Revenge
Killers: Life, death, and the gray paradox in between…
Given that earlier today, I posted my opinion on what I think the criteria of a true “killer” is, I find it ironic that I should run across an article dealing with the ethics of the death penalty for a person who meets the legally circumscribed definition of a “Killer”:
“The European Union notes with great regret the upcoming execution in the State of Texas,” the Portuguese presidency of the 27-nation bloc said in a statement.
Texas is expected to hit the 400 mark on Wednesday — putting it far ahead of any other U.S. state — with the execution of Johnny Ray Conner for the 1998 shooting of a grocery store clerk.
The European Union, which on Tuesday called the death penalty “cruel and inhumane,” is opposed to all capital punishment and has called for its worldwide abolition.
“There is no evidence to suggest that the use of the death penalty serves as a deterrent against violent crime,” the statement said, adding that its irreversibility meant that miscarriages of justice could not be redressed. – [Yahoo/Reuters]
What I find most interesting about this article, is the EUs objection to the death penalty on the grounds that it:
- Has not proven to be a deterrent against violent crime.
- Is cruel and inhumane.
Oh really? I might actually have bought reason one, if the sole purpose of the death penalty was to be a deterrent to violent crime. But most of the people whom I think would think deserve the death penalty are people who could watch someone getting brutally massacred right before their eyes without batting an eye, and proceed to enjoy a steak dinner like nothing happened and then sleep like a baby that night. IMHO The death penalty is not a deterrent. It’s cleanup.
That’s not to say that the death penalty couldn’t be a good deterrent for the more normal types of killers. It’s just that nobody thinks it’s going to happen to them unless they actually see it happen, up close and personal. Humans are visual creatures. If you really want to make an impression on them, you have to show them. How many people you know have actually ever seen an execution occur? I’m willing to bet few to none. So how exactly is it intended to be a deterrent?
And point 2 is laughable at best. Is life in prison supposed to be less cruel than death? Sure you’ll be alive, but it won’t exactly be a picnic either. Many who get life ending up serving a reduced sentence anyway due to bing killed in prison. And inhumane? There are such things as humane executions. Is death by lethal injection inhumane? I don’t think so. If I had to go, what better way than to just fall asleep an never wake up again. Quick and painless. I don’t think it gets any more humane than that.
Now obviously, I have no intrinsic objections to the death penalty. There are some people who will never be able to function in a socially constructive way, and can never be rehabilitated. And I think these people only pose a continuing threat to the well being of everyone else, and can safely (in my opinion anyway) be removed from society. But there are problems.
The biggest problem, is the only valid objection I saw in the article. The fact that the death penalty is irreversible, and if there is a mistake there is no way to rectify it. I can’t argue that, because our legal system has many flaws. Innocent people are found guilty and the guilty walk free. On the basis of that alone, we ought to abolish the death penalty. Not because it’s not a good solution for eliminating incurably violent criminals from society, but because the system too flawed to accurately determine who really deserves that penalty.
The legal system, for all of it’s massive and highly detailed rules and regulations, is still run and decided by living, breathing, human people. Each person has different belief system, different ideas of right and wrong, and different thresholds and tolerances for things. And few cases feature objective and irrefutable evidence like a video camera or an audio tape that tells the whole story in an accurate and objective manner. The judge and jury often has to make assumptions and decisions based on assumptions. It’s just isn’t morally or ethically responsible to base anyones death on human assumptions and feelings.
But even if the system could determine with 100 percent accuracy who should get the chair, we can’t kid ourselves about what we are doing. There is a paradox to this way of thinking. We are, in effect murdering a person in cold blood. Yes, we are doing it to save the lives of others that we know could be killed if the killer is allowed to continue to live. But we are being killers ourselves, simply because do not have, and cannot come up with, a better solution. Imagine that. We have no imagination…
EU urges Texas to halt executions before 400 mark – [Yahoo/Reuters]
O.J. Simpson Rides again…
Yet another chapter in the O.J. Simpson saga unfolds:
O.J. Simpson says his hypothetical account of killing his ex-wife in his aborted memoir “If I Did It” was invented by a ghost writer and filled with errors that he refused to correct for fear of appearing to be guilty of the crime.
