From ABC7 News in Denver, via Turley, the shocking and tragic end of “Spam King” Eddie Davidson, who escaped from a minimum security federal prison and then engaged in an unthinkable murder-suicide.

Escaped “Spam King” Edward ‘Eddie’ Davidson, his wife and 3-year-old daughter were found slain outside a farm house Thursday east of Denver in an apparent murder-suicide.

What a nightmare, and such a coward,” [U.S. Attorney Troy] Eid said. “Davidson imposed the ‘death penalty’ on family members for his own crime.”

Arapahoe County undersheriff Mark Campbell said deputies rushed to a home in a subdivision in Bennett after receiving reports of shots fired.

Deputies found Davidson, who appeared to be the gunman on the driver’s side of the SUV in a driveway, and a woman dead on the passenger side. A girl was also found dead in the back of the car.

An 7- or 8-month-old baby boy was found in a car seat uninjured.

Davidson was sentenced to 21 months, and had to pay $714,139 in restitution to the IRS, as well as forfeit property purchased with proceeds.  While this isn’t exactly a slap on the wrist, it also isn’t a particularly harsh sentence.  Certainly not so harsh as to explain what he did.

That Davidson took the lives of his family as well as his own bespeaks serious psychological problems.  Eid’s attempt to characterize an utterly irrational act in self-serving terms does a disservice.  Davidson was sick, for only a horribly sick person would do something like this.

It is no one’s fault except Davidson that he suffered the penalties for his conduct.  But it begs the question why no one noticed that this person was so psychologically fragile that he was about to explode, and kill his wife and child in the process.  This is a recurring theme in criminal law, as so many of our clients suffer from illness that has escaped detection and treatment.  They end up in prison, sometimes, but leave no better than when they arrived.

The closest person (outside his family) to Davidson was likely his lawyer.  Did he see this coming?  Did he recognize that his client was at risk?  It’s unlikely that anyone could have foreseen what would ultimately happen, the murder of Davidson’s wife and child, but was there any indication that Davidson couldn’t handle the consequences of his crime?

It’s easy to call Davidson “a coward,” and perhaps that’s an element of what happened, his inability to face his sentence.  But calling names deflects attention from the problem, and does nothing to save the life of a child from a coward’s bullet. 

It would be nice to expect the government to recognize and treat psychologically troubled prisoners in their custody, but the plain fact is that they are only interested to the extent that it makes their prisoners easier for them to warehouse.  Even then, there’s no concern about the illness, but only its manifestation and impact on the system.

So as criminal defense lawyers, let us remember that we are likely the last resort to ascertaining whether a client suffers from mental illness, is going to snap and will be psychologically unable to deal with a sentence.  Yes, we are not trained to do so, but there’s no one else after us who will care.    

It will be hard for people to muster much sympathy for Eddie Davidson.  But if you can’t see this as a tragedy for him, see it as a failure of the system for his wife and child.  And let us do as much as we can to avoid this happening again.

Update:  I’ve just read Doug Berman’s post on this tragedy, and he has one additional piece to the puzzle from a Denver Post story that I wasn’t aware of:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff said Davidson had become a “consultant” to the FBI investigating other spammers.

Should the AUSA have seen something?  If he had, would he care?  This adds another dimension to the failure to recognize that Davidson was about to snap.