There’s something wrong with this picture:
An SMU graduate student finishes Summa Cum Laude, earning one of the most coveted MBA degrees in the country.
Well on his way to take advantage of all that SMU has to offer, he took a wrong turn and went straight into death row.
It was August of 1998 and Douglas Feldman, who graduated with the class of ’85 from Cox School of Business, was cruising on his Harley in Plano when an 18-wheeler, driven by Robert Everett, blew past him, cutting him off and effectively upsetting him to the point of murder.
According to police reports, only a few inches and a couple of seconds avoided a lethal collision between Feldman and Everett.
Feldman, who later testified that he “Was consumed by anger” and “emotionally compelled,” pulled out his 9mm on that fateful night and put a few holes into the back of Everett’s trailer.
Witnesses say Feldman then drove the bike up alongside the truck’s cab and unloaded on his victim, instantly killing Everett.
Feldman escaped the scene and after thirty minutes, he found himself at a gas station on Hillcrest and Arapaho, where he shot and killed his second victim.
“There is no question of innocence,” said Dr. Rick Halperin, director of the Embrey Human Rights Program, who went on to talk about what he believes are the multiple flaws with the capital punishment system.
As Texas pursues its milestone 500th execution, Halperin, on behalf of Embrey Human Rights, is sponsoring a multidisciplinary symposium at SMU called “Death By Numbers: What Moral, Legal and Economic Price Are We Paying to Maintain the Death Penalty?”
Death row inmates are statistically uneducated, black and poor.
That alone, according to Halperin, should allow legitimate questions to be raised.
“Such a morbid milestone should make us stop and look at the record number of people being executed, the high cost of maintaining capital punishment and the increasing number of states eliminating it,” Halperin said.
Feldman is not a statistically common death row inmate. He is highly educated, and was financially stable at the time of the murders.
Although his state of mind has been questioned on multiple occasions, most experts have ruled out insanity from his case, extending the confusion in Feldman’s case.
Regardless, it took 24 minutes to convict Feldman of capital murder but it has taken fifteen years to lead him into the execution chair.
Many in the theological field believe that 15-year wait is consistent with torture.
Wednesday the 17, faculty members from Perkins School of Theology will talk about capital punishment from the theological vantage point in Prothro Hall at 12:30 p.m.
The panel discussion will be led by Susanne Scholz, associate professor of Old Testament, Joerg Rieger and Wendland-Cook, Endowed Professors of Constructive Theology, Theodore Walker, who is Jr. associate professor of ethics and society, and Joseph Allen, Professor Emeritus of Ethics.
The symposium will also talk about the literary, societal and economic impacts on the death penalty at 7 p.m. in Dedman Life Sciences building.
Feldman’s execution date is set later this year on July 31. He is scheduled to be the 505th person to be executed in Texas under capital punishment and the first alumnus from SMU.