Simpson related his involvement in the book, which was scrapped shortly before its release date last year amid a torrent of public outrage, in a rare, hourlong Internet interview streamed live on Tuesday by the Dallas-based Web site Market News First (www.MN1.com).
On Monday, after a long legal fight, rights to the book passed to the family of murder victim Ron Goldman, a friend of Nicole Brown Simpson who was slain along with Simpson’s ex-wife at her Los Angeles home in June 1994.
Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, who originally opposed the book, said this week he wants it published because he views it as “an indictment of a wife-beater, of a murderer, written in his own words.”
Judith Regan, the publisher who originally brokered the book deal, has said she considered the book Simpson’s confession.
Simpson said the book was composed by a ghost author, and that he reluctantly agreed to include a chapter containing a “night-of-the-crime” account as told by him only after the publishers promised to clearly label it as hypothetical. – [Reuters]
Now this whole situation has an air of macabre incredibility. This kind of thing is only supposed to happen in movies right? I mean who, in their right minds, having been accused of murdering their wife and her friend, and been found liable in two civil suits, would actually attempt to participate in a book that chronicles the murders? Regardless of whether it was hypothetical or not? Could O.J. not have been aware of the storm of additional suits and hatred and such that this would create? There is just so many things wrong with this picture.
First off how can you do this, all the while hoping to convince people of your innocence? It’s a no win situation. Even the comment he made about not correcting the inaccuracies of the account rides dangerously closed to the line of making a self incriminating statement. If the account was truly wrong, and you are trying to clear yourself, then he should have been totally gung-ho about correcting it to explain how he didn’t commit the murder.
And how about this “Ghost Author”. If this “ghost author” knew enough to write a book he/she shouldn’t have needed his help. They should have had the cohones to put their name on it and go to the publishers. Unless the actual murderer wrote it, in which case O.J. qualifies for one of the most manipulated men alive on the face of the planet today.
But if that were not the case, Mr./Mrs. ghost shouldn’t have been writing the book anyway. As a result, they would have needed his sign off on it to publish it without him suing them. So either way, he had a choice in the matter. I believe a smarter/braver man would simply have said “No.” and walked away.
If I were in his shoes and I were innocent, I’d be trying to wash my hands of the whole deal. Move on, leave it all behind. Not making/participating in/editing/whatever a book about it. On the other hand though, if I were Nicole’s parents I would also be trying to do the same thing…
As I have pointed out in another post, peoples greed tends to often get the better of them. Even if people have a legitimate reason to sue another any honorable intentions often gets swept away by the prospect of making some cold hard cash. And I think “cold hard cash” is a good description. It makes people’s hearts cold and hard. Ok I just reread that aloud and realized that it is may be the corniest/cheesiest thing I’ve posted to date. Let that be a warning to you. Anyway, back to the matter at hand…
What I’m trying to say is this. Even though the Goldman estate may have legitimate reasons to want to have the book published, sometimes that reason will be overshadowed by the prospect of the money they will make. I’m waiting to see if they donate the money from the book to a domestic violence cause or pocket it under the following, oft-used rationalization: “I deserve it”…
What do you think they’re gonna do?
O.J. says ghost author wrote flawed murder account – [Reuters]
Why we need “MedMal” Caps.
Yesterday I read an interesting article about a couple who sued a doctor for failing to properly diagnose a birth defect in their firstborn son:
In what is being called a “wrongful birth” case, a jury awarded more than $21 million to a couple who claimed a doctor misdiagnosed a severe birth defect in their son, leading them to have a second child with similar problems. – [Yahoo/AP]
However the couples lawyer made a statement I found interesting.
Searcy said he would push state lawmakers to pass a bill awarding the Estradas money over the $200,000 cap.
“I believe that this case is so powerful and this tragedy was so preventable and is so poignant, that it is the kind of case that should rise above the fray and rise above party politics,” Searcy said. – [Yahoo/AP]
Out of curiosity, I decided to get the opinion of a subject matter expert, a very talented OB/GYN I have known for many, many years. The verdict? Well, the couples doc messed up. But in contrast to the opinion of the lawyer who tried the case, my subject matter expert, the Good Doctor, thought the award was on the high side. No surprise there.
Now in this particular case, the suit was well warranted. But the comment by the lawyer brought up a very important issue. The lawyers statement would seem to imply that claim caps are simply a result of “party politics”. Me personally, I think the caps are necessary, if for nothing more that the fact that people are not self regulating.
