Please show me one excuse I made for anyone killing anyone? I did bring up Susan Smith's mental health as a likely reason that the jury didn't give her the death penalty. But that is not making an excuse for anyone.
Please show me where I made any excuses for someone killing someone.
You made excuses, specifically mental issues, as to why she shouldn't have been executed. When you say she did this, but . . (fill in the blank), it's called an excuse.
Did I say that? Or did I say that the judge and jury heard testimony about her mental illness, and that is likely the reason she was not executed?
You can't say anything about why she was not executed. You didn't hear a single bit of testimony and yet you claim that.
Do you think a woman who could do that to her children is sane? Susan Smith had a history of child sexual abuse by her stepfather. If you had been in the courtroom, you would know that he read an apology letter to Susan, apologizing for molesting her when she was a teenager and messing her all up.
Defending Smith, Stepfather Says He Also Bears Blame
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UNION, S.C., July 27— Susan Smith's stepfather, who admitted that he had molested her when she was a teen-ager and had consensual sex with her as an adult, told her and his town that he shared her guilt in the drowning deaths of her young sons.
Mrs. Smith's defense, which rested its case today in the penalty phase of her murder trial, did what many people in this small town have wondered about for months: it called to the stand her stepfather, Beverly Russell, to accept part of the blame for the deaths of the two little boys last Oct. 25.
Mr. Russell, a former member of the executive committee of the South Carolina Republican Party and a member of the Christian Coalition, read aloud from a letter he had written to Mrs. Smith in jail in which he said that his "heart breaks for what I have done to you."
"You don't have all the guilt in this tragedy," he wrote to her, on Father's Day.
Closing arguments in the sentencing phase of the trial were expected to begin on Friday morning, and the jury was expected to get the case by the afternoon.
The same jury took just 2 1/2 hours to convict the 23-year-old Mrs. Smith of murder in the drowning of Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months. They must now deliberate whether Mrs. Smith should be executed for that offense or be sentenced to life in prison, where she would be eligible for parole after 30 years.
Mr. Russell was one of several relatives who testified for Mrs. Smith today. Mrs. Smith refused to testify when Judge William Howard of Circuit Court told her she had the right. But the jury could still hear from her on Friday if she chooses to make an unsworn statement to it after the lawyers have finished closing arguments. No cross-examination is permitted.
The state's psychiatrist said before the trial even began that Mrs. Smith wanted to die and would sabotage her own defense if she was allowed to speak to the jury.
Mrs. Smith's lawyer, David Bruck, who has argued that she just snapped under the pressure of a crumbling personal life and a long history of depression, was paid in part by Mr. Russell, who mortgaged his home to raise the money.
Mr. Russell, a tall, bulky man with silver hair, cried on the stand as he read from his letter, "Had I known what the result of my sin would be, I would have mustered the strength to behave according to my responsibility."
Mr. Russell fondled his daughter when she was 15 and kissed her in a passionate, grown-up way. He continued to do so even after he had had counseling, he testified today. Then, after her marriage to David Smith, the boys' father, he had sex with her again.
Mr. Bruck and Judy Clarke, another of Mrs. Smith's lawyers, have called witness after witness who testified that sexual molestation at the hands of a parent could lead to a lifetime of emotional damage.