Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Breaking News Witnessing Steve Henley's Execution
Posted by Caleb Hannan on Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:40 AM
By Brantley Hargrove
From the moment I found out I was selected as a media witness to an execution, I was filled with misgivings of every sort. My own opinions on capital punishment aside, was watching a man die something I wanted playing on the film projector behind my eyes for who knows how long?
This morning, at roughly 1:15 a.m., I sat in a small, fluorescently lit room with six other media witnesses and several members of Henley's family, along with Stacy Rector, his spiritual advisor. In front of us, like some film screen, was a window covered with black blinds.
When the blinds were drawn, I'll simply say that Henley was not in a state I expected. I guess I'm not sure what I thought he'd be. He was smiling, goofing around, blowing kisses to his daughter, son and sister.
And perhaps most haunting of all, he maintained his innocence right up to the moment he lost consciousness. His proclamations didn't ring hollow. They weren't melodramatic. They were spoken with the understated force of simple fact.
That, more than his families disturbing cries of grief, stayed with me. He died at 1:31 a.m.
Comments (22)
Showing 1-22 of 22
Fuck the death penalty. Whether this guy did it or not (and we'll never really know for sure) the government shouldn't be in the business of killing people in captivity. In revenge, the state is just as bad as the person it claims to be punishing, the same thing parents have to teach their children NOT to do. Why not just keep him locked safely away for the rest of his life? Chalk the money up to the cost of a safe society...where NOBODY, not even murderers, should be murdered.
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Anonymous is an idiot! The death penalty would work if it was used as it is designed. If you are found guilty of a capital offense, you should be put to death! If criminals knew they were headed to the death chasmber QUICKLY, they would think a little more before they murder.
And anonymous, the State does not kill, the State punishes. Did this guy know murder was a crime? Did he know the sentance for murder was death? All the State of TN did was carry out punishment ... the punishment that was perscribed well before the time of the crime, not after.
And the State does not murder! The State exacts punishment.
I don't want my tax dollars going to keep another criminal housed and fed. If they deserve the death penalty, give them what they asked for ... death! And apply the punishment quickly!
Bill, you are the idiot. Do you have any idea how much his 20+ years incarceration on death row costs compared to if he would have lived 50 years in max. security. The death row cost was nearly double for less than half the time.
And like anonymous said, the govt. shouldn't be allowed to kill its citizens, because for one, innocence could be lost, and 2nd now some other family has to watch their family members strapped to a gurney about to be murdered in front of them. Bill has no understanding of laws. In Texas you can be executed for revenge killing, but isn't revenge killing the same as what your pathetic southern states are doing. Bill do you read these death penalty cases? I bet your just one of those cowards that gets a hard on every time someone is about to be executed. Do me a favor Bill. Go take a long look at yourself in the mirror. Tell me what you see.
Even though y'all disagree, this discussion is useful. For my part, I wasn't sure how I felt about the death penalty going in. I imagined there are certainly those who deserved to die. But that came with the qualification of certainty, and there can be none--particularly in Steve's case.
After watching Steve die, seeing first hand the wild grief his family suffered--the weeping, the retching, etc, I don't know that the benefits outweigh the cost. Conjecture is fine until you actually see it with your own eyes.
I have no idea whether Henley was guilty or innocent, but I wonder if Bill would concede that in the history of the U.S. death penalty, innocent people have been executed, and that innocent people are sitting on death row today. Out of a hundred or even a thousand executions, is it acceptable that one or two of them are actually innocent?
If Henley was still in prison serving a life sentence and next week or next year convincing evidence came to light exonerating him, at least he could be released and given the rest of his life as a free man. Execution is final, and seems to assume that juries - humans - don't make mistakes. But it seems folks like Bill don't really care. Their thirst for blood is too overwhelming. And to top it off, most of them would call themselves fervent, loving Christians.
