So there’s a heart-wrenching story playing locally here. Jay has already been covering the news headlines of it here, and now here. Go read both of Jay’s posts, I’ll wait.
OK for those lazy bastards (I saw you not click Jay’s links!) the Summary is that Massachusetts is filled with career criminals. One particular criminal was paroled WHILE SERVING THREE LIFE SENTENCES despite an advisory against him on the books….and well THREE LIFE SENTENCES.
He celebrates his freedom by holding up a department store and murdering the police officer who responds to the call. Now the ONLY ray of light is the late here Officer Maguire did manage to fatally wound this monster before his last breath, so this Monster’s reign of terror is over.
Jay talks about all the finer points of this story, and the scandal about how this monster got out.
I want to talk about the Death Penalty. I think this case illustrates why we need it.
#1. Somebody serving multiple life sentences should not be doing the same time as somebody serving a single sentence.
#2. Again Life in prison IS a death penalty, its just a very gross one, of death by old age in a cage. Not to mention expensive one, especially giving senior citizen convicts medical care.
#3. This illustrates that “Life in Prison” does not mean they’ll serve life in prison. Part of this asshole’s rap sheet is “Escape”, and of course he was paroled by a bunch of political hacks.
And now my last point. It seems the people who are against or hesitant to the death penalty often use the rebuttal point. “What if we execute the wrong person?”
First up I’ll say that will ALWAYS happen, there is no fail-safe system. I’m sure we have executed several “Innocent” people (without reviewing individual cases, I can only claim not deserving of execution, as I imagine it is fairly hard to be convicted, and appeal a death sentence and still be executed while being pure as snow), just with our current system it would take AGES just to statistically find a 1% failure rate (and I’m sure our rates are better than that).
But what about the opposite of that? What about if we DON’T EXECUTE the right person? People would get upset if somebody got executed for breaking somebody’s jaw in a bar fight right? Well stuff like that happens all the time. People get murdered in general prison population all the time. That’s not justice! Same with guards being hurt or killed. Now for people who are NOT serving a life sentence they can always be charged with additional crimes and have their stay extended in the greybar hotel. But a lifer? 3 Life sentences doesn’t feel much different than 15.
And then how do you feel when a lifer escapes or games the system for a parole and then kills somebody? Where’s your bleeding heart now?
I think we should have for high sentences only “Life with Chance or Parole” and “Execution”. It doesn’t leave much resolution for punishment of higher crime, but its cruel and dangerous to society to simply lock people up until they rot, and the death penalty is simply to curb the danger. Yes people will get it wrong, but guess what, a Police officer is dead today because people got it wrong in the other way. Let’s err on the side of people who have lived their life and played by the rules rather that by casting sympathy on people who have done everything wrong in their twisted lives.
I’ve been torn about the death penalty for a while now. I used to be a strong supporter, but after having seen our legal system at work several times, I’m no longer convinced.
The problem is that we have a legal system, not a system of justice.
Our system does not seek the truth, but the win. Throughout the entire process, for the government’s side, the object is not to find the truth and convict the right person, it is to convict SOMEONE. ANYONE. So that the Police can increase their solved crime numbers, Politicians can be seen to be “doing something”, “protecting the public” and “tough on crime”, and Prosecutors (most of whom aspire to become politicians) can bolster win/loss record.
If some poor innocent sap who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and couldn’t come up with a valid alibi happens to get the chair in the process…well…them’s the breaks.
So, the argument is no longer “sometimes the innocent will be wrongly convicted”; the argument is “sometimes the innocent are knowingly convicted because it’s more convenient for the government to railroad someone than it is for them to find out who really did it.”
We’ve seen it time and again with this “innocence project” (which I strongly opposed at first, when I thought they were just trying to get criminals off on technicalities) and I’ve seen it personally here in Virginia.
The Police will falsify evidence and lie. The Prosecutors will Refuse to release exculpatory evidence to the court and the defense, will lie, cheat and bribe others to do so on their behalf, will withhold evidence, destroy evidence, or manufacture evidence as needed, etc…and without consequence when they are caught…to get the conviction even when they KNOW that the accused is innocent of the crime.
Until we as a society start screaming as loudly about fixing our legal system and holding those that abuse it to account, as we do about whether the death penalty is a good idea or a bad one. Until we can guarantee that the only people wrongfully convicted of crimes are the rare outlier and a purely honest mistake and not the result of malfeasance and misconduct on the part of the government actors that REPRESENT US…then I don’t see how the death penalty can remain a viable option.
It’s pretty hard to make restitution to someone who was railroaded and then exonerated when you’ve already killed them.
Its also hard to make restitution to somebody murdered in prison by a lifer with nothing to lose, or killed by a freed or escaped monster on the street.
I 100% agree with your problems with the system, but I don’t think either of our endgames are mutually exclusive, but I agree we cannot have one without the other or the result is disastrous. Railroading and corruption in the legal system is a mess and is indeed devoid of justice. But I don’t see proper, humane, or safe punishment in our penal system without a constant death penalty.
Agreed, Sailorcurt. It’s not the possibility of honest mistakes that make me hesitant about the death penalty, it’s when the supposed ‘good guys’ don’t care or do it knowingly.
“And now my last point. It seems the people who are against or hesitant to the death penalty often use the rebuttal point. “What if we execute the wrong person?””
It happens, but look at it this way. How many innocents are put in prison and then killed by the inmates, or worse infected with AIDS.
Sounds like they got a death penalty too or “life”.
Yes, we seem to put criminals on the streets and repeat offenders are out there again, and again. It’s also obvious when we have offenders
in jail that are no question bad we give them more benefit of the doubt than the guy on the street. Thats broken!
Eck!
Peresonally, I am all in favour of the death penalty. In fact, I think that anyone with multiple life sentences should automatically get the death penalty. Unfortunately, I have to agree with Sailorcurt – I just don’t trust the government to be able to do it right, period. I wish I could think of a good solution.
Well there is permitless conceal and open carry. Try and commit a serious violent felony, you get premptive capital punishment.
Not the same thing, but a good idea.