Alan Dershowitz On The Situation of Martin Grossman, Michoel Yechiel ben Miriam Sorah

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alan-dershowitzJewish-American legalist, Prof. Alan M. Dershowitz has weighed in on the matter of Martin Grossman, a death-row inmate scheduled for execution next Tuesday. The following comments by Professor Dershowitz were obtained by Matzav.com:

“Even those who strongly support capital punishment would limit it to recidivists or people who ‎commit the most heinous of crimes. Martin Grossman fits neither of those categories. He does ‎not belong on death row. His crime, committed when he was a teenager, was unplanned, ‎unpremeditated and impulsive – the product of a serious mental illness, that can now be proved ‎by medical technology that was unavailable at the time of his sentencing.

“He has been in prison ‎for more than a quarter of a century, during which time he has been a model prisoner who has ‎shown great remorse for what he did. All that he is seeking now is a 60-day postponement of his ‎execution, so that his supporters can martial the evidence and present his case for clemency.

“No ‎one should be rushed to execution while doubts remain unresolved. Justice demands that he be ‎given the 60 days to prove that he does not deserve to die at the hands of the state.”  ‎

{Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}


22 COMMENTS

  1. Everyone should please sign the petition to postpones this man’s sentence. I think this can be found on Aish.com or the website of National COuncil of Young Israels.

  2. I have emailed Gov Crist suggesting I will support whatever decision he makes here. The Grossman case is not a modern day version of the Rosenbergs and sadly many of the same groups chiming in today were silent then. Grossman brutally murdered a Florida Wild Life Officer. Inasmuch, as I don’t recall seeing Agudath Yisrael, the OU, or Young Israel entering the capital punishment debate until now, it seems that asking for clemency for Grossman, based solely on his religious affiliation, does both him and the American Jewish community a great disservice. It destroys our credibility in the eyes of our fellow citizens & all but forces Gov Crist to let Grossman’s death sentence stand lest he be seen as showing favoritism to one group above another.

  3. We must all forget what we have not done in the past, Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhist, secularist, etc., and take action now to save a living human being, the cause of which is of great importance to all.

    “A Sanhedrin that puts one person to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: Or even once in seventy years. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiba say: Had we been the Sanhedrin, none would ever have been put to death.” Mishnah Makkot, 1:10 (2nd Century, C.E.)

    “A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.” Pope John Paul II, January 27, 1999, St. Louis, Missouri

  4. So ur saying he should die because it would look bad for us if we save him!!!! u are such a kind person!! jst wait till this happens to ur kid then well c what u say. we hav a responsibility to save r fellow jews no matter what the cost, even if that p

  5. to responsible citizen: you are commpletely wrong!! noone is asking for clemency bec of his religious affiliation!! you missed the boat and have no right emailing that to Gov Crist. if you would just read above it clearly states that his crime was the product of a serious mental illness so martin grossman does not deserve to be killed. now if you would pls email that to gov crist …

  6. I totally agree with #3. I hope he makes the right decision, whatever that is, and doesn’t cave to pressure from any group when making these decisions. The cases need to stand on their own merits. Every appeal has been turned down so I’m guessing nobody, including the Florida Supreme Court, agrees. That doesn’t mean the governor won’t change his mind. He might. But I hope he does it for the right reasons and not because of pressure from the phone calls, emails, etc.

  7. The governor is in a real bind after what’s happened to Huckabee. Please, anyone who writes directly to the governor, do it with seichel.

