Said the parents of one of the Parkland victims, when the jury spared the killer the death penalty.
In each case, the jurors found that prosecutors had proved many aggravating factors — that the crime was especially heinous and cruel, that it was committed in a cold and calculating manner, and that the gunman had created a great risk of death. But they did not unanimously find that the aggravating factors outweighed mitigating circumstances that the defense lawyers brought up at the sentencing trial....
Before court adjourned, Nikolas Cruz sat with his lawyers huddled around him, showing little emotion after the jury spared his life.
ADDED: The public defender, Melisa McNeill, made the argument that convinced the jury:
She described Mr. Cruz as “poisoned” by his biological mother’s heavy drinking while she was pregnant with him. That led to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which was misdiagnosed by experts throughout Mr. Cruz’s life, Ms. McNeill said, despite the slew of developmental problems and sometimes violent behavior he exhibited, which overwhelmed his adoptive mother.
In retelling the story of Mr. Cruz’s troubled childhood, Ms. McNeill urged jurors to consider the mitigating circumstances that she said should spare his life. Unlike the aggravating factors presented by the prosecution, which were generally factual in nature, she said, mitigating circumstances can mean different things to different people.
“Were there things about Nikolas’s life that you wish hadn’t happened?” she asked the jury. “Are there things that he didn’t get that you wish he would have gotten? Was he missing people in his life that you wish he hadn’t missed?”
If they answered yes, she said, “That’s mitigation — that’s a reason for life.”...
And she repeatedly reminded the jurors that they did not have to impose the death penalty. To do so would be to act out of anger, she argued, and would “serve no other purpose at all, other than vengeance.”
“Grace is not a limited resource,” Ms. McNeill said. “Compassion is not a limited resource. Mercy is not a limited resource. Sentencing Nikolas Cruz to life is the right thing to do. So I now put in your hands his life.”
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97 comments:
The death penalty is neither deterrence nor retribution. It instead speaks to the place that society keeps for the voice of the victim, a voice that is missing.
That's changed to general wimpiness now though.
The saddest thing is that eventually he will be freed in the name of compassion. How about some compassion for the victims and their families?
My biggest dread for the future is the complete breakdown of law and order that is going on. The scariest thing about it to me is the fact that my high school students appear to be eagerly anticipating the coming of the Purge.
The death penalty probably isn't appropriate. He should be tortured on a regular schedule. That's not a cruel and unusual punishment relative to what he did. Anyway, probably a good chance someone in prison cracks his skull open and does the job those jurors were unwilling to do. Also, so what if it's anger and vengeance? Good riddance.
"Grace is not a limited resource,” Ms. McNeill said. “Compassion is not a limited resource. Mercy is not a limited resource...."
It was for Nicholas Cruz. Did any of those "mitigating circumstances" prevent him from exercising the judgement necessary to decide NOT to dispense with compassion against innocent people who did no harm to him? If these people were the cause of his troubles, I cold see applying mercy. If he were not able to control himself, I could see applying compassion. The question asked in the title is spot on. Why does a death penalty exist if we can just transfer responsibility down the line so that no one is culpable for their own actions?
I've often thought about an interesting concept for our legal system and capital punishment. It's would never happen (cruel and unusual and all), but I think it has merit.
Leave everything the same, but the severity of the execution method gets worse the longer the appeals process continues. Think about it, for the condemned - who outside of god are the only ones epistemologically that know their true guilt or innocence - it creates one final carrot-vs-stick incentive/penalty. If you were guilty (and the vast overwhelming majority are) than it behooves you to get it over with quick, and most of all painless. If you want to waste everyone's time, in 20 years you'll be buried up to your neck, coated in honey and covered in fire ants.
