Arkansas Blog

I would be interested to know if the holdouts were African-American; my gut tells me it is likely that at least one was. If so, I'd love to know why they did what they did; did they identify with Vance or his monster of a mother, or could they not identify sufficiently with the white victims.

If they "stood firmly" against death simply because they're anti-death penalty, then they lied during jury selection; they were ringers for the defense. The whole thing is sickening.

The interesting thing is that I bet anything the Plumerville cop-killer (who will be tried in Conway County) will get death, even though his crime, while also abhorrent, is in a way more excusable; he was in a stolen car, panicked when pulled over, and shot the officer. That is nothing compared to the vermin Vance who, after Anne fought back (unlike the Marianna lady) instead of submitting to rape/sodomy, decided to beat her brains in.

Let's see...a jury of twelve people with two black jurors and three holdouts. Let's see...the chances that decision was taken without at least one white juror concurring is...pardon me while I carry the one...ah, here's the answer:

Zero. Zilch. Nada. Just plain impossible.

Thank you for playing, FromThePines.

This is a tough call for me.

As a general rule, I am reluctant to give the State the power to exterminate a life.

However, I am swayed by the heinous nature of this crime. There is no doubt that a terrible amount of pain and suffering was endured by the victim. It is this extreme suffering that she endured and the violent nature that her mortal injuries were inflicted that give me personal cause to believe that the death penalty is warranted in this instance. Furthermore there is not a reasonable doubt in my mind that would cause me to believe that the accused perpetrator wasn't actually responsible for committing this heinous crime. Somehow I cannot find any benefit to the perpetrator being allowed to continue to live in this world as we know it.

I also cannot turn this into a protective racial position on the part of the jurors that would not vote for the death penalty.

i never wrote that African-Americans were likely the sole holdouts. Let's go back and look at what I wrote:

"I would be interested to know if the holdouts were African-American; my gut tells me it is likely that AT LEAST ONE was."

Regardless, you based your asinine reply on there being three holdouts, what is NOT what Fox16 said; they only said it could be "as many as three." Also, let's look at what Max posted:

"This is in line with what a juror told a law enforcement source of ours -- that ONE, PERHAPS TWO jurors stood firmly against the death penalty, when a unanimous verdict was required."

Next time, JohnAArkansawyer, read a little more carefully before responding.

I wonder why the question of race would be the first question we'd ask about people's motivations, when capital punishment is rejected.

A large percentage of Arkansans call themselves Christians and profess to be pro-life.

The leaders of the Catholic church, including the last two popes, have spoken out strongly against the death penalty.

Maybe the jurors who held out against the death penalty were Christians/Catholics, and/or pro-life folks?

If the jurors who held out did so because they were, say, Catholic and morally opposed to the death penalty, then they had to lie during juror questioning in order to be death-qualified. My gut instinct about the race of the holdouts may be wrong. Regardless, I'd like to know why they did what they did. They appeared to have been swayed by the tale of Vance's upbringing. While the poor home life did not keep his brother from making something of himself, it supposedly turned Vance into a serial rapist/murderer.

This is a little off topic, but I wondered what others thought of Patti Cannady's statement to the lawyers who defended Vance? The ADG reports that she said "He murdered my daughter. You protected someone who should never have been protected."

I know these are the words of a grief-stricken mother, but one of the rights under the constitution is the right to counsel and the counsel is expected to put forth the best defense possible so that the defendant gets a fair trial.

I don't think Anne's mother should have said anything since lawyers were just doing their job. For all we know, they may not have liked defending him but they had defend him the best that they could. If they didn't, it could be grounds for appeal--and speaking of that, I'm sure there will be appeals for years to come.

Well put, Mr. Lindsey, well put.

But what mystifies me is that a lot of people are outraged that Vance "got off easy" by getting life in prison. Let me tell you - in no uncertain terms: If I had to choose between life without my freedom and a quick death, please give me the quick death. I could almost argue that Vance doesn't DESERVE to die.

Thanks for the reply, Pines. I still wonder why the race question would even surface, in a state in which the pro-life stance and Christian values carry the day. Surely the presumption in such a state is heavily in favor of avoiding the death penalty whenever and wherever possible? Otherwise, it would seen extremely illogical to say one is pro-life.

Wouldn't it?

Max didn't source this statement, FromThePines, but worked from it anyway, in order to mock you more easily: "as many as three might have been reluctant"

Now, let's suppose there were only one or two holdouts. The odds of one juror picked randomly being black is 16.7% and the odds of both jurors picked randomly being black is 1.5%. Your gut is telling you something very unlikely. I wonder why?