  8. Alan Dershowitz was given a half story this morning and issued an uninformed opinion without ?analyzing the facts of the case. The author is apparently grandstanding and hoping to be considered in ?Alan’s league. Hopefully the astute reader realizes that if you use the“rationale” used by the author, ?you can rest assured that you will do more harm than good. The following are gentle responses you ?would get to the various excuses given in the above article: 1] What about the other murderers on Death Row? They too hung around with the wrong crowd. 2] Substance abuse is not considered mental illness to be used as a mitigating circumstance. 3] That is still legally defined as a borderline intellect, not mental retardation. 6] Tell us your address OR read the court documents. His probation was for ARMED burglary not a ??“stupid” petty shoplifting 8] This is not the Ukraine. Prosecutors don’t care how many letters or supporters the person has. They ?don’t indiscriminately arrest and detain people based on cheerleaders. He had a hard life but so did ?almost every violent criminal who didn’t control their anger. 9] If Khalid Sheikh Muhammed was held in jail for 25 years would you say the same? Get real this is a ?childish argument if there ever was one.

  9. #6-Of course you are asking for clemency. Clemency implies reducing his sentence to life imprisonment. Secondly, I have every right to voice my opinion to Governor Crist, just as you do. Grossman’s religious affiliation has everything to do with this campaign. Otherwise it would be a moot point. To the fellow who called me a “Jew Hater”, I think we can do without such crudity.

  10. At Matzav’s earlier article yesterday about this story at http://matzav.com/seven-jewish-organizations-ask-florida-governor-to-grant-clemency-to-jewish-death-row-inmate, in Comment #18, I posted a copy of the article at Chabad.org’s web site at http://www.chabad.org/blogs/blog_cdo/aid/1118763/jewish/Martin-Grossman-Does-Not-Deserve-To-Die.htm. I would thus refer readers here to go there as it explains the case in pretty good detail, has telephone numbers and email addresses, and a link to an online petition, which everyone should sign.

  11. L’Aniyas Da’ati, a letter to Governor Crist’s office should have the following items:

    1.) It must be completely correctly written with correct spelling and correct grammar.

    2.) It must be totally respectful.

    3.) It should stress:

    3a.) We very much ARE for the death penalty

    3b.) Wicked criminals must be given full punishment

    3c.) There must be “law and order”

    3d.) We thus strongly applaud efforts to be tough on crime.

    4.) It is just for cases like this one of Mr. Grossman, where there is strong indication of significant mental retardation, that we propose that the perpetuator cannot be held accountable for his actions. However, since he did seriously harm — actually killed — someone, appropriate institutionalization, or, at the very least, some kind of stiff supervision will be needed to ensure that he will never harm anyone else.

    5.) There is strong indication in this specific case of Mr. Grossman, that it was not even an instance of any kind of planned and premeditated murder.

    6.) Any leniency that is determined for Mr. Grossman IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER detracts from the horrific tragedy of the killing of the Florida Wildlife Officer, Mrs. Margaret Parks. Maybe Mr. Grossman’s family should pay for some kind of fitting memorial for her.

    7.) In the current operation of our justice system, there are countless cases of severely wicked fiends who purposely murder numerous people and yet avoid being put to death by the plea bargain rules of pleading “guilty.”

    THIS IS EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY WRONG!!!

    However, as this (and other) types of death penalty avoidances are commonly done, for us to now suddenly pick Mr. Grossman as the one to get “real tough” on, would be severely unfair to him.

    8.) Again, all of this must be stated with the utmost tact and respect.

    9.) Always end with a “Heartfelt Thank You for your consideration.”

    Most important of all: Be Mispallel for “Michoel Yechiel ben Miriam Sorah”

  12. i will only take this seriously if these jewish organizations pledge to do this for every death row inmate from now on, NOT JUST JEWISH ONES!

  13. To Comments #14 from “bukin86,” #15 from “Responsible Citizen,” and #16 from “agree”:

    Yes, of course, there is no question about it at all!!

    That whenever there is a person who was WRONGLY accused and WRONGLY and UNFAIRLY tried and WRONGLY convicted of a capital offense, and who was thus WRONGLY sentenced with the death penalty, or (like this case), did actually do a murder but was insane and was thus not accountable for his actions, yet was still WRONGLY sentenced with the death penalty, then,

    WE MUST ALL DO EVERYTHING WE POSSIBLY CAN TO COMPLETELY STOP SUCH AN EXECUTION!!!!