Whhat the hell is this “fetal alcohol spectrum” thing? Is everything now on a “spectrum?” If the dude had the the presence of mind to plan out the butchery, that should have negated the whole spectrum thing. Ridiculous. I get that she was doing her job to defend her client and that’s as should be. But really, these made-up syndromes tugging at hearts for sympathy is just idiotic. You’ve got a very dangerous person with no obvious moral values (have a drink, ma) and find that he is not at all culpable because of some sort of syndrome? He’ll probably get the sharpened toothbrush in the neck anyway. Cannot say I would be upset. Convicts have their own police force and it is usually harsh for folks who kill kids.
Gahrie. Haven't heard that as a proper noun before. What do your students think the Purge will be?
I'm starting to desire a return to all male juries.
I don't believe there is anything after death. In that context, keeping him alive to live in a shitty prison environment is fitting. Those disappointed must be so because they are religious, and don't like the fact the prisoner is not in hell.
Had to be unanimous for death penalty. Was there a vote break? Was it announced?
And she repeatedly reminded the jurors that they did not have to impose the death penalty. To do so would be to act out of anger, she argued, and would “serve no other purpose at all, other than vengeance.”
What happened to punishment? Simple punishment. Punishment that might also act as a deterrent to others. Why shouldn't they be angry? Children died!
And at last, what is wrong with vengeance in this case? Those children deserve to be avenged.
"What do we have the death penalty for?"
We're saying the death penalty, for REALLY serious cases.. Like taking selfies in the Capitol
A heavily democratical county, with a democratical judge, providing a perfectly democratical decision.
What's the problem?
I oppose the death penalty, although people I know to be good and intelligent disagree with me—and I appreciate rhhardin's comment that the death penalty "speaks to the place that society keeps for the voice of the victim, a voice that is missing," even though there is no guarantee that the victim would have demanded eye-for-an-eye justice.
I believe that a life sentence without the possibility of parole is appropriate in some cases. Some people should be permanently removed from opportunities to wreak further murderous havoc on society. In this case, though, I think the public defender, though eloquent, made the wrong argument against the death penalty.
Apart from being "cruel and unusual punishment," the death penalty does nothing but sacrifice a "poisoned" individual to the community's shadow, which, darkened and strengthened, soon attaches itself to the next protagonist in the never-ending drama of "mitigating circumstances," thus allowing "good" citizens to go on believing themselves utterly incapable of murder and other heinous crimes. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I understand and respect the defense argument about mitigating circumstances. However, from the perspective of risk to the public, if the defendant missing those critical things in life caused him to be a threat to society and having never received them, nothing has changed, then what is the mitigation from the defendant committing a similar crime in the future. The defense is wrong that the death penalty is just vengeance. The death penalty is a solution to prevent the continued threat to society that exists.
Mercy does not mean you release criminals into the world. Democrats take note!
Toxic compassion places the perpetrator of criminal acts ahead of their victims. The people who demonstrate this syndrome are generally cowards who are afraid to hold others accountable for their acts, or to act preventatively on behalf of future victims. They allow the criminal to go on, free from effective behavioral modification. Which creates even more victims, and necessitates that someone else act to put an end to the criminal's depredations upon others.
The argument that these people are somehow morally "superior" to those of us who prefer a pragmatic and demonstrably more effective regime of behavioral modification is specious; how many people's lives would be saved, had we simply executed or rendered brain-dead every single violent predator at their first encounter with the system?
The day is coming when the toxically compassionate will be held accountable; set the criminal free? You'll be one of their victims. While the sane stand by and let it happen to you.
And, of course, once faith in the legalistic system regime of today breaks down sufficiently, the pragmatic and forward-looking will cease looking to it for solution to crime and criminals. They will, instead, deal with it on their own.
Which is going to look a lot uglier than the oh-so-saintly-and-pure imagine our former system to have been. Incarceration of a few innocents isn't going to look so bad, once the vigilantes start in on setting afire the odd suspected criminal. Or, they'll come up with something else entirely, since hanging is frowned upon as "racist". South African-style "necklacing", perhaps? Will that make the sensitive happier, having gutted our old system?
