I once saw two young men sentenced to death.
I was in the courtroom in Laramie in August of 1974 when Judge Vernon Bentley sentenced Billy J. Cloman and Julian P. Turner to death in the gas chamber for the murders of Laramie County ranchers Lloyd Witt and Ray Davis.
Cloman tried to look tough as the sentence was read, but a sudden case of the hiccups belied the tough guy act.
“Man (hiccup),” he said, “we been RAILROADED (hiccup)!”
There was little sympathy for the two young men. An Albany County jury found that they had murdered the two ranchers - good Samaritans - who were asked by the two strangers, on a cold night, to drive them to Cheyenne.
Instead, Witt and Davis were stabbed to death, loaded in the back of Witt's pickup, then disposed of as Cloman and Turner drove east, ultimately arriving in Chicago in the stolen pickup, with a pool of blood clearly visible in the pickup bed.
They were stopped after making an illegal U-turn in front of the main police station in Chicago. Cops noticed the blood in the back, Wyoming plates, Witt's name crossed out on the registration, and Cloman's name penciled in.
“These guys belong on Death Row for being so stupid!” longtime Cheyenne police reporter Kirk Knox leaned over and whispered to me as the details of the crime emerged.
I asked Judge Bentley if it was difficult sentencing the two men to death. He said he found it more difficult sentencing young men to the penitentiary in Rawlins, given the things that could happen to them there. With Cloman and Turner, he felt the sentence was warranted.
Cloman and Turner were not executed, however, as their death sentences were overturned, along with every death sentence at the time, by the 1972 Supreme Court decision declaring the death penalty, as applied at the time, unconstitutional. Their sentences were reduced to consecutive life terms.
According to prison records, Cloman remains in prison in Rawlins. Turner apparently died in 2018.
Recent brutal crimes in the news have brought back memories of Cloman and Turner.
Death penalty laws were revised after the Supreme Court decision, and today you would think that a young man in Idaho knifing to death four young college students would be a slam dunk for the ultimate penalty.
Such was not the case, however, as a plea bargain netted the murderer life in prison without parole.
Since then, a young man shot an insurance executive in the back in New York City, killing him.
That case is working it's way to trial, but he has been charged with second-degree murder in a state that does not have the death penalty.
This, when the premeditated murder was captured on video. He's also facing federal charges, so there's a possibility he could face the death penalty under federal law.
Meanwhile, the defense lawyers – doing their jobs - drag the process out as long as possible.
Then there was the cold-blooded murder of Charlie Kirk, witnessed by millions on video, allegedly by a young man who admitted the killing to his boyfriend.
Again, the defense lawyers are dragging it out as long as possible, and nine months after the murder, the defendant has not yet even entered a plea.
I agree with those who believe that death sentences should be extremely rare. But it should remain an option.
Killing those two ranchers east of Cheyenne, four young college students butchered for no apparent reason, an insurance executive brazenly shot in the back, Charlie Kirk murdered for all to see, and a four-year-old girl tortured and murdered in Texas by a delivery driver in 2022 – it's the brazenness, the brutality, and the incredible cruelty that justify the ultimate penalty.
The last man executed in Wyoming, Mark Hopkinson, received life sentences for killing three members of the Vincent Vehar family in Evanston.
But his jury, I believe wisely, invoked the death penalty for Hopkinson ordering - from behind bars - the torture and murder of a key witness against him.
Talk about a bridge too far. Some crimes cry out for the ultimate penalty.
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said this of pornography in 1964:
“I know it when I see it.”
Likewise, I think we know true evil when we see it. And we undervalue life when we accept as normal plea-bargained sentences for crimes that richly deserve the ultimate penalty.
Let's see how these recent, horrible crimes are dealt with in the courts.
I know prosecutors have tough decisions to make, but at a certain point the death penalty has to remain very much on the table.
Dave Simpson can be contacted at DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
