American Notes Justice

For eight months, Charles Griffith, 25, a theater projectionist, kept a vigil in a special-care ward of Miami Children's Hospital at the bedside of his comatose daughter Joy, 3. Injured last October when her neck became wedged in the footrest of a reclining chair, Joy suffered irreversible brain damage. Two weeks ago, after an evening visit with his daughter, Griffith fired two .32- cal. bullets into the child's heart, killing her. Griffith, who faces a first- degree murder charge, said last week, "I didn't want to see her hurt anymore. She couldn't eat, she couldn't talk." Said Dade County Detective Rex Remley: "We're going by the law on this thing. The law says it is first- degree murder."

In another Florida mercy-killing case, the executive clemency board is scheduled to hold a hearing this week for Roswell Gilbert, 75, who received a life sentence in May for shooting to death his wife of 51 years, Emily, 73. Gilbert, a retired electrical engineer, has insisted that his wife, who suffered from Alzheimer's and a painful, degenerative bone disease, wished to die. Said he: "I don't feel like I committed a crime at all. Justice is on my side, but the law is on somebody else's."