Not so long ago, I was someone who thought about the death penalty as a necessity. However, being that I have been researching the Henley case, my feelings toward the matter have changed. This is a down right case of the "Good Ole' Boy" system. There is and was no absolute proof of guilt provided by the prosecution. None what-so-ever! You have an admitted drug user being the key witness. Technically its hearsay. Now as for some of comments about the cost of death row vs. a life sentence in prison. How can another human being place a monetary amount on someone's life? You can't! Why try? People are dieing every day. Some people are guilty, some people aren't. I personally don't believe Steve was. Why continue to enforce the death penalty when no one can know for 100% positive, obviously unless you have filmed the incident or admitted to it, that someone is guilty or innocent? There are fine lines that need to be adjusted! Come on!
Viciously killing the old and weak is pretty serious business. The death penalty is appropriate sometimes. It is hard to appreciate the horror of the crime twenty plus years later when the reality of the state of Tennessee killing Steve Henley confronts us. But there was the reality of that old man and woman dying horribly in their burning house. Testimony of a known drug user, but then, it appears that this man used pretty much the same amount of drugs that the states' witness used that same day, and he had a grudge going against these people. His appeals were not so much I was somewhere else, DNA would prove I didn't do this, as "He did it, no, HE did it!" It sort of strains credibility to think that this man, who had a grudge against the people murdered, went to his grandmother's, and his companion, who had no motive whatsoever, went back and killed these people without his knowledge. The way things are today, though, perhaps it is is more appropriate to incarcerate for life. Certainly this was the route chosen by Senator Tommy Burks' family for the person who killed him. Not because he may someday be proven innocent, but because the death penalty puts such focus, such attention on the convicted perpetrator, so little emphasis on the victims(s) of the original crime. Steve Henley may be sitting somewhere today talking with the One Who Knows All.Are they discussing what a liar Terry Flatt is? Who knows? He was given a definitive end. This was his chance to make things right if they needed to be made so.
The USA is meant to be a civilised country. Is strapping a person down to a bed/trolley and clinically murdering them for revenge civilised? You lot bang on about human rights atrocities and lack of freedoms elsewhere in the world and yet behind the skirts of the 'law' you deny people the most basic Human right there is; the right to life!
In Europe, we are civilised, we don't murder people in the name of the State for revenge. It's not the ultimate justice; it's revenge.
The clown that thinks the death penalty would be a deterent if carried out quickly should think again. When people committ crimes, they are not thinking about getting caught, they are thinking how to get away with it. It's apparent that the states with the death penalty and those that use it the most in the USA have higher murder rates than the states that don't. Why is that? That's a question to the blood thirsty hang em an flog em brigade.
Shame on you USA!
John,
Your murder rates in Britain climbed after the death penalty was revoked. Check your facts again about the death penalty states in the USA.
There are 13 states that have abolished it, and Washington DC also. The highest murder rates in America are in DC. Disproportionately high! There are 2 of the larger states that do not execute, Michigan and Alaska. Their murder rates are higher than California, Texas, and NY, who have the death penalty. People are misinformed about this. They look at statistics from the smaller states that do not execute, and they look good. However, when you compare them to their neighbors in the same size category, there are more states with the death penalty that have numbers as good. This is what anti-penalty people try to use, but it is not accurate info.
Nancy Jones, I've always been interested in the motive provided by Flatt. In court documents it's referred to in vague terms as money owed to Henley and some perceived wrong against his grandfather by the Staffords. Do you know more about this? I've been blogging about this, but I'm researching as well for a longer story...
Brantley:
I hope you will keep digging on this one as well as on other death penalty cases. The more you look, the worse they smell. Henley's example is almost a case study of what's wrong with the death penalty:
• marginal or incompetent forensic work by the police
• deals cut with alleged accomplices that lead to a death sentence for one defendant and a relatively short sentence for the other (the person who cuts the deal is generally the one who has had the most experience as a defendant in the criminal justice system)
• incompetent or inexperienced legal representation at the original trial (I think it's fair to say that a majority of those on death row wouldn't be there had they had the resources to afford good legal counsel)
Henley's case is especially troubling because it involves a fundamental question of guilt or innocence. But there are many other cases (like Philip Workman's) where the person is guilty of murder but should not have been eligible for the death penalty under the law, or should have been excluded from the death penalty because they are mentally ill (you'd be surprised how many of these guys are mentally ill). Workman's case involved suppression of evidence by the police and district attorney -- which you'll find is such a common feature in these death penalty cases that it no longer surprises you to see it.
