Poage: System doesn't think of the victim's family
In her own way, Dottie Poage said she "respects" one of the men who tortured and killed her son in a Spearfish canyon 11 years ago.
It's an appreciation engendered by Elijah Page's decision to halt his appeals and accept in July 2007 the lethal cocktail that legally ended his life.
"I found out that Page, who didn't tell me but told someone else, was truly sorry for what he did," Poage, 56, said from her Rapid City home.
"He said he can't take it back, but that he took full responsibility for what he did. To him, being executed meant accepting his punishment and following through with it so he could come to grips with himself for committing the crime. And I do respect that."
She wishes Briley Piper, the other man on death row for killing her son, Chester Allan Poage, in March 2000, would accept that same punishment for a crime to which he admitted and save taxpayers some money.
The legal system with its long, drawn-out appeals process, allows him to do otherwise, Poage said.
"He has this dream, this vision, that he is going to be a free man some day," she said of Piper.
"They're allowing him to think: 'I can ride this out. I can keep appealing because maybe some word in the trial was wrong and that will get me off the hook.'
"Well, why doesn't the system think of the victim's family? Give us some hope, some resolve. I'm walking slowly toward the belief they will execute him someday. Give me some hope so I can pick up my step."
Poage said it would sicken her to see South Dakota repeal the death penalty. What it needs, she said, is to be more expedient in using capital punishment. In her mind, Page chose to be expedient, and for that he always will have her respect.
What Dottie Poage knows now is that Page died a peaceful death, and her son did not.
"It would make me feel just as sad if I had tortured Page, because I'm not that type of person," Poage said.
"He went in a peaceful death; there is resolve with me, and he gave that to me. By knowing no one has to take care of him every day, the state doesn't have to feed him every day, he's not trying to play with the system and screw with me again and again.
"What I would like is for Briley Piper to do the same thing."
http://www.argusleader.com/article/2...ictim-s-family
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