Cruel and Unusual: Briley Piper
South Dakota is a death penalty state. Currently, one prison, Briley Piper, 40, sits on death row. In March 2000, Piper and two co-conspirators killed a fourth man.
On paper, Piper is not a sympathetic character. Nineteen and high on meth, during a botched robbery, he and his partners beat a man to death. He inadvertently confessed to the murder, a seemingly small oversight but was the difference between life in prison or lethal injection.
With the help of his lawyers Piper has appealed his case, hoping to overturn his sentence. After a sentencing trial in 2011, a jury reinstated the death penalty. Presently, a stay has been imposed. So, Piper sits, waits, and wonders.
One of the convicted murderers was killed by the state. Another received a life sentence. The third has languished on death row for twenty years. Each committed the crime. Each was found guilty. And yet, each is treated differently. This inconsistency is unusual and wrong.