Here's my theory: In a group of twelve people, even when its members are chosen for their willingness to impose the death penalty, some proportion of those chosen get to the place where they visualize pulling the lever/throwing the switch/firing the rifle themselves and just can't do it. I suspect it's less a measurement of the depth of the crime or the value of criminal--or the victim, for that matter--but of the person making the decision.

I hesitate to make this comment. But I've watched a family member suffer through the violent death of her son, the legal aftermath and the years following that. For her, those years have become simply as a wait for death to come. I hope Patti Cannady will seek counseling if she hasn't already.

By the way, on reviewing the Fox16 story, I see their lead states it flatly:

"FOX16 News has learned a majority of the jury favored giving Curtis Vance the death penalty for killing anchorwoman Anne Pressly, but THREE jurors would not vote for it." (Note: I capitalized THREE.)

That's direct from a juror and thus more convincing than Max's second-hand news filtered through a law enforcement source.

"If I had to choose between life without my freedom and a quick death, please give me the quick death."

Amen.
I would think that being stuck in a prison in Arkansas for the rest of your life would be hell on earth and just punishment for murder. I'd rather die....

Plus it costs the taxpayer more to have someone on death row then to support their sorry ass in prison for the rest of their lives.

This is the best verdict for all of us. Mainly because Curtis Lavelle Vance will be a forgotten man.

He is all but dead to everyone except himself and his family.

Anne Pressly's family will be spared the highly publicized death penalty appeals, the inevitable press coverage of his every legal gambit, the build up to his execution after at least a decade of appeals, and the grotesque and macabre fascination with his actual execution, including, if possible, their commentary. With his LWOP sentence his life after conviction will be less on the radar than if he were on death row.

Are there any organizied campaigns in behalf of murderers surving LWOP?

There will be no candlelight vigils for Curtis Vance.

There will be no celebrity campaigns to free him.

Unless he causes trouble in prison, we won't hear of him again until he dies (which may come sooner than later, given his notoriety and prison mores).

A few years back when Lee Orsini died in prison the press reaction can be fairly summarized thus: Oh, yeah, I remember her. Has it been that long? I haven't thought of her in years.

This is Vance's fate. He is no longer a threat to us, we will never have to deal with him again.

Vance is history. Good riddance.

I had dinner tonight with friends and the sentencing was the primary topic of conversation. We all agreed to a woman that death was in order (makeup: 4 white lesbians...of those, 3 protestants, 1 Catholic).

Curtis Vance's race had nothing to do with our feelings. It was the horrible viciousness of the crime. Curtis Vance took his sweet time inflicting this punishment on an innocent, unsuspecting victim.

This crime could've been committed by a white man or an Asian woman and our feelings would be the same.

If this had been done to WBW or anyone close to me, I'd certainly be unhappy with this decision. Curtis Vance will be able to feel joy in his next 50 years in prison - whether it be visits by his family or three children. Curtis Vance can get married, if he so chooses. Curtis Vance will be given free health care that many Arkansans can't afford. Curtis Vance has LIFE and Anne Pressly is DEAD.

Justice was not served here.

What do you bet that the holdouts were women?

Polecat is right. Juries are becoming more and more reluctant to hand down the death penalty and that is probably good.
If the primary purpose of punishment is to protect society, life without parole does that. In this case, you have to consider the horrible atrocities committed against the killer by his mother. This does not excuse his behavior, but it may, in a small way, explain it. And this should scare us about the future killers being created by addicted parents. It is too bad that the law can not punish Vance's mother.

If my child were murdered, I'd want the perpetrator convicted. Any credible conviction to my satisfaction would include a vigorous defense. It would be nice to trust police so completely that trials were unnecessary, and that is frighteningly close to what happened here.

Well put, Polecat. Vance is gone. This is not a better or worse outcome than death. It's the same. He's in a locked box, at the bottom of the ocean underneath a hundred feet of sand.

maybe when it got right down to it, those three jurors found themselves unable to vote for the death penalty after all. There's a difference in thinking you could vote for it and actually being able to do it, and I dont think I could.

We didn't hear the testimony. It's different being actually in the courtroom hearing the testimony, seeing the different witnesses give it, getting all the visual cues and the pitch and inflection of their voices. It's also different actually seeing the defendant for several days and knowing that he is a living, breathing human being over whom you have the power of life and death. It's bound to be a sobering experience, one that would shake me to the depths of my very soul.

I'm not willing to say that my experience reading about all this on the internet is more authentic than that of the jury. If they couldn't get a unanimous verdict to kill another human being, that's fine with me - even as heinous as this crime was, even with the incredibly deep hell Ms. Pressly's family must be going through, even with the assault on our collective safety this crime was.