The death penalty is reserved for "burden" relief of abortionists with criminal intent. The slash is gratuitous.
I'm against the death penalty, and so should be pleased to see this argument prevail, but I recoil from game playing around serious issues.
Ms. McNeill's argument was essentially jury nullification. Under her standard, no one will ever be executed because everyone has mitigating factors, disappointments and sadness in their background. Her argument belongs in the legislature, it did not deserve to win in court.
Like MalaiseLongue, I am against the death penalty on principle, but I recognize its constitutionality. My only caveat is this- I know many of the opponents of the death penalty also wish to eliminate life without parole, so a lot of the opposition contains people of bad faith.
Cruz will be eventually set free if he isn't killed by someone in prison.
Gahrie. Haven't heard that as a proper noun before. What do your students think the Purge will be?
I'm not a movie watcher, but apparently, along with a rash of young-adult dystopian future book and movie franchises, there have been movies promoting the idea of periodic episodes of total anarchy in which the meek barricade themselves and everyone else engages in an orgy of violence and mayhem.
These kids scare me in a lot of ways. I'm from the generation of boys who snuck off to the library to look at National Geographic to see boobs. My kids have unlimited free hardcore porn available 24/7 in their backpocket. Play the Pornhub theme in a high school classroom and watch the reaction. They don't watch Wily Coyote cartoons, they watch Youtube videos of people getting maimed in real life, and get the same amusement. They grow up playing Grand Theft Auto.
Those criminal flash mobs began before BLM and the Soros prosecutors. They're just getting worse.
Do the right thing, my ass!
Bullshit. LOTS of kids had mothers who drank while pregnant. This is utter bullshit. I hope someone in prison doles out the punishment this monster deserves.
MalaiseLongue: “ even though there is no guarantee that the victim would have demanded eye-for-an-eye justice.”
You are only speaking to the dead children. Their parents are also the victims here and they spoke that they wanted the death penalty.
I know these days it seems parents are less frequently asked for permission for anything in regards to their minor children. (Do not get me started!) But in this instance their wishes should have been granted.
Apart from being "cruel and unusual punishment," the death penalty
Just for the record, when the Founders inserted the words "cruel and unusual" into our Constitution, every state and the federal government had a death penalty. If you had suggested replacing the death penalty with life without parole you would have been ridiculed.
Let me suggest that one of the problems with our current crtiminal justice system is the fact that the death penalty has become too unusual and no longer serves as a credible deterrence.
Does anyone make the argument that capital punishment incites crime? Maybe, after Nicolas Cruz murdered two or three kids he concluded his life was over and he might as well kill a dozen more?
MalaiseLongue said...
"I oppose the death penalty, although people I know to be good and intelligent disagree with me—and I appreciate rhhardin's comment that the death penalty "speaks to the place that society keeps for the voice of the victim, a voice that is missing," even though there is no guarantee that the victim would have demanded eye-for-an-eye justice."
Society made the decision that this guy should live out the rest of his life behind bars. And I will abide by that decision. But there is one thing the death penalty insures. It insures that an individual will never murder again. It is a decision so serious that it must be carried out as coldly and as impartially as possible. But at times it is necessary.
The problem with a life sentence without parole is that it costs about $100k per year to keep the criminal alive doing nothing. That comes to millions of dollars that could be better spent on, for example, better police protection for schools or medical care for the innocent.
I really don't understand why, when we are happy to sacrifice the lives of millions of unborn children every year for the convenience of the mother, society is so reluctant to exterminate someone such as Cruz who has zero redeeming value.
I get that the death penalty is final, that mistakes might be made, that there is a chance of executing the innocent. But we have many cases where guilt is absolutely far beyond any reasonable doubt, such as Cruz. As the families are saying, if you won't apply the death penalty to Cruz there really isn't a death penalty at all.