Basically, people are greedy. Most folks/juries that go into a courtroom aren’t thinking “what would be a fair award?” they are thinking “How much can I/would I want to get out of this?”. As a result, judgements/settlements seem to get higher and higher every year. And then you have the folks who sue, not because they doctor did anything wrong, but simply because they are unhappy with how things turned out. In either case, a settlement, judgement, or even just a trial, can be expensive, and the medical industry pays the price, whether they are at fault or not.
Thats not to say nobody really deserves what they get. I know there are cases, like this one, where large settlements or judgements are certainly warranted. But let’s think long term for a moment. Nobody can stay in a business that they can’t make a living on. Left to their own devices, people would run the medical industry out of business, and then there wouldn’t be any doctors left to sue. Or they would become so expensive we wouldn’t be able to afford them.
Yes, at this point that is just a hypothetical scenario, but still, with our very special brand of greed, if we had no caps, well, I could see us getting close to being foot loose and doctor free in about a decade or two…
$21 million awarded for ‘wrongful birth’ – [Yahoo/AP]
Hey it’s a Bank Robber! BOMB THE BANK!!!
Our esteemed President has taken up the bull horn, yet again, to warn us of the dangers that Iraq poses to the security of the mighty U.S. of A.:
“The merger between al-Qaida and its Iraqi affiliate is an alliance of killers and that is why the finest military in the world is on their trail,” Bush said. …
… “That’s like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun and saying, ‘He’s probably just there to cash a check,’” Bush told troops at Charleston Air Force Base. – [Yahoo/AP]
Even if we were in the position of seeing “a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun” which I still have am not convinced were were, I would point out that our current actions are more akin to blowing up the bank in an attempt to thwart a possible robbery. It’s a no win. At the very least, I can take some small solace in the fact that a good many rational American people have realized the illogical nature of our current predicament. Might does not make right.
That is not to say that we should be doormats. I am by no means a pacifist. Strength and power is a tool, much like any other. And I mean no disrespect or slight to those who have suffered as a result of terrorist attacks, but I believe strength should be used to defend innocence. Not as a tool of retribution, or even control.
Contrary to what many seem to believe, terrorists do not spawn in a vacuum. Nor are they simple lunatics. They are generally themselves recipients of terrorist acts, that have learned to respond in kind. But responding in anger only fuels more anger, and violence only breeds more violence. And right now we are wreaking untold levels of violence upon both the innocent as well as the guilty, and breeding anger like freakin’ rabbits, where there was none.
We are performing the mythological equivalent of attacking a hydra by cutting off each of it’s heads, one by one. And as each head falls, two more grow in it’s place. And even if we eventually kill the beast, and eliminate all of the true terrorists, the survivors of the innocents shall remain, bearing us so much hatred that, much like Heracles, if we don’t wise up, the blood of the hydra will eventually poison us to death…
Bush warns anew of al-Qaida threat – [Yahoo/AP]
Stupidity in the nude.
OK, just read an article describing how this lady left 4 young girls, that she was supposed to be taking care of, alone. Just so she could go have some nudie shots taken…
A 20-year-old Syracuse woman who left children in her care to go pose for nude photos is facing several charges of endangering the welfare of a child. – [Yahoo/AP]
You know, I don’t get it. Notwithstanding the heinousness of leaving 4 young girls that were in her care to fend for themselves (especially in this day and age), how exactly was having another man taking nude pictures of her going to help her get back at your ex? First of all, I’m bettin’ there probably ain’t nothin’ there her ex hadn’t seen before. And even if there was, couldn’t it have waited until after she had returned the kids to their parents to do go flaunting it?
Equally baffling to me is this question. Once you have the pictures taken, then what? Mail them to him? Post it on the internet? How, exactly, would that be hurtful to him? If she dumped him, then she’d only be handing him more ammo against her. If he dumped her, it would only justify his actions.
In the long term, wouldn’t either action be more damaging to her than to him? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. And ultimately, no matter how she decided to get back at her ex, it still was not worth risking the welfare of innocent children to do so. It would appear that she preceded her rhinoplasty with a lobotomy…
Woman leaves kids to pose nude in woods – [Yahoo/AP]
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