It makes no difference what any of us think about the verdict being right or wrong, since we were not on the jury. While we can generally accept sitting in judgement on someone, it is an entirely different matter when the death penalty is on the table. Jurors have to live with their verdict for the rest of their lives too. Vance will file his appeal and it will be denied. Then he'll file his motion saying he had lousy lawyers, and that will be denied too (he dodged the death penalty, so that dog won't hunt!) That will be the end of these proceedings, and Vance will die in prison, with little notice be taken. Anne Pressly will be up in heaven while Vance burns in hell forever!

"If the primary purpose of punishment is to protect society, life without parole does that. "

Indeed.
And if the purpose is vengeance then a sentence of death should be carried out by the victim's family.

Good point P. There were no winners in this case, but there were also no losers.

Of course, you're right, Perplexed.

It would be my job as a jury member not to be personally conflicted by this case. Emotion should have no bearing.

But how can it not?

After this happened, every single woman I knew in LR was suddenly scared. We were afraid that we'd be targeted - through no fault of our own - of a horrible rape and bludgeoning to death. The month that Curtis Vance was at large, we all lived in fear. If it can happen in the Heights, it can happen anywhere, we thought.

What does it take to get the death penalty these days? Is it that he stopped at beheading her? He did everything but......

If he were robbing her and shot her in the head while she was chasing him out of her house, I can see life in prison.

But not for this...not for this particular crime. He deserved death.

And RYD, since you believe in "heaven'' don't you believe that Curtis Vance can follow Anne there if he repents of his sins? Isn't he given ample time to "repent'' since he'll be in prison for the rest of his life?

He won't be going to "Christian'' hell if he repents, right? Does your Christian God say Curtis Vance is going to "heaven'' if he repents of his sin? Isn't that true, RYD? That's what I read in the Christian bible.

Frankly, I don't want to go to a heaven where Curtis Vance is.

John A Arkansawyer- I think there were 4 African-American females on the Vance jury. You may want to go back to last week's posts when the jury was being seated to confirm that fact.

Regardless, I suspect neither the sex nor race of the jurors were major factors for those who were not willing to impose the death sentence. Having had the opportunity to serve on juries before, including a capital murder case (though not a death penalty case), I never saw sex or race enter into the discussion of anyone's guilt or innocence or length of sentence. It is no easier to hide such things from your fellow jurors than it is to hide them from your fellow posters on this blog.

FromThePines- bet I can guess the color of your skin. And beau's, too. For a self-described woman, though a male in several previous incarnations (mike & strangelove), beau sure seems like an anti-female female in his current role. beau's got maybe 1/2 trick more than Catfish who is a no trick pony.

Clarification- I never saw THE sex or race OF THE JURORS enter into the discussion of anyone's guilt or innocence or length of sentence.

I offer a thought or two on the death penalty; While it certainly serves as retribution for a heinous crime, since it has be reinstated heinous crimes still exist without much abatement. It therefore does not seem to serve as a deterrent to stop horrible crime, and if you believe that it does can you please explain how this horrible murder could happen? Murder, especially of this kind, defies logic. Doesn't all murder? How can one be capable of such depravity of soul and mind and yet have the ability to think of the punishment? I understand the hatred, the outrage, but the logic of the death penalty escapes me if you argue it is a deterrent. Maybe, a few will refuse to plot to kill their business partner/wife/neighbor, but I suggest when you weigh those arguably few instances of deterrent versus the number of (DNA) exonerated death row inmates (who've appealed... lost.... and spent years for what they did not do), discretion is the better part of retribution to borrow from a common phrase. If your argument is that the sum 'bitch deserves to die.... I understand that emotion. I don't think the evidence in this case, as far as we know it, indicates anything other than Vance did it, so my prior argument may hold less water in the eyes of some. But, if you will indulge me, it is retribution by the State. If we are in the business of retribution as a State, I surely hope we get it right every time. Life in prison, I would argue, is punishment in itself (have you been to Cummins?), and although a few who "deserve" to die will live, no one who is innocent will die if we are at least extremely prudent with the death penalty, should we keep it. When the death penalty is impervious to failure and/or is a proven deterrence (although I would prefer both), I will rethink my position.
I urge you to think long and hard about your position on the death penalty before your criticize those who actually have to make the decision.

Well spoken, Oddball. Being old enough to remember both the suspension of the death penalty in the 70's and its gradual reinstatement in some states, I've yet to see any evidence that it accomplishes anything beyond satisfying our collective bloodlust. When states were returning to the death penalty, the argument consistently given was the need for a deterrent. Killing criminals has not proven to be a deterrent at all, yet executions continue to be carried out, even at a greater expense than lifetime incarceration. What I find most interesting is that those who claim a pro-life position on abortion are the most vocal proponents of state-sponsored killing. These also tend to be right-wing conservatives and their extreme fiscal conservatism on taxation and government spending doesn't even give them pause about spending the extra tax dollars required for capital punishment.

