When Ginie Meadows testified before the Florida Legislature about death penalty laws, then-Gov. Jeb Bush's office asked her to bring of a photo of her 13-year-old cousin − something to show lawmakers how vivacious the girl was before her rape and murder.
But Meadows didn't want to show the politicians a grinning photo of her cousin, 13-year-old Cynthia "Cindy" Driggers. Meadows wanted them to have to look at the same photo her family had to see over and over again at court hearings for the girl's killer during a dragged-out appeals process.
Meadows wanted them to understand what Cindy had been through and what her family had endured in the decades that followed.
"The last thing that child did on the face of this Earth is cry a single tear," Meadows told USA TODAY this week. "Every time I have to look at the picture of her bloodied, bruised, broken little face − thrown in the bushes with dirt and mud all over her face − there's a single tear track."
"You should be looking at that," she told the lawmakers who were considering whether to pass legislation speeding up the execution process in the year 2000.
