Patrick Day

THE SENTENCING OF SHAWN TYLER BENSON


Friday, June 1st, 2018

 Last Tuesday, May 29, I sat in a small courtroom in the Wright County Courthouse. Of five rows of wooden benches, I sat in the second row. The side walls of this courtroom were dark wooden panels and the front and back walls were gray panels that were textured and made of some sort of industrial fabric.

Shawn was ushered in by two sheriff’s deputies to stand in the jury box while the prosecuting attorney referred to him as an unrepentant monster, and the sister of the woman he murdered and one of her friends read victims impact statements from hand-held smart phones. Both of them were shaking and crying, one uncontrollably. They too thought Shawn was a monster and wanted him sentenced to more than the maximum number of years for his crime, which by statute is 40 years.

The fact is, Shawn was a monster when he shot Cheyenne Clough in the back of the head in Crow Spring County Park, just south of Buffalo and north of Highway 12. He was high on meth that morning of June 1, 2016, and continued on a meth binge until arrested near International Falls the next day. Cheyenne held on to life for three days, finally dying on June 4. I felt sorry for the family and friends who had a loved one taken from them. I bristled, however, when the prosecutor called Shawn’s new found religion self-serving. It wasn’t. Shawn knew he’d get 40 years when he confessed to the crime. He had nothing to gain by playing the God card.

Here’s the thing. The Shawn that was standing in that courtroom was not the same Shawn who murdered Cheyenne Clough in cold blood. He had been transformed by Jesus’ death on the cross and was indwelt by the Holy Spirit, a believer who had been reborn from above at the moment he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. He is now in the St. Cloud State Prison, where he wants to finish his GED and go to barbering school so he can witness to the men whose hair he cuts. He’ll be serving 26 years of the 40-year sentence and is at peace with that because he knows Who will be with him during all that time. That’s true freedom.

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