My experience is that sentencing a man to prison is like raising kids. You don't know what it's like until you have to do it yourself. Heck, most people can't raise kids right.

I can't believe what I'm reading, all over again. Once again, there is no "right" outcome here. The outcome is the outcome decided by the jury. It is an outcome none of you have the power to affect.

And that is the way it should be, and was meant to be, and god hellp us all, will continue to be.

Sound Policy is right and I was wrong: There were indeed four black women on the jury and not two.

My apologies, FromThePines. Your assertion was not silly by the numbers, as I suggested.

I still disagree with you, but I withdraw the numerical part of my argument.

Re: Patti Cannady's statement: I agree with an earlier poster, she needs to get some help. One cannot imagine what she was to live with the rest of her life. Most folks do understand, though, what defense attorneys have to do in a particular case. Emotions run high, I hope she can find peace.

As to the jury's decision: Hard to say if a juror(s) lied. The jury has to be death qualified, meaning they can impose death, does not mean they automatically have to do so.

I'm having difficulty understanding some of your assumptions, Sistertoldja.

You say in your first posting that justice was not served in the Vance verdict. In your second posting, you say that he deserved death.

In what sense did Vance deserve death? And how would executing him serve the cause of justice?

even though i THINK I would've voted for life in prison wtihout parole if I'd been on that jury, as another poster said, something that's never been brought up before here; we didn't SEE these people testify, or hear them, of course. I think all of us who are parents would have fallen apart just at seeing Mrs Cannady getting through this with class.

And those are good points made about forgetting who Curtis Vance is or what he did in a few years. Unless this crime affected you personally, we'll all put him to the back of our minds. But that still happened, in the Heights, and that still frightens me.

We all know he could've found Jesus in the mansion's rose garden in a few months or so, if only Huck still lived there and was in charge of pardons and legal stuff like that. see, I know almost as much about laws as Huck does.

Ive always said I could never vote for the death penalty but I dont think it's wrong if someone else does.

The problem I worry about with anyone who commits a crime this horrible is the possibility he could escape.

Anyone who participated in a death sentence for Vance would be as guilty as murder as he is.

This is a pro-death country, from our fixation with the death penalty, to our opposition to public health care, to our propensity to occupy other countries to protect our financial interests.

But to the point about Christianity - why sure, Vance can end up in heaven. We are all sinners and therefore it is faith, not works, that is important. If you hold stock in a health insurance company, you've participated in a thousand times more murders than Vance ever thought about -- and gotten paid for it, too.

I'm glad Tele wasn't wearing a robe at Nuremberg.

As said in James, "Faith without works is dead."

Capital punishment has nothing to do with revenge, or whether it is a deterrent, or being against the Commandment Thou shalt not kill (actually the manuscripts translate to thou shalt not commit murder) or anything else that comes up when death penalty arguments/debates occur. The reason we have the death penalty is because it is the only just punishment for some crimes committed by some people. The worst crimes committed by the worst people warrant the most severe penalty, which is death. Did Curtis Vance commit this horrific act upon the victim and was he sane at the time? Yes and yes! I agree with the person who said the hold outs should not have been on the jury since it was a death penalty crime. And please let us not hear about how the rest of the civilized world feels about capital punishment!

Any pity for Vance's family should not be part of his sentencing. If his family is devastated and his children won't have a father, that is HIS fault and no jury or court should be blamed for giving him the only appropriate sentence for his crimes. I am a Christian minister and there is nothing unChristian about believing in the death penalty. There is no conflict with being pro life and pro death penalty. I am against taking the life of an innocent (abortion). I am for taking the life of Curtis Vance because his is no innocent and by his crimes has earned execution.

Of course Curtis Vance will have his death sentence carried out as life without parole and that is disappointing. I have been involved in prison ministry for years, in many states, mostly with inmates doing life or lengthy sentences or on death row.
I have no problem leading someone on death row to Christ. But, that should not be confused with being sympathetic to his plight. His chance at redemption ends when the needle goes in his arm. My job is to prepare him for his death, not to be a part of an effort to escape execution. I've had two condemned inmates ask me if I thought they deserved the death penalty. They admitted to their crimes. I told each one that I thought they got the sentence they deserved. What sort of life will Curtis Vance have for the rest of his life? We don't know, but it will be better than the life he would live on death row. Waiting to die on death row is a terrible existence, while living in general population for the rest of his life might be in some way fulfilling.