Rae Carruth Gets Out of Prison to a Crowd of People Cheering Him

Source – Ex-NFL player Rae Carruth was released from prison today after spending nearly twenty years behind bars for conspiring to murder his pregnant girlfriend.

The Carolina Panthers’ 1997 first-round draft pick was released from Sampson Correctional Institution in Clinton, North Carolina, after completing his sentence of 18 to 24 years.

Carruth did not speak to reporters on as he left the prison wearing a knit cap and an unzipped jacket on a chilly morning with temperatures in the high 30s.

There was a smattering of applause as he climbed into a white SUV and was whisked away from the prison.

Carruth, now 44, was found guilty of orchestrating a plot to kill his girlfriend Cherica Adams, who was eight months pregnant, on November 16, 1999, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The court heard at the time how Carruth had wanted to avoid paying child support to Adams for the baby.

I get that not everybody goes to jail forever. That life sentences have to be reserved only for the very worst crimes. Otherwise I’d be wanting people sent into the Pit of Despair forever for cracking their knuckles in front of me or pluralizing words with apostrophes. That’s just me. I obey the laws of etiquette and grammar. That said, if hiring a hit squad to gun down the woman carrying your baby behind the wheel of her car because it will be more cost effective for you than actually raising the child doesn’t justify dying in prison than I can’t imagine what does. At the very least, getting out when you’re an old man, too old to either do violence or make any more babies. But what do I know?

And while we’re on the topic of Rae Carruth babies, this is what became of that unborn child:

“Chancellor is not just surviving,” says his grandmother, Saundra Adams. “He is thriving.” …

Chancellor has special needs. Owing to his traumatic birth, he has cerebral palsy. Loss of blood and oxygen the night of his birth caused permanent brain damage. When he was born, he looked blue.

But the boy who wasn’t supposed to talk can communicate a little with people who don’t know him and a lot with people who do. The boy who wasn’t supposed to walk mostly uses a walker to get around now instead of a wheelchair, and he navigates steps without help.

“He’s able to feed himself some,” Adams says. “He’s able to dress himself with minimal assistance. And the biggest thing is he’s able to walk.”

Chancellor Lee Adams was 16 when this was published. He is now 19 and his grandmother says she would like his father to be part of his life. Because some people like Saundra Adams have a spark of divinity about them that not many of us do. I sure as hell don’t. I wouldn’t want the monster responsible for Chancellor growing up without a mother and with the disadvantages his father caused. She’s a better person than I could ever hope to be. (Though admittedly that’s not saying much.)

Prison officials will tell you that, in order for them to function, inmates need to have some hope of getting out. That’s what keeps them in line. Helps rehabilitate them, whenever that’s possible. And I’m sure there are plenty of cases where the worst excuses for human beings imaginable went to jail, saw the error of their ways, found God or whatever and came out the better for it. I can’t name one but I’m sure it’s happened. Take away any chance they ever have of serving out their sentence and maybe it’s all drugs and rape and murdering guards. “Hope is a good thing” and all that. Who knows if it’s true or why a just would decide 17 years is too short, 19 years is too long but 18 somehow is the magic number that exactly pays back what he owes the world for killing a woman and permanently harming his own son?

What I do know is it takes some seriously twisted people to show up and clap when Carruth walked out of that gate. Even if you’ve been visiting him in jail for 18 years and heard him talk about redemption and are convinced he’s a changed man, think for one fucking second about what you’re doing. This isn’t Jake Blues walking out of Joliet for stealing a car. Taking time out of your day to go down to the jail to cheer him on like he just caught a Go route from Steve Beuerlein is some sick shit. Have some common sense and much less common decency. Save your cheers for Chancellor Adams when he graduates school or goes off to some program to teach him basic skills. Or for his grandmother every single day she’s doing what his father didn’t do. Raise this poor kid with love and dignity. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you not cheer for a murderer.  Shows how much I know.