Reducing the punishment of a cold-blooded murderer because he had a difficult childhood or had been sexually abused early in his life doesn’t pass the common sense test
In 1991, Bernie Tiede, an assistant funeral director in the East Texas town of Carthage, started living with Marjorie Nugent, a wealthy new widow 43 years his senior. He also became Nugent’s business manager. Their five-yhear relationship deteriorated as Nugent became increasingly belittling and scornful. In November 1996, Tiede picked up a rifle and shot the 81-year-old woman four times in the back. He stuffed her body in a freezer where she remained for nine months before her body was discovered.
According to the Houston Chronicle, between the time of the murder and the body’s discovery, “Tiede spent much of her fortune on others, bestowing college scholarships, cars, a home for a struggling couple and startup money for several small businesses.” He became a beloved figure in Carthage. Of course, he also lived high on the hog with the victim’s money.
After Tiede was arrested and charged with murder, people in Carthage besieged the prosecutor with pleas for leniency. However, because the prosecutor saw Tiede as “a cold-blooded killer who shot an old woman, then lived the high life for months as if nothing bad had happened,” he obtained a change of venue and got Tiede sentenced to life in prison.
Earlier this year, Tiede’s lawyers discovered that the killer had been sexually abused for six years by an uncle, starting around the age of 12. Psychiatrists who recently examined Tiede concluded that the sexual abuse had a devastating effect on his life. The shrinks claimed that is why he remained with Nugent despite the abuse she allegedly heaped upon him and why his mind snapped when he shot her.
In May, after 17 years behind bars, Tiede was released from prison and ordered to live in a garage apartment behind the Austin home of film director Richard Linklater who based his 2011 movie “Bernie” on the Tiede case. His lawyers had persuaded a court that the sexual abuse mitigated a shorter sentence. And on Thursday, the Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest court for criminal cases, ruled 5-3 that Tiede be given a new sentencing phase trial.
What is surprising here is that the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with Tiede’s lawyers. The usually conservative Court did not have to take any mitigating circumstances into consideration because the U.S. Supreme court has ruled that mitigation applies only to death penalty cases.
The prosecutor now says he would have called for no more than a 20-year sentence had he known about the sexual abuse. During the new sentencing trial, he will call for a sentence of time served. That means this cold-blooded murderer will be set free.
To all of this I say horseshit! Call me a dinosaur if you like, but I will not buy into this psychobabble about an abusive childhood contributing to a horrific crime. So what if a cold-blooded murderer’s mother looked backwards in the mirror while she was pregnant or daddy took his rubber ducky away while he was in the bathtub. So what if a cold-blooded murderer was beaten or sexually abused during his childhood.
Tiede did not remain in an abusive relationship with Nugent because he was sexually abused for six years. He remained with the old woman because he was able to live high on the hog with her money. And he shot Nugent, not because he snapped, but because he got tired of taking her abuse.
I say forget mitigating circumstances. Never mind all the psychiatric baloney. Let the punishment fit the crime! That just seems like common sense to me.
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