McKee life sentence a judicial travesty

If 20 year old Bethany McKee lives to her expected 80 year life span, strapped Illinois taxpayers will have shelled out about a cool million to warehouse her into senility at an Illinois penitentiary. McKee, a secondary participant in the double murder of two male acquaintances for beer and cigarette money, as masterminded by two other male acquaintances, got natural life under a misguided Illinois sentencing law mandating natural life ...for anyone convicted of a double murder. Just 18 at the time of the crime, McKee was physically and sexually abused in her early teens, had multiple stays in mental health facilities, including one lasting 90 days, and was disturbed enough to have cut herself 200 times. She wasn't present at the actual killings after luring the victims with a promise to "party". Given her age and mental history, there is some merit to her claim she was controlled by the violent male deed doers. This happens to broken and abused women under the control of evil male partners with some frequency. In a sad irony for McKee, another female participant, Alisa Massaro, copped a plea to 'concealing a homicide' in exchange for testimony against the other three, and received a ten year sentence that could see her released in just four years.

A pittance of that million would be better spent on intensive psychiatric care to prepare McKee for a semblance of a normal and possibly productive life after a short sentence to a reduced charge. Even the sentencing judge, Gerald Kinney, recognized the stupidity of McKee's draconian sentence saying: "This case is an example of why the legislature's imposition of mandatory sentencing is just inappropriate."

Hopefully, the appellate court hearing McKee's appeal will have more sense than the legislators who passed such injudicious and wasteful sentencing requirements.