Her apology denied his dignity and agency, was that as a matter of circumstance, he could not be held responsible for his Choice. Deja vu.
If the mitigating factors were enough to spare his life, aren't they therefore enough to spare him a long prison sentence?
Can't help wondering whether the PD puts as much time and effort into defending ordinary street thugs she's supposed to represent, sparing them from saying yes to plea deals coerced by overcharging prosecutors.
At least the death penalty would've kept him out of the prison general population for the 15-20 years of endless death sentence appeals and delays. Now he's been given a (fetal alcohol syndrome) license to kill and population to room about, seeking victims. At least they'll have a fighting chance that his school victims didn't. Oh well, just one more example of soft-headed liberals reverting civilization to the law of the jungle.
And about all the hand wringing about the method of applying the death penalty.
It seems to me a glass of water and a Fentanyl tablet should do the trick just fine.
Society made the decision that this guy should live out the rest of his life behind bars. And I will abide by that decision.
The problem is, they rarely do. They released Manson and Sirhan for Christ's sake!
They should use him for organ donations. Get some value out of this travesty.
The right thing to do was to sentence him to death.
Why do liberals always claim that what they want is "the right thing."
Effective gibberish. Would like to see skilled persuader assess what she argued. My reaction is that she put the blame/responsibility on the jury and they buckled.
I supposed the killer's life hardships are a mitigating factor, but I doubt I would be persuaded absence linkage to crime.
On deterrence, to me it is inexplicable that pro-capital punishment people effectively have lost that debate at least in public. In part, I think left wing media bias impacted the issue.
It seems self-evident to me that a prompt capital punishment penalty would deter some murderers. Now, this jury tells a future school shooter that he will not be executed.
On deterrence, I remember a local murder of a 16 year old girl about 20 years ago. The murderers had a discussion about whether to kill her and decided to do so to prevent her from being a witness to the crimes they had committed so far. To me, that sort of "deliberation" demonstrated the thought process of the murderers and, by analogy, supported that fear of death penalty might have deterred them. They had a rational discussion about her status as a witness. If they feared execution, they might well have had a similar rational discussion about that.
On a related deterrence issue, I have long wished that a state would impose mandatory life sentences for any felony using a firearm, so that we could assess the deterrence of that approach.
Had to be unanimous for death penalty. Was there a vote break? Was it announced?
Fox is reporting 11-1 in favor of death.
”That led to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which was misdiagnosed by experts throughout Mr. Cruz’s life …”
Unless, of course, the experts were right and Cruz did not suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome.
It's a moot point. Unless they keep him in continuous solitary confinement, he won't survive a year in prison.
To do so would be to act out of anger, she argued, and would “serve no other purpose at all, other than vengeance.”
I am no longer a fan of the death penalty, primarily out of concern that someone might be wrongly convicted. However it's function is not always or necessarily out of anger or vengeance. It is largely an apotropaic ritual. A way of removing the stain or contagion of the offending action from the community. It is also a ritual of (re)creating something that has been broken, namely the moral and ethical structure of the community.
Life in solitary with no window, no books, no radio, no tv. Bored until he builds the courage to hang himself
I agree with the comments that once society has forfeited the right to exact vengeance on criminals on behalf of victims, we're on a slippery slope back to vigilantism. This is reflected in the general apathy about, and even outright cheering for, prison violence and the complete absence of a sense that incineration includes a punitive purpose, unless one has committed an act that offends the sensibilities of the protected classes.
I too would have hesitated to vote for the death penalty. Sitting in Court to his female lawyers, Nikolas Cruz appeared to be a defenseless, sad kid—not a threat or the monster capable of killing the 17 people he obviously did kill. And I think of myself as being pro-death penalty. But is life in prison adequate punishment? No.
rhhardin said...
The death penalty is neither deterrence nor retribution. It instead speaks to the place that society keeps for the voice of the victim, a voice that is missing.
