Death penalty

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Some families think they benefit from that kind of closure but others don't. Some feel that killing a killer is as wrong as what the killer did. They recognize that nothing will bring their loved one back and putting another person's family through the same sort of pain they're feeling helps nobody.



I'm going to have to research this but I think I remember reading that because of hearing all the appeals and all the administrative BS that occurs, plus the long periods of time inmates spend on Death Row it's actually more expensive on average to execute someone than it is to lock them up for the rest of their lives.

Look at Mumia Abu-Jamal. He's been in custody since December of 1981. That's 28 years and counting. Mumia is more famous than any other Death Row inmate but he's not that atypical in other respects.

John

I can see where that type of closure may not suit some.

I'll tell a little story. Close to 20 yrs ago, one of the locals snapped like a glass rod.

Now I knew Jim, and he seem like a pretty nice guy to me. At that time, I would pull a cork with most of the major players (still do with the one's who are still alive), so I know of what I speak. They all knew him, and they all thought he was a pretty nice guy.

Anyway, it was a continuing domestic that finally went bad. And it's not like he was abusing his new wife and her daughter. They were running up credit card/phone bills on him and calling family services and the cops when he started raising hell. Takes two to tango.

To the best of my knowledge, he never laid a hand to either of them.

To make a long story short. His family called the Sheriffs Dept. on him and they dispatched a deputy. Probably not the most diplomatic deputy they had. At least that was the consensus of the one's who lived.

Bottom line is, Jim shot and killed the deputy on his front porch. After which, he drove to the Sheriff's house, and shot and killed the Sheriff's wife through a window while she was hosting a Christmas Party. Then he abandoned his car at my buddy's house (deceased deputy...and there WAS a Glenn Beck type asshole involved in this, causing trouble) as no one was at home.

He proceeded to one of his best friends home (another deputy), shot him four or five times through a window, ran to the jail, shot and killed a Sheriff from an ajoining county as he came out of the back door, then shot and killed a female deputy from a different ajoining county as she drove past.

I could go on...but you get the picture.

Now this is Bugtussell, and an "eye for an eye" is the rule of thumb. And most of the victims families turned up to see the execution. The best that I can tell, it was a morbid event, and everyone lefty feeling worse. But it did bring the "closure" that they needed.

As far as expense, the state is responsible for their general welfare, if that means a 250K quad conorany bipass (I saw this in the 80's, in 80's dollars), that's the law.

What's the answer? Got me, but I still assert that "some people just need to go".

No correct answer, really,

Chas