No one is arguing that Duane Owen wasn’t a monster who committed horrific crimes. Whether that means that the death penalty is the right punishment is another matter, perhaps best argued based on opposition to the death penalty than that Owen’s crimes were not so horrible that execution wasn’t warranted. As monsters go, Owen’s actions would certainly qualify.
Owen was convicted for the 1984 rape and fatal stabbing of teenager Karen Slattery and for the rape and killing of 38-year-old Georgianna Worden in Palm Beach County.
It should be noted that Owen was convicted in 1984, nearly 40 years ago. Whether it makes any sense to execute anyone for a crime committed 40 years earlier is another good question. Yet these were not the foremost issues that outraged the ACLU, which felt compelled to make a public assertion of the harm suffered by Duane Owen.
The state of Florida never provided medically necessary gender-affirming care to Duane Owen — causing her enormous suffering and violating her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment for the more than 30 years she was in state custody. pic.twitter.com/kjmzCrY2uh
— ACLU (@ACLU) June 16, 2023
In the twit that followed, the ACLU wrote “In legal papers she drafted, Owen wrote that she ‘should be accorded the ‘essence of human dignity’ and be allowed to become ‘who she was meant to be’ before her death.” This raises three questions. The first is what duty there is to provide what’s euphemistically called “gender-affirming care” to a prisoner at all, no less a prisoner on death row. The second is whether the failure to provide such care constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. And the third is why, of all the many issues raised by the execution of Duane Owen, this is the one that the ACLU put on the top of the heap.
The defendant’s cry for treatment of “human dignity” likely brings no tear to most people. Owen wasn’t concerned about human dignity when he raped and murdered, though society does not treat its prisoners with human dignity because they deserve it, but because society aspires to be better than our worst criminal. But is the denial of “gender-affirming” treatment a deprivation of human dignity? Had Owen been made to march through the streets of Palm Beach County naked so residents could scream shame while pelting him with rotten vegetables and feces, it would have been an affirmative denial of human dignity. Whether it was beyond the pale is a different issue.
But is the vagary of “human dignity,” malleable enough to wrap itself around any act or omission to which it’s attached, implicated because Owen claimed a right to be “who she was meant to be”?
Is this, or should this be, mandated by the Eighth Amendment as “cruel and unusual punishment,” being denied the gender change Owen now claims? Owen did not express being transgender before he was sentenced, although in 1984 such a claim would not have been taken very seriously. But as a death row prisoner, is being executed as a man rather than a woman more cruel and unusual than just being executed? No one could have stopped him from changing his name, letting his hair or nails grow, and affecting whatever feminine traits he wanted. But is he owed drugs and surgery on the public dime?
But most critically, how did it come to pass that of all the issues arising from the nearly 40 year old execution of Duane Owen, the first and foremost problem the ACLU had was that he was executed with a penis rather than breasts?
Initially, there is doubt that Owen’s claim to being transgender may not have been entirely legitimate or bear any relation to the crimes he committed.
[CBS] reported that Owen’s defense claimed the convict suffered dysphoria, though state psychiatrists ruled “Owen had a good memory, didn’t appear to present himself as female and that gender dysphoria doesn’t make people more aggressive or cause delusional thinking. They said instead that Owen was sexually sadistic, according to court records.”
But in light of societal shifts in its concern for, and understanding of, transgender issues, do they trump all other concerns, all other issues? Does the “suffering” of having to await execution as the man Owen was when he murdered and raped matter enough that it’s raised above all else? By making this the focus of its twit, the ACLU has done exactly that. The death penalty may be bad, but execution with a penis is intolerable.
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As people say about his crimes, it isn’t really about sex. It’s about power. The crux of “care” does not require changing a person’s body parts or even providing drugs, it’s about allowing them exert control over others. The “cruel” part is not asking how high when he says to jump.
As the lack of pearl clutching at CBS News demonstrates, nobody really thinks concerns over dead-naming and misgendering are serious in principle. Imagine how different it would be if they indulged in a racial slur to describe a terrible criminal. They’re a bad faith ploy.
Are deadnaming and misgendering the equivalent of the n-word?
They likely will be, at some point.
A “lesser” slur that avoids Slur Olympics would be a less reckless comparison. But a better one would be a merely outdated style guide term. It would be odd for CBS not to comply in the first place, but if they didn’t there would be objection easily separable from the question of considering the subject’s feelings.
To those who are (pretending to be) passionate about this they are even worse.
And, of course, the ACLU would never consider trying to fund raise on the execution of a convicted rapist and murderer by using the buzzwords of the latest sexual cause du jour.
The ACLU position, rephrased to appeal outside their usual demographic:
“Murder-rapists should have their genitals cut off before execution.”
The torture-prisoners position, rephrased to appeal outside their usual demographic:
“We want to gender-affirm all murderers and sexual offenders ASAP.”
If the ACLU had its way, I can just see the doctor: “Don’t worry about the convalescence.”
Taking 30 years to execute someone with a penis does seem mean-spirited. But, Florida.
I am ambivalent as to whether he should have been put to death or not. I actually think him being in jail for the rest of his life is a worse punishment and well deserved in this case.
If he was able to raise enough money to pay for whatever changes he wanted before being executed, I wouldn’t have a problem with that and he should have been allowed to if that happened, but expecting the state (and people) to foot the bill seems outlandish.
The State of Florida is responsible for providing inmates with a constitutional standard of care.. As long as gender changing surgical interventions are standard of care (obviously, as of ACLU) , Mr. Owen should have not only not to pay (but for copayments), he should have been a Mrs Owen for quite some time.
But I think the far more interesting question is not, if gender changing is actually standard but – What would Mr. Owen say?
Of all sources I looked up so far, I can’t find a single one which says, that Mr Owen ever had an idea of changing his gender identity. His attorneys, than, claimed gender dysphoria – but is there anything more to it?
As far as I see, the ACLU is blowing nothing but hot air.
Is gender reassignment surgery required (like an appendectomy)? Not exactly.
But most critically, how did it come to pass that of all the issues arising from the nearly 40 year old execution of Duane Owen, the first and foremost problem the ACLU had was that he was executed with a penis rather than breasts?
Perhaps the answer is simple: over the last 40 years, all of the better arguments were rejected?
You know how it goes: if someone makes bad arguments it usually means they don’t have good ones.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s the ACLU’s problem here. Perhaps a shift in focus better explains it.
In former times it were not the woke who cried “Lynch him, but first let’s cut his balls!”. Unexpected allies.