I think it has been pretty successful at preventing re-offending. In previous eras, the death penalty was probably overused because it was difficult to confine someone for years at a time. Now, we are in another era where leftist "prosecutors" and judges are emptying prisons, including of murderers. I submit we need the death penalty more than we have in 70 years.
"What do we have the death penalty for?"
To protect against present and future threats to human life. The only justification to ever use deadly force is in the protection of life. Is this defendant a present and ongoing threat that incarceration cannot remedy? Would he still remain dangerous locked in a cell for the rest of his days?
The Public Defender made a plea for mercy, which is her obligation. I do feel that this particular personification of evil should be extinguished.
Spiros Pappas: "Does anyone make the argument that capital punishment incites crime?"
Maybe I'm missing your point, but murderers don't rationally evaluate the consequences of their actions.
I knew a federal court of appeals judge, known for her conservatism, who told me that, despite her belief that the death penalty wasn't cruel or unusual, she opposed its imposition in almost every instance. Her reasoning was that, once someone went onto death row, the endless hamster wheel of appeals and writs consumed far too much judicial resources to yield a net benefit to society from imposition of capital punishment.
Ms. McNeill's argument was essentially jury nullification.
Juries - as representatives of the community who are entirely separate and distinct from the government - exist precisely for the purpose of nullification. It is their entire reason for being. Juries do not exist as the best fact finders - judges and "experts" and computers could do just as good a job. Juries exist to be a check and balance against the awesome power of government.
"The death penalty is neither deterrence nor retribution. It instead speaks to the place that society keeps for the voice of the victim, a voice that is missing."
He murdered 17 people. Children. I have no qualms calling for retribution.
Places to move to if you feel unsafe in a society that does not execute criminals: PRC best by far, but also Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria (detecting a pattern), Yemen.
If people were really morally against the death penalty they would be protesting for Dylan Roof. The death penalty is merely a post birth abortion of someone people don’t want to have around anymore, like a fetus gone bad. It’s almost constitutionally demanded in cases where we don’t feel sorry for the person doing the killing.
Hypocrisy is a fundamental principle of American justice.
The same people who are willing to kill tens thousands of innocent people in the Ukraine over a border dispute, "Yeehaw lets kill some Russkies", cry and rend their garments over putting a child killer to death.
that's 'murica.
I'm always torn about the death penalty. Watching Jacob Blake re-terrorize his victims at the Waukesha County courthouse is surreal and sad. But that's his right, and he can exercise it before that scumbag goes away for life. That guy should die. Quickly. But...he won't. Wisconsin doesn't have the death penalty.
Except when you're a Dancing Granny or a little league ball player in a Waukesha Christmas parade and Milwaukee County Democrat DA John Chisolm lets violent psychopaths out a low or no bail. Then you not only get the death penalty. You get publicly executed to promote a bullshit woke agenda. Death my automobile. Almost like when they'd have an Elephant step on your head in India.
All of this is tragic and sad as we watch the unraveling of our society and the destruction of America by the woke left.
Jury had their reasons.
It's too bad the jury didn't unanimously vote to publicly bitch slap David Hogg.
The fundamental mistake of anyone discussing our current legal system is that they mistake the business that that institution is supposed to be fulfilling in our social structure. It is not "punishment", it is not "justice", nor is it "rehabilitation". These are all false narratives; the reality is, our system of legalities and enforcements are, when refined down to their base level, meant to modify behavior such that people who perpetrate criminal acts do not commit more of them on other people. It's that simple. The test of whether it is working or not is not whether or not it is "just", or that people are being "punished" properly, it is whether or not it is actually serving to modify their behavior, correcting it such that they cease to commit crimes upon others.
By that test, ain't nothing we're doing actually works. Might be time to reconsider the whole damn mess, and think about what we're actually accomplishing, besides making a bunch of lawyers rich. As an employment program for literate anal-retentives, our current system works wonders.
