In January of '05, a man named Juan Manuel Alvarez did what has to rank right up there with the crappiest things any human being has ever done to other human beings. After what were reported as several failed attempts to take his own life, Alvarez parked his Jeep Grand Cherokee on some railroad tracks in Glendale, apparently figuring that the Metrolink train that ran along those tracks would destroy it and him. He also, just to add to his certain demise, doused the Jeep in gasoline.
At the last minute, it is said, he got cold feet…or something. Whatever his motives, he fled the Jeep and so escaped death or even injury when the train collided with it. Alas, others were not so fortunate. Eleven people died and close to 200 more were injured, some of them quite seriously. Alvarez was taken into custody and now, more than three years after the horrible incident, he's about to go on trial, charged with 11 counts of murder, one count of arson and a number of other offenses for which prosecutors are seeking the Death Penalty. Jury selection began today and in this article, it says the trial is expected to last through June…
…to which I say, "Huh?"
Through June? Three months? Why should this trial take more than twenty minutes?
I'm not suggesting they should just throw the book at the guy, schedule the electric chair and adjourn to Chili's for the Smokehouse Bacon Burger lunch special. Everyone is entitled to a Fair Trial and Due Process. I'm just wondering what they have to talk about that's going to take that long.
It is not in dispute that he parked the Jeep on the tracks, intending to have the train hit it. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether he really was suicidal and ever intended to be in the vehicle at the moment of impact but, in the immortal words of Dick Cheney…so? Motive and mindset are obviously important in some cases but do they really matter a lot in this one?
The lawyers for Alvaraz are apparently not going to argue that he was framed and that a mysterious one-armed man actually parked the Jeep on the tracks and made it look like Alvaraz did it. Their primary defense will be that, okay, you're right…because of what he did, a train was wrecked and people died or were maimed. But he didn't mean to. He thought the train would just hit the SUV, destroy it and him, and then continue its merry way along the track. It will be further claimed that the train striking the Jeep did not cause all those deaths; that they were the result of a chain reaction of events — this hitting that which hit that, etc. — which could not have been anticipated. It will further be asserted that Alvarez was emotionally distraught and not in full possession of his faculties…
…to which I still say, "Huh?"
Apparently, the three months (and they're saying it could be longer) will be to determine if Alvaraz was really trying to kill himself, and there will be witnesses for both sides discussing what he was like as a child and to what extent he'd ever displayed suicidal tendencies. So what we'll have here is the Prosecution arguing he should die because he didn't want to kill himself…and the Defense saying he shouldn't get the Death Penalty because he did want to kill himself.
This is silly. Either way, this man should not be free to walk the streets…maybe not for the rest of his life but certainly not for a long time. I don't see that it matters a lot whether he spends all eternity in prison or if he's executed…and I don't mean just that the difference doesn't matter to society. I mean, it doesn't even seem to matter to him. A lot of my general opposition to the Death Penalty is because I don't believe it's sagely enforced. I think it's applied to a horrifying number of people who are either innocent or just plain did not receive fair trials and might be. That doesn't apply in this case.
This whole story is a great argument for some sort of government-sanctioned program for Assisted Suicide. I think you have a moral right to end your own life…and if things are going so poorly that you're thinking of parking your SUV on the Metrolink tracks, we oughta help you do it in a neater manner. I've written here in the past about a friend of mine who ended his botched-up existence by leaping from the top floor of the tallest hotel in Manhattan. I don't know if his life could have been put back together with professional help but it sure could have been ended in a less destructive (for others) way. He did great damage to total strangers who were there that day and witnessed that horror, to say nothing of what the spectacle did to his friends and family.
Unmentioned in any recent article I've seen on Alvarez is a follow-up on something that was reported at the time of the tragedy. There was some question as to whether the injured and the families of the deceased had any financial recourse. The train company has insurance but the train company did not seem to have been at fault in any way…and Alvarez didn't have the funds to buy a bottle of Bactine, let alone pay for any of the destruction he caused. At last report, some of those injured were trying to recoup on huge hospital bills by suing the train company for not doing a better job of anticipating this kind of thing.
All of this — the deaths, the destruction, the injuries, the medical bills, the millions of dollars in legal fees from the trials, all of it — might have been averted if there was a place this Alvarez guy could have gone and gotten help, either to end his life or to help him save it. There are counselling services out there but they don't offer the option that Alvarez allegedly (if we believe his lawyers) felt he needed. I don't know if he did or he didn't…but if he was determined enough to do what he did, wouldn't it have been better if someone could have shown him a more efficient way to go about it?