Blogged elsewhere
By Libby
Another day slipped away from me. I've been posting at Newshoggers where I finally addressed the other side of child rape and the death penalty. For the record, I'm completely against capital punishment. I also spent way too much time in John Cole's comments debating FISA.
I'm off now to throw up a couple McCain bashes at DetNews, but I'll be back in a bit.
Another day slipped away from me. I've been posting at Newshoggers where I finally addressed the other side of child rape and the death penalty. For the record, I'm completely against capital punishment. I also spent way too much time in John Cole's comments debating FISA.
I'm off now to throw up a couple McCain bashes at DetNews, but I'll be back in a bit.
Labels: blogging
posted by Libby Spencer at 5:49 PM
4 Comments:
I'll comment here on the death penalty issue. I agree, Libby, that if the death penalty causes even more trauma to victims, then that should certainly be a consideration. Perhaps victims should have a weighted say at the penalty phase of their perpetrators trials.
But you give us just two examples of victim's opinions and I would need to see a little more than that. Polly Klass'father told her rapist killer to burn in hell and was 100% in support of his death.
As far as the deterent factor, I disagree with Fogg here. There is at least a very practical and logical deterrent factor. An enormous number of offenders are repeat offenders. This includes killers and rapists. The one I reported on is a perfect example.
Had he been put to death the first time he raped a child, that would have been an excellent deterrent towards doing it again. And the second victim would not have ever been a victim at all and would have suffered exactly zero trauma.
Some time ago, I read about a group of men who had raped a woman in India or somewhere in the middle east. I can't remember where. She was given a whip and was able to whip all of them to her hearts content. She did so. On camera. Revenge? Sure. So what? Revenge is sweet, and can also be justified.
My bottom line is, as long as it has been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a man is guilty of such a heinous crime, I don't want to pay for his lifelong incarceration and I definitely don't want him ever getting out to do it again. Kill him, or send him to Papillon's island. Either way we are rid of him for good.
Victims do have a say and that frequently raises the hysteria level, demonstrating the difference between justice and acting out one's anger. I maintain that anger is a poor judge and a biased jury.
As a deterrent to murder in the general population, I believe the statistics deny it firmly. At best it is a very small factor and if you assert that killing someone prevents further crimes, so does lifetime incarceration -- which is actually cheaper.
It's cheaper because being certain beyond a shadow of a doubt is so very difficult in many cases and too often that certainty has rested upon flawed, or dishonest evidence.
I've said it before, but I am not comfortable with a government having that kind of power and I am even less comfortable about basing punishment on how angry we are, because our anger is usually based on fear and fear is irrational.
And then there's my Buddhist leaning.
I understand your point Brian and many hold that view. For me, state sanctioned killing is still murder Brian, so how does it make us better than them? Killing the perp won't mitigate the effects of the crime. And Fogg is right, it's actually costs more to put them on death row. They're mostly indigent and get court appointed attorneys and the appeals cost more money than just housing them, even at state reimbursement rates.
And again, the guy in Florida should never have been let out in the first place. We sentence drug offenders to longer terms than rapists and with mandatory sentencing a pothead stays in jail for ten years while they let the rapist early to make room for more potheads.
It does not cost more to execute them. It costs more to sentence them to death and then allow them to spend 10-20 years on death row as they move through a ridiculously lengthy process of appeal after appeal.
And I disagree that it "makes us just like them." It does not. The criminal did not give any kind of a trial to the victim. He did not weigh any evidence before deciding that his was a justified crime. He did not ask the opinion of 12 people first and he did not make an attempt to come to a reasonable decision. What he did do was viciously beat, rape and kill a child.
Going through the entire court process, with all evidence available, especially now with DNA to help insure that we have the right guy, gives the defendant a completely different chance than he gave his victim. Under those circumstances, if the death penalty is the decision, it can hardly be compared to the process the perp went through before committing his crime.
I think we might be assigning too much importance to the life of the criminal, perhaps to life in general. We are giving it a "spiritual" quality that I just don't think exists.
Or, maybe I'm just a fucked up old vet who got too used to it.
And by the way, Cap'n, I have a few Buddhist leanings myself.
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