Our system is so fraught with error that, even if you believe that death can be an appropriate punishment, you would have to conclude that capital punishment should be abolished because no honest person could claim that innocent people are executed. Or you could be like our district attorney, who argued with a straight face that the occasional execution of an innocent person was an acceptable price to pay. And that gets at one of the other sordid little secrets: State killing continues because people like Torry Johnson and Phil Bredesen are willing to look the other way, so they can maintain their law-and-order posturing, rather than deal with a system that is clearly broken.
ellie,
I disagree with your assessment I have seen the rates on the Death Penalty Information Page: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-1996-2007 On the whole, the states without the Death Penalty have lower rates than those states with the death penalty. Rates decreased in Canada and Australia on abolition, so the death penalty's usefulness as a deterent is at best, questionable.
Concerning the UK following abolition in 1965, you are correct, the murder rate did rise but it was hardly exponential and the late 60s brought about many aspects of social change, which may well have had a bearing on violent crime.
I struggle to understand why the judicial system concerned with prisons in many States are called Departments of Correction. It seems little correction goes on when the recidivation rates are looked at. If the US Judicial system provides such a deterent; why do you have 3 million people in prison? Thats half the population of Scotland!
At the end of the day, it comes down to rights; do you as citizens of the US or the State of TN have the right to kill another human being? The answer is no! Or at least the answer should be no.
Statistics aside (and I don't think it's a deterrent by the way) the biggest problem with the death penalty is the chance that innocent people can be put to death. And considering that many people have been exonerated after being on death row for years, it is almost certain that innocent people have been put to death. Sacco and Vanzetti are prominent historical examples of individuals almost certainly innocent being executed. And that is completely reprehensible. That should also give pause to those who think once someone is sentenced to death that they should have the sentence carried out immediately. There isn't a greater argument against capital punishment than this, imho.
And I would recommend a book about the Sacco and Vanzetti case that came out in 2007 called "Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind" by Bruce Watson.
The guilt or innocence of Steve Henley is irrelevant to the act of barbarity by the government. The preparation that goes into the legalized execution of a human being is just "sick" and immoral. The death penalty is degrading and brutalizing a society, which continues to experience the highest crimes rates in the world. A government that resorts to killing its citizens cannot be considered decent and therefore, holds no respectability around the civilized world. Sadly, the USA is slowly but surely losing all credibility in the fight for universal human rights. The USA is looking really, really, stupid.
To Mr Hargrove:
All I have when I speak of this case is my general knowledge of Jackson County Tennessee as it is, and you may well know, that's pretty different from almost any other place in the world. I also have my general knowledge of who these people were, and knowing people who knew these people and hearing their comments on the situation at the time. I was in the local area listenting to the media accounts at the time of the murder. I also have a basic knowledge of psychology.
It appears there was some precipitating incident in Steve Henley's life. He was having some real bad money problems, was very frustrated, had had or was anticipating a foreclosure from the Federal Land Bank or somebody like that.
HAccording to both of them, he and Terry Flatt were driving around all day, doing chemicals and drinking, having picked up a transmission they were going to sell.
At some point, their stories diverge wildly, though there was incontrovertable proof that they were both in the right place at the right time to do the crime, were seen by several people. But in my humble opinion, Steve Henley's story just does not have the ring of credibility. If he'd said, Terry went nuts and got his gun and shot these people, I was trying to get him not to...I was afraid he'd turn the gun on me too...it would've been much more believable. The story Terry Flatt told was that the two of them were there, they both participated, it begun as a robbery, because Steve Henley said the people owed his grandparents money. The man told them he had a hundred dollars he'd give them back at the house. He started into the house and was shot as he went through the door.
