again, the people of Oklahoma, through the parole board, have shown heart by denying clemency for someone whose crime was committed 37 years ago. This is in spite of testimony from correctional personnel that Michael B. Selsor was a "model prisoner who often looked out for young men and helped them adjust to prison life." There is not much chance for redemption in prison but whatever chance there is, I think Selsor took advantage of it and showed that there is good in him. He is 57 and is being put to death for something that happened when he was 20.
I don't say let him out of prison or at some time in the future deem him eligible for parole, but I think he has demonstrated a chance to live. What happened to the revered Christian concept of redemption? I guess we may just ignore it.
Editor's note: Michael B. Selsor is scheduled to die May 1 for the shooting death of a Tulsa convenience store manager during a 1975 robbery spree that left at least three other people injured.
I read somewhere that though the Torah and so forth allows Jews to execute, it provides so many roadblocks (especially with all the commentary since) that it is rather hard to have the case come to fruition. Such underlines the pragmatics of strict rules in practice. I find the death penalty wrong but not utterly unreasonable. In practice, however, it all turns messy. I continue to find it hard to see it worthwhile to execute people like him. Let him stay in prison. What is the point of executing an arbitrary few for crimes done in the days of That '70s Show?
I reckon there is a philosophical reason for it. Not for me.
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* "Along with the murder conviction, and shooting with intent to kill, Selsor is also serving 10 years for robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and robbery with a firearm. He is also serving 18 months for a 1985 conviction of attempted escape from a penal institution. According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections website, Selsor has been housed at OSP since April 24, 1985."