As an effective preventative measure to reduce criminal conduct? Abject failure.
There's a lot to be said for keeping the distinction between retribution and vengeance. Executing him would not be vengeance, it would be retribution, more or less Latin for 'pay back', applied only to the actual criminal.
Through history, vengeance has usually been much broader. Many societies would have felt justified killing him, both his parents, all of his siblings, and any of his grandparents still alive, and would have felt perfectly justified in killing as many of his family as he killed of other people's families. Killing anyone except Cruz for his crimes would of course be utterly wrong. But killing only him would not be what I would call vengeance. To repeat: it's a useful distinction.
"He should be tortured - -". I think he will be, at least while he is "fresh meat". Physically he would be better off on death row, at least until all the appeals played out.
Which is more cruel and unusual: death, or being forced to live in confinement without recourse for 50 years or more? Side note: how long before the left finds a way to release prisoners incarcerated without possibility of parole? Cruz might have been released without bail in New York, under the present lunatic DA's there.
The Life Without Parole folks promised, pinky swear, they meant it. About that time, they or somebody like them began letting LWP convicts out and trying to end the sentence as a lawful penalty.
rhhardin said...
The death penalty is neither deterrence nor retribution. It instead speaks to the place that society keeps for the voice of the victim, a voice that is missing.
Really? Who made that rule?
The death penalty probably isn't appropriate. He should be tortured on a regular schedule. That's not a cruel and unusual punishment relative to what he did.
Perhaps the most proportional sentence should be that all these mass shooters get housed in a single cell block, and every now and then someone comes in and shoots a random few of them. That way, they get to experience what their victims (both those shot and those terrified but not shot) got to experience.
Blogger Rick67 said...
To do so would be to act out of anger, she argued, and would “serve no other purpose at all, other than vengeance.”
I am no longer a fan of the death penalty, primarily out of concern that someone might be wrongly convicted
______________________________
I've often heard this argument and wonder why life imprisonment makes people feel better given the possibility of wrongful conviction? How does life imprisonment that salve the conscience?
@paminwi: "You are only speaking to the dead children. Their parents are also the victims here and they spoke that they wanted the death penalty."
With, truly, all due respect to the parents' anger, and to what will be their lifelong bereavement and pain, the case was The People of the State of Florida vs. Nikolas Cruz. To cast the parents as the plaintiffs would have amounted to vigilantism. Cruz's crime was committed against the community.
While jurors found that the aggravating evidence was sufficient to warrant a possible death penalty for the gunman, at least one believed the mitigating factors outweighed aggravating ones.” Has to be unanimous juror who voted that way will be outed if not already.
"I've often heard this argument and wonder why life imprisonment makes people feel better given the possibility of wrongful conviction?"
Because a wrongful conviction may be overturned by new evidence.
He will end up in the general population. Rough justice may ensue
I wonder why he did it. Did he ever say?
Anyone heard from that goofy kid Hogg yet? I am sure he is ready to moralize.
He needs "hard time" for life. No TV, little a/c, breaking rocks, no porn.
Tomcc -- In some cases the death penalty does incite further violence. For example, whenever we execute terrorists, we create martyrs. We invite retaliatory strikes and enhance the public relations and fund-raising abilities of terror groups like al Qaeda.
But I don't think the death penalty has any effect, positive or negative, on the attitudes and beliefs that drive spree killers.
One juror's signed note to judge on her vote for life has been published. Unclear whether hers sole vote or one of three.
Some commenter on the internet, possibly here, diagnosed the FAS at the time from the position of his ears. Why couldn't the "experts?"
CPS will take your kids away at the drop of a hat, but no one will protect the rest of us from your bad kid.
I heard that one juror held out against the death penalty. So she convinced one juror. Not "the jury."
Feel Free to kill babies and sexually mutilate confused children. Show "compassion" to those who do the same without medical licenses. Sounds conflicted, no?