But Steve Henley's story was that he went to his grandmother's and somehow, while he was gone, he believes that Terry Flatt decided to kill the people, found a gun, went to their house, shot them, set the house on fire, and then got back into Henley's truck, while he had no knowledge of what had happened. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it. And in twenty three years, there was never much change in either story.
I think it's sort of significant that the guy who was on death row with Steve Henley who had been exonerated didn't say, "He's an innocent man!" he said something to the effect that he was a good guy who never caused any trouble. He was certainly a tough old Jackson county boy who stayed by his story to the end. It was, first and last, a very very sad thing. Drugs + alchohol+ very bad judgement caused someone to do something very bad that afternoon. Did the state punish the right man? Was the death penalty a terrible mistake for the killing of two relatively defenseless people in their home? Should one person be allowed to "turn state's evidence" against another in order to get a conviction against the other and receive a lesser sentence? Steve Henley did not confess any guilt, yet try to put the most of the blame on his companion. He simply said "I was somewhere else, I did not do this." In some circles, this was a far more noble thing than telling a story which implicated both of them, but one less than another. I do not know the answers.
To the people who cry that there should have been more "forensics" I can only reply that there aren't that many likely suspects in a tiny rural area like that. It's not too tough to figure out who came and went around there that day. DNA? Not a real factor. They had the shells from the gun, but after the fire. It is sort of amusing to me for people to inquire if any real effort was made to solve the crime. The alternative being that the authorities just grabbed an innocent bystander and lynched him ( albeit twenty three years later.)
In almost every small town murder, the truth will eventually come out, if only in whispers and gossip, stories told at the bar, deathbed confessions, etc. Steve Henley's execution was a sad thing. The killing of the Stafford family was a sad thing too. I can't imagine how I would feel if my grandparents had been killed in this manner. True justice in this country, and in any country, is a hard thing to decyper.
You're probably right Nancy, although you have one part wrong: Steve said he let Terry out of his truck before he went to his grandmothers. He said that when Terry got out he grabbed Steve's .22 and said he was going to shoot rabbits with it in the cornfield. I don't think his story ever suggested that Terry simply found a gun somewhere and used it.
You're also right that there weren't many people who traveled that road, except those who lived there. The one piece that has stood out to me, though, is the motive, like I said before. Has there ever been any real proof that the Staffords owed Henley or his grandfather money? It's true that a few years of drought pretty much scuttled his entire farming operation, but is that enough to drive this man to kill?
Here is the other thing. I think what many people find especially troubling about this case, even some who believe Henley was guilty, is the disparity of the sentences. The primary testimony against Henley came from the man who confessed that he was involved and had an obvious motive to save his own neck (a much clearer motive than Henley had to commit murder). Plea-bargain confessions like this have become so notorious that the Davidson County district attorney's office adopted a policy a few years ago that it would no longer let prosecutors here seek the death penalty if the primary testimony came from a confessed accomplice who cut a deal. Too often, we have learned, the guy who cuts the deal is the real killer. Based on this alone, Henley should have been spared the death penalty.
Randy,I do so agree with you on that. It's hard to accept a death penalty case where one of the probably involved gets off relatively unscathed, one dies by lethal injection. I wonder how this is going to play out in the East Nashville killing of the Vanderbilt teacher and his sister? Cold blooded first degree home invasion murders with robbery motive, you really want to have a lot of deterrents against this type of thing in our society! It appears there were about six people involved there, all eager to sing on each other, I bet. So do we kill one or two, let the others off lightly because they were less involved? Bad companions bring bad luck. But how much bad luck is fair or just?
It's sort of a given in the parole situation that if you take responsibility for at least some part of the crime you are charged with and say you're sorry, you stand a lot better chance of getting out earlier. The unrepentent, "I didn't DO it!" end up with much longer sentences anyhow, so the whole system is skewed against the truly innocent.
