Once again, some people on the Left are mounting a confused campaign in defense of a man who stalked his ex-wife, battered her, and finally broke into her house and murdered her. As Tina Trent points out in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the evidence of the case shows Fugate is a brutal murderer. We must oppose his execution and the slipshod court system by which he was convicted, but we should not repeat the all-too-long history of the left trying to exonerate men who committed brutal acts of violence against women.

Nearly all of those seeking to defend Fugate (as in the AJC letters and in the Atlanta IMC) are sticking with Fugate’s defense, that public defenders inadequately presented his case and that the killing was accidental in the process of an altercation (in fact, either a vicious beating or a heavy fight, depending on whether you accept the prosecution or the defense’s version) and refer to his slaying of his wife as a tragic loss of life (converting a killing into a tragedy, as if it were not committed by anyone in particular). Nevertheless, the evidence doesn’t bear out such a facile explanation.

• Fugate’s defenders claim that the gun Fugate carried was subject to a design defect which made it prone to accidental firing. But the defect was only that it was slightly easier to cock than most guns; in single action mode it still required 4.2 pounds of pressure exerted on the trigger to fire. Fugate claims that the accidental firing came from his finger slipping somehow over the trigger when he threw his arms up against the van.

• Fugate’s defenders claim that the autopsy report does not show any signs of beating. Yet the autopsy report found a 1 inch gash on the back of Pattie’s head, a 3 inch circular bruise on the top of her head, and bruising on her face and shoulders.

• Fugate had already been accused of threatening Pattie’s life and harassing her, and had had a restraining order sworn out against him. (Fugate’s defense was to call his wife a lying bitch.)

• What the hell was Fugate doing breaking into his ex-wife’s house, with a gun, in violation of the same restraining order?

• Why did Fugate (according to his own testimony) spy on his wife by pressing redial on her phone and rifling through her mail? (According to Fugate, But, people are curious. … And, I am very curious.)

• When he went up to have a conversation with his wife (he claims he was trying to defuse a potentially ugly situation), why did he continue to hold the gun in his hand and mash the phone to hang up the call she was making?

• Why did he continue to hold out the gun after it had accidentally fired once in the fight?

• Why did he physically restrain her and drag her out to the van, once she had already made it clear that she had no intention of going anywhere with him?

The death penalty is State-sanctioned murder, and we must oppose the State of Georgia’s attempt to kill Wallace Fugate. Furthermore, as his defenders have pointed out [AJC], Fugate’s rapid and slipshod trial provides many example of heavy-handed prosecution, inadequate public defense, and the institutionalized skew of the courts, and the death penalty in particular, against poor defendants. However, none of this eliminates the fact that Wallace Fugate is just another batterer who ended up murdering his ex-wife. Being the victim of a broken criminal justice system is not the same thing as being innocent of the crimes of which you are charged. Nor does one have to be innocent to deserve a reprieve from the death penalty: the death penalty is wrong for Wallace Fugate; it was wrong for Ted Bundy and Timothy McVeigh; it’s always wrong and must be abolished.

Wallace Fugate is guilty as hell. He murdered his wife and he deserves to pay for it. But there’s no justice in murdering murderers, and the sentence of death in this case—as in all other cases—must be opposed.

For further reading:

• Eleventh Circuit Opinion in Fugate v. Head, including findings that the facts of the case were consistent with prosecution theories, despite Fugate’s allegations
• Wallace Fugate’s sister tells the story in his defense (very lengthy)
• AJC Letters to the Editor concerning Wallace Fugate’s case
• GT 2001/03/12: Lionel Tate Sentencing Saga Continues, Faux Leftists Make Excuses for Murder