Turn out she did not persuade the jury. She secured one hard no and two no leaners, which kept the rest of the jury from imposing the death penalty. I don't know Florida law, but it seems poorly designed if a 9 to 3 or 11 to 1 vote in favor of death penalty results in rejection of death penalty. It should be a hung jury and require a new trial.
CourtTV is reporting a life-voting juror may have lied in the questionnaire. Female, of course.
GrapeApe said...
Whhat the hell is this “fetal alcohol spectrum” thing?
--
Likely another catch-all, loosely defined fallback to lean on when a kid goes sideways.
It's in the training manual for Team Clipboard.
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/facts.html
Disappointed in my fellow Texans.
I think people need to be reminded what 'cruel and unusual' punishments referred to originally. For example, being suffocated between boards by heavy weights, being burned alive, having molten metal poured down the throat, being boiled in oil, being hanged until half dead, and then taken down and pulled apart by horses. All of these were within the knowledge of our constitutional founders. They sought to avoid them. They did not seek to avoid the death penalty itself.
Some time back, I knew an evil prick who did something evil to me. He didn't murder someone I loved, but he did an evil act and it left a mark. As fate would have it, he went on to get cancer. When I heard that he had cancer and was dying, it cheered me up. I was only sorry he went quick and it wasn't one of those lingering painful deaths. He was a genuinely bad person and caused a a lot of grief to people other than me. I didn't feel any guilt in taking comfort in his early death. When someone does something very, very bad to you, you rejoice in their death. Fuck them....I think the feelings of the parents should have been taken into account. The death of Cruz won't bring their children back, but Cruz's death will bring some closure to their anger....Cruz is young. Maybe he'll go on to express contrition and become a better person. The parents will have to live through his tale of redemption.
Gusty,
Jacob Blake is the perp in the Kenosha incident.
Sorry on my earlier Texas comment. I was thinking of Uvalde, TX.I hope my fellow Texans vote to fry that killer.
One of the saddest lines in Country music is "I turned twenty-one in prison doin' life without parole". ("Mama Tried", sung by Merele Haggard) Cruz is 24, but close enough.
A decade or two from now, when everyone's forgotten Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, maybe he'll be paroled, but I hope not.
That's the best argument for capital punishment -- and the best against it, too, I guess.
@Political Junkie, Salvador Rolando Ramos was shot dead at the scene. There will be no trial for the Uvalde killer. I much enjoyed the line in the report conducted by the Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee: "At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety...”
Couldn’t have done a better job of labeling the Uvalde police as cowards if they had painted yellow stripes down their backs. Pity that no one in Florida was willing to do the same for the sheriff’s deputies at Stoneman Douglas.
This is sad because you just know someday a Democrat governor will reduce that sentence to time served.
"The problem is, they rarely do. They released Manson and Sirhan for Christ's sake!"
While Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan have been eligible for parole, Manson died in prison, and Sirhan has been repeatedly denied parole.
Great job by the defense attorney. But I wonder what the burden was: did the prosecution need to prove the death penalty was warranted beyond reasonable doubt, or some lesser standard?
One of the roles of punishment is to make them an example to any would-be mass murderers.
They failed to do that. The Death sentence, in his case, is 100% justified.
Gahrie said...
"Society made the decision that this guy should live out the rest of his life behind bars. And I will abide by that decision.
The problem is, they rarely do. They released Manson and Sirhan for Christ's sake!"
This is the price we pay for living in a constitutional republic. It can be looked upon as the downside of the rule of law, but is the rule of law none the less. The alternative to the rule of law is unacceptable. Which makes the Democrats selective enforcement worrisome. With a little luck, after the midterms, people of reason will prevail.
If the government is going to able to kill someone, there OUGHT to be a very high hurdle for it to get over, higher even that when government seeks to take away someone's liberty.
Government should not be a lynch mob.
I support the death penalty specifically for its deterrence effect. I literally support it TO SAVE LIVES.