Mr.Hargrove, as I said, I'm speaking very generally, I wasn't there, didn't see the evidence, etc. Opinions are worth what they cost. And as usual when you get things third or fourth hand, details get fuzzy. It was PCA, not the land bank that Henley was having trouble with. And yes, he supposedly did give Flatt the gun before he let him out of the truck. But if you check the profilers such as John Douglas, a precipitating stressor event or situation is something to look for in a crime investigation. It appears Steve Henley sort of had one. He was frustrated, probably angry, felt he'd been cheated by a lot of people, wasn't getting a break anywhere. People who knew him at that time, purely word of mouth that I heard, was that he was sort of an angry guy. It does appear he knew these folks. There may have been some old family history, some "they did us wrong" back in the past, I am sure somebody knows the story if you talk to people from around there. Heaven knows if you live in close proximity to people in a community like this, you pretty much know them, have a family history of some type with them.
Hard, very hard it is for me to believe there was someone else driving around over there that day who was mean enough, had the motive, had the knowledge of the place, the people, etc, and went in and did this and left these two very unlucky guys holding the bag. And that this "real killer" didn't continue commiting these types of home invasions robberies murders afterward. This thing did not happen in a place you would be driving by by accident, even if it were a crime of opportunity.
Did Terry Flatt have a motive? Did he know the people? As for saying Terry Flatt did it because he was a known drug user who was running up Dilaudid that day, that is a high end painkiller, which would not give you a lot of energy. Meth would be more likely to do that. Combined with a lot of beer, dilaudid is a depressant. To have done all this crime involved single handedly in this time frame would've taken quite a bit of hustling.So simply being "on drugs" and wanting to rob somebody for money is not quite a motive, in my humble opinion. Also wonder where he got the gasoline in this scenario? And obviously, Steve Henley isn't much of a noticer if he didn't notice a good sized fire driving by because the corn was high. Didn't the guy reek of gasoline when he got back in the truck? Hadn't the gun been fired? Wasn't he breathing hard? He must have been one cool dude not to give any sign he'd done it.
It was very sad for me to hear Steve Henley's son talk about his daddy driving around in his much loved Chevelle, shifting through the gears so fast. I've known a lot of good old country boys like that. Some of them have done well, and some of them have come to very bad ends. As I said before, it seems that alchohol and drugs and anger mix and create very bad things sometimes. It was sad and awful that this thing happened in 1985. As I said, I cannot imagine how I'd have felt if it had happened to my grandparents. I strongly suspect based on what I've heard and read that these two guys did it. One or the other was the instigator, but I believe it was a two person crime. It is sad that Steve Henley was executed and sad the other person got such a short sentence. Sad that a resolution of this situation took so long that it became sort of a 'water torture' for all involved.
I do believe the death penalty should be retained as an option. But I also like the plea bargain thing, where you can't get the death penalty on the testimony of another party in the crime. That would also have saved Phillip Workman, kept at least those two people off Death Row.
In working with people who have had family members as victims of crime, I have come to the conclusion that no amount of punishment would be enough to seem equal or fair to them or make them feel a whole lot better. At the same time, having the people you believe to be responsible for the crime get off lightly is very hurtful and insulting. As I said justice is a very hard thing to arbitrate. If we were a perfect society, we could do what someone on another death penalty thread said, Forgive, as Jesus would. However, the reality of the world we live in requires a lot more. Forgiveness does not involve a failure to apply the rules and provide consequences. How to apply them is the question.
I completely agree with you, Nancy. Financial trouble can certainly drive sane people to do strange things. The fact is, Flatt's story is the only one that is really plausible.
I'm not here proclaiming Steve's innocence, because I don't know that I believe that myself. I feel like there's definitely more to this story, and I'm hoping I can shed at least a little light on it in the coming weeks. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share them with me. bhargrove@nashvillescene.com
