BOISE, ID – Barring a last minute stay of execution, Rhoades will become the 14th death row inmate in Idaho to die since statehood. Protesters for and against the death penalty have areas set aside near the state prison. Meet two women on opposite sides of capital punishment.
Sharann Nafus lives in Blackfoot, not far from where Paul Rhoades killed his three victims – Stacy Baldwin, Nolan Haddon, and Susan Michelbacher. Nafus remembers how it felt in 1987 with a murderer at large.
Sharann Nafus: "The whole thing was horrible because everybody was in terror because you didn’t know where he was going to show up to kill people or when he was going to kill somebody."
Nafus recently wrote to Governor Butch Otter. She asked him not to spare Rhoades’ life. She doesn’t believe in capital punishment as a way to deter crime. Nafus says anyone found guilty of murder without a doubt should quickly be executed.
Sharann Nafus: "I just don’t feel that they should be here on the Earth. And we’re paying to feed him and keep him alive for years in prison and waiting. And have all the rights – what rights did the victims have? None."
Mia Crosthwaite takes a different approach. She wants the death penalty abolished. For about 15 years, she’s stood in downtown Boise nearly every Wednesday at noon to protest it. She’s part of a group called Idahoans Against the Death Penalty. Crosthwaite says her faith guides her convictions.
Mia Crosthwaite: "The death penalty feels like, as a person who believes in the sanctity of all life, that if I’m capable of standing up for the dignity of the life of somebody who’s done the most heinous, evil things then that kind of covers the bases for me."
Crosthwaite is Roman Catholic. The Church teaches that every life has value from conception to natural death. Buddhists and Lutherans also make up the group. Regardless of faith, they’re determined to get the death penalty repealed no matter how long it takes.
Mia Crosthwaite: "Just because something takes a long time and is hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. The civil rights movement took, looks to me like over a hundred years. It was the right thing to do and people stuck with it. Well this is the right thing to do and we’re going to stick with it until it’s done."
Idahoans Against the Death Penalty plans to demonstrate outside the prison during Rhoades’ scheduled execution. The Idaho Department of Corrections also has set aside space for supporters of capital punishment. Nafus says she’d be there if she didn’t have an ongoing illness.
Copyright 2011 Boise State Public Radio