    SUCH AN EXECUTION IS NOT AN “EXECUTION”; IT IS NOT “LAW AND ORDER”; IT IS RATHER OUTRIGHT MURDER OF AN INNOCENT PERSON!!!!

    However, there are numerous severely wicked people who, with fully functioning mental facilities, purposely cruelly murdered other people. When they are finally caught and PROPERLY and FAIRLY tried and RIGHTFULLY convicted and thus RIGHTFULLY given the death penalty, then, on the contrary,

    WE MUST ALL PETITION THAT THESE RIGHTFULL EXECUTIONS BE CARRIED OUT IMMEDIATELY!!!!

    THESE SEVERELY WICKED PEOPLE MUST IMMEDIATELY BE GIVEN THEIR FULL PUNISHMENTS!!!!

  14. (Continuation of my previous comment)

    Furthermore, as I just related in my above Comment #13, very unfortunately, there are virtually countless cases of extremely severely wicked people who, with fully functioning mental facilities, purposely cruelly and sadistically abused and tormented and murdered even numerous people.

    Yet, when they are finally caught and faced with obvious conviction, with certain legal technicalities — often, it is with the plea bargain rules of pleading “guilty” — THEY ACTUALLY AVOID THE DEATH PENALTY!!!!

    This is certainly extremely, extremely wrong!! It is wrong not only because of the grave injustice that is being done; it is wrong not only because of the grave abusive hurt that is being done to the surviving families of the victims; it is wrong because it is gravely UNFAIR to those convicts who WERE given the death penalty!!

    WE MUST ALL CERTAINLY PETITION OUR GOVERNMENTS TO IMMEDIATELY PUT A COMPLETE STOP TO THESE PERVERSIONS OF JUSTICE!!!!

    THESE SEVERELY WICKED SADISTIC FIENDS MUST BE GIVEN NOTHING LESS THAN — EVEN WITH, YES, A GOOD BIT OF PAIN — BEING PUT TO DEATH!!!!

  15. As I just discussed this phenomenon of plea bargain mis-justice, I would like to mention one example that I heard about that especially pains me.

    I am pretty sure that it was related on one of these true crime story programs on the Discovery Channel about two years ago. They showed some features of a couple of true cases where in certain hospitals, there were employees who were actually murdering patients!! In one case, there was a nurse who was purposely injecting patients with a drug that causes heart attacks! Evidently, she had a perverse enjoyment from the heightened crises that would explode when the “CODE BLUE” alarm would go off and all the medical personnel would rush to that patient’s bed and go into full resuscitative action to try to revive him.

    In another case, there was a medical assistant who was purposely injecting patients with a drug that would force their deaths to be imminent. He was going to those patients with serious diseases and terminally ill situations, and HE was making the decisions as to when they would be finished!

    In the first case, several scores of people died from that wicked nurse’s prank; in the second case, it is not even known, but it is estimated that the number of that vicious fiend’s dead may have easily been over 200!

    In each case though, when they were finally caught, the two slimebags simply pleaded guilty and thus avoided the death penalty.

    The program showed the son of one of the victims of the second guy; he looked like an older middle-aged man in his late 50’s. His voice was obviously holding back but was really chocking with tears as he exclaimed:

    “THE DEATH PENALTY WOULD HAVE BEEN SO APPROPRIATE FOR HIM, FOR THE SUBSTANCE THAT THEY USE IN THE LETHAL INJECTION IS THE EXACT SAME SUBSTANCE THAT HE USED TO KILL MY MOTHER!!!! BUT, ALAS, THAT WAS NOT TO BE!!!!”

    Yes, something has to be done about this!!

  16. the product of a serious mental illness, that can now be proved ?by medical technology that was unavailable at the time of his sentencing.

    What, is Dershowitz a doctor now?

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