Death row inmate fights for control of execution
For some people, the choice to have someone end your life when you are going to die anyway is a completely reasonable decision. In the eyes of others, there is a line that can be crossed over into cruel and unusual punishment. If you’re already slated to die, why not at least give you the dignity to make the decision yourself? Some would argue it is similar to physician-assisted suicide, and in some ways, it is. A choice like this would warrant some much needed thought from all parties involved. Convicted killer Gary Haugen is now faced with such a choice, and it is definitely easier said than done.
Incarcerated since he was 19, Haugen was first sent to prison for the murder of Mary Archer, the mother of a former girlfriend, in 1981. He entered Archer’s home in Northeast Portland and waited until she got home. When she got there, he sexually assaulted and murdered her. At the trial, he pled guilty to her murder and was given a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Twenty-six years later, he and Jason Brumwell murdered fellow inmate David Polin under the belief that he had leaked a friend’s drug use to authorities. They bludgeoned and stabbed him. Although he denied involvement in the crime, Haugen was convicted of the murder of David Polin and was sentenced to death.
Haugen recently requested an early execution and was within rights to do so. He wanted to be executed early because the time on death row has become unbearable for him. The state Supreme Court canceled his execution and stated as their reason that “he may not be mentally capable of making that kind of decision.”
Clarinda Perez, the widow of David Polin, feels he is mentally capable and hopes that he is sincere about his decision. Although Haugen is a convicted killer, he still has his constitutional rights and can still make his own decisions. The eighth amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, but if he is mentally unstable, his ability to define that is null and void. What is in question is the extremity of those decisions and his ability to make them.
Throughout the trials, Haugen has expressed little regret for his actions. His choice to waive the appeals that could save his life speaks for itself. It appears that Haugen is trying to atone for his sins, but it could also be argued that this self-inflicted punishment could be a form of assisted suicide.
However, any person, regardless of who he is, must answer for his crimes. I believe this man should be executed because of the depravity of his crimes. But it is not in any way a form of assisted suicide because he has already been sentenced to die. He is simply trying to speed up a process that sometimes takes too long. Just wasting taxpayer dollars and taking up another cell in an already dysfunctional correctional system, Haugen would be unknowingly freeing a small burden from the shoulders of many when finally executed.
For those who say it is an unacceptable decision, consider how long you could wait on death row pondering your crimes before you pulled the switch yourselves. It could be called suicide because he, in a way, wants to kill himself. However, that death wish is only solidified because of the gravity of the situation.
I believe that suicide is the wrong way to meet your maker, whoever it is. This man is already meeting his maker, though, and there isn’t a thing anyone can do to change it. The only changing variable in this equation is not if but when he will die.
Haugen’s death will not bring anybody back and it may not ease the suffering of the families whose loved ones he robbed them of. Incarcerated as he is, Haugen’s lone freedom is to atone for his sins or cope with his sentencing. He has chosen death as the way out, and whether he regrets his crimes or not only he knows. What we do know is that he is wasting money and time rotting inside of a cell.
Even if he is choosing the easy way out, he’s still getting what he deserves. Your life is yours up until the end. Haugen has chosen his end and the courts have to respect that. When your days are numbered, would you waste away, waiting for the inevitable? Or would rather get it over with?
Haugen has been deemed “competent to engage in choices about his legal strategies.” A new hearing is scheduled for Oct. 7.
Sorry Haugen, but if you’re going to sexually assault an innocent woman, murder her, and then murder someone else, you deserve to rot in prison. The amount of pain and suffering his actions have caused the friends and family of those involved shouldn’t be avoided through death. He did it, without remorse, now he should be made to live with it. The days leading up to your execution are painstaking? What a pity. If you inflict pain on others you deserve the hurt that comes with it.