Richard Davis blames it on his childhood.

How much does your childhood factor in to the type of person you become? The popular theory says a shitty childhood predisposes you to end up as a shitty human being. I cant say I disagree with that school of thought, up to a point. Richard Davis received the death penalty yesterday. He spoke for over an hour on his own behalf, pleading his case, asking for mercy. His defense, a bad childhood, molestation, a drug habit and sexual addiction. I believe those factors are a good reason to ask for some leniency, if you are standing before the bench for theft, or drugs, or even battery, but Richard Davis wasn't in court for those crimes. He took the lives of two women. He did it because it got him off, it was sexy, he enjoyed it. There is no defense for what he chose to do. His one chance for some saving grace, to man up, no excuses, came today. He could have stood before the bench, accepted his sentence while remaining mute. He could have, but he didn't, instead he made a plea for mercy, when he had shown none to his victim.

It was the implication that Davis made about his childhood being the real perpetrator of his crimes, that made me think about a kid I'll call Sam. I've mentioned how I would spend summers with my Grandparents in Marlow Oklahoma. Sam lived on the far east outskirts of town, no more than a few city blocks distance from my grandparents, but a world away. Sam came from a dirt poor family. Im talking southern cracker dirt poor. His old man was a vicious drunk. A wiry guy in bib overalls with a perpetual 4 day growth of stubble. He wore one of those really short billed denim welders caps, so soaked with dirt and booze sweat that it looked almost black from it. He beat his wife, he beat his kids and he would beat any of the 6 or 8 dogs that roamed the red dirt yard, if they were stupid enough to get within reach of him, mostly they stayed out of his reach.

Sam's yard was littered with junk cars and various crap someone drug home. The house itself was small, far too small for the 5 kids and two adults who lived there. I remember it as having brownish roofing shingles as siding. I never set foot inside the place, but judging on the outer appearance, Ive no doubt the interior was filthy. The kids ran around barefoot, even in town, and their clothes always seemed either too small or too big for them. In addition to beating his kids, Sam's father was rumored to be molesting the girls in the family. Years later one of the girls would turn up pregnant and end up having her fathers child. My grandfather told me they sent him to the state Pen.

Sam had every reason in the world to be a bad seed, a rotten kid, but he wasn't. He was usually dirty, poorly dressed and often picked on, but he always took it it in stride, always smiled and was always polite. My grandmother would often feed him and my grandfather was always sending Sam home with jars of honey from his beehives and stuff from his garden. He would hang out with me at my grandparents, but I never let him go with me to the towns pool or anywhere I would be seen with him. I liked Sam, but I was embarrassed to be seen with him. Besides, I didn't want to be the object of the other kids bullying and scorn. I always felt a little shame over that, still do.

Sam by all rights should have ended up like his old man, a drunk, mean spirited, with no redeeming value. He didn't. Somehow this poor kid managed to excel in school. Long after I had outgrown summers in Oklahoma, and started down my less than stellar path, one that would lead to prison, Sam went on to college, then law school. He eventually became a prosecutor. And his story isn't all that uncommon. People who come from really harsh, especially vile environments, don't always turn out bad. You could argue that the adversity of their childhoods, in fact make them better adults. And even when they turn out bad, they don't all run out and commit brutal, callous crimes.

In the end, the person you become, is a matter of individual choice. I didn't come up in a particularly bad environment. It wasn't ideal, but it was worlds away from the lives of kids like Sam. I made conscious decisions, I chose to be a bad guy, and make no mistake, that's exactly what I was much of my life. I also made a decision to change that part of my life, to walk away from it. So when guys like Richard Davis seek sympathy because they had a less than ideal upbringing, I think of Sam. Davis had countless opportunity to turn it around. He didn't. Ten or twenty years from now, when they strap him to the table in the death chamber, slip the needle in his arm, and start the saline drip that will ultimately deliver the kiss of death, Davis will beg for mercy again. He may not speak out loud, but you can be sure he will beg God or whoever he believes in , for mercy. He wont find it, just like his two victims, his pleas will be in vain. He had his chances, now he gets to pay for his choices. In his case, it's a good call.