Death becomes them...
Date Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 11:15 PM PST
Topic Questions


I watch a lot of history channel programs. Too many, if you ask people who know me, my favorite being "serial killer 4th of july" every year (which I missed this year *sniff*).

And as we in the washington area know, (or you should...what, do you live in a bubble or something?) that after how many decades and 49 victims (some bodies sill missing and not included in the total death count), they've caught the green river killer.
The question I pose:

What do we do with him.

Everyone knows that these people are bad. Granted, they don't really deserve to waste our air. But who's say is it who dies and who doesn't? Killers from decades past, their files reopened, new technology applied to long dead victims exonorates the long ago executed believed murderer. Now what.

Can you imagine, on death row, led to the execution room, the poison enters your blood, you die with the knowledge your family will carry a false shame, that you will die and the killer is out there, and knowing that so many of the victim's family and friends are there to watch an innocent person die at the hands of the government.

Imagine: your daughter, wife, sister, husband, son is murdered. They catch the killer. You fight tooth and nail to have the bastard euthanized. You succeed. You witness his execution. 10 years....1year! The reopen the case, find the now dead man innocent, and you unwittingly aided the murder of a wrongly convicted man, the real murderer still at large, safe behind the veil of the final execution of the "murderer".
Such murderers as the Zodiac Killer. For a while the Unibomber. For a while the Green River Killer. Now known to still be at large, the Boston Strangler.

Right wing conservatives and bleeding heart human rights activists pass laws that make it illegal for a terminally ill patient to end their own suffering in a manner which they choose, instead of lingering and shuffling towards a certain end. The laws passed, yet the government executes criminals based on circumstantial evidence, foggy "eye witness" testimony, and something as simple as no alibi because you took a ride in your car at the time of the murder to a mcdonald's down the road instead of hanging out with a friend "just in case".

The man accused of being the boston strangler was executed. I see on the television today that new DNA evidence has exonorated him.

People convicted in a murder of one person get the juice, when someone convicted of a series of murders spends life in prison without parol.

What are the difining lines? How can one murder deserve the death penelty versus several murders that recieve just a life penalty in prison?

I recently ran across a database list of death row last meal requests (don't ask). Is a man who requests his last meal be donated to a homeless person a murderer? Someone who's last meal request is justice, peace, and salvation? Yes, killers lie, but they're going to die anyway, so what would be the point of prolonging the facade of innocence?

The point is, with something as final as death, shouldn't there be more to the decision that circumstantial evidence or heresay? Or emotionally charged "evidence" by traumatized victims or witnesses?

I also distinctly remember a case where a woman positively I.D.ed a man who had raped her. DNA evidence later found it to be another man who had done the deed, but emotional trauma, hounding by police, and preassure to find the assailant by law officials had made her believe that the man she I.D.ed was in fact her rapist. He spent 10 yrs in jail. He missed the birth of his first child.

Humans are emotional creatures if nothing else. It is impossible to make an unemotional decision based on such things as murder, rape, and violent crime. Our emotions govern our day to day activities, our lives, our thinking, our rationalization, what we do, what we say and to whom....

Are such emotional and often unbalanced by trauma, love, and other such emotions (like why an abused spouse tolerates the abuse, justifies the abuse, and insists that the abuser "loves them and doesn't mean to hit so hard") capable of making a literal life and death situation?

I will consent that there are some people that do need to be "removed"....unless there is no cold hard evidence or smoking gun in hand.
Timothy McVey....he admited to it.
Jeffery Dahmer was found with several bodies in various states of eaten in his apartment, one in ice in the tub, Jeffy admitting to taking cold showers over it so as not to melt the ice.
We didn't have to take care of that....the prison's tennants took care of him for us.

It's late, and this is all for now.
The question is posed:
What deserves the death penelty
Who deserves the death penelty
Is the death penelty worth the risk
Should the death penelty be rid of
As emotional beings, are we capable of competently deciding who dies and who doesn't

I'm curious.

As for me, I feel it needs to be done away with, or deserving of only the most horrible crimes imaginable and a rare and most severe punnishment to be dealt out sparingly.

This article comes from Shmeng
http://www.shmeng.com/

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