Baltimore Sun: Confessed Murder, Convicted Rapist Spared Death Penalty Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 16, 2007:

Former UMBC student John C. Gaumer was spared the death penalty Wednesday when a jury sentenced him to instead spend the rest of his life in prison for raping and beating to death a woman he met online.

The Baltimore County jury deliberated for less than four hours before reaching its decision, which was read just before 4 p.m. in a courtroom so full that attorneys, courthouse staff and other spectators stood several rows deep along the back wall and in part of the aisle.

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There, investigators found Brown's body -- nude and so badly beaten that she had virtually no facial bones intact and was missing the jawbone, teeth and the nose that Gaumer told detectives he removed in an attempt to prevent her from being identified.

Norman, the judge, said as the sentencing hearing came to an end that he couldn't shake one thought that had been running through his mind throughout the proceedings.

"It was a bad date. Two people didn't click, so to speak," Norman said.

I am profoundly disappointed. What sort of murderer deserves the death penalty if a convicted rapist and murderer does not, especially after dismembering the body of the deceased to defeat its recognition? I am no big advocate for capital punishment generally, but this case screams for the maximum sentence, not the minimum.

I hold Judge Norman in high general regard, but hold his characterization of this murder as a "bad date" to be irresponsible. A bad date is when two people bore or annoy each other. This man decided that the penalty for failing to socialize with him - meaning go back and have sex with him - is rape, followed by his administration of the death penalty and his efforts to disfigure the body. Perhaps more of the context of the judge's quote would have clarified this.

Somewhere, Gaumer learned that it was acceptable to kill a woman who won't sleep with you.

If Baltimore County, of all places, cannot execute such a murderer and rapist, we may as well abolish the death penalty, just to save the trees on which the applicable sections of Maryland's Code and Rules regarding capital crimes are printed. I can respect a death penalty absolutist, who says never, never may the state kill. But if not now, when ever?