>> Not so much towards the guilty person punished as towards the people involved in the clinical process of homicide albeit with the book of law in their hand.
I don't feel good about it, either. It is a difficult practice to defend.
But there are some crimes that just cry out for it. The one they executed last week, where the guy buried a young girl alive, is such an example. They are very rare, though.
In the last 40 years the US has executed about 1400 persons. Each had been tried and convicted, appealed, appealed again and again, and yes, it is possible someone who shouldn't have been, was executed.
When I was in my teens I sometimes hung out with a guy who turned out to be human garbage (but he had a very nice Hemi Road Runner, to which I was very attracted). Fifteen years later, he was convicted of putting two bullets in the head of a guy while stealing $15,000 from him, after which he stuffed him in the trunk of his car and parked it at D/FW Airport where it wasn't found for a month. The 15K was used to buy a Corvette. Ultimately, he got a life sentence, no eligibility for parole. A lawyer here has filed no fewer than five appeals, two of which made it to the Arkansas Supreme Court, but to no avail. I don't think he is trying anymore.
While it was not part of the trial, I've been told that he killed his six year old disabled daughter after his first wife left him with the child. But somehow he was apparently able to beat it, claiming it was accidental or the child accidentally shot herself, something like that. Sounds about right.
My point in this is that it was a brutal crime, there isn't any doubt he committed it (along with his accomplice wife at the time, who ran like hell and hasn't been heard from since), and while I knew the guy in my younger years, I cannot really find a reason why the state ought to be paying for his continued existence. This man would have been about 30 when he committed that murder.
Of course, money isn't real issue, since the legal work costs so damned much in executing anyone. But I don't think the planet would be harmed one iota if he was put to death.
In this country, murderers are commonly back on the streets within a few years because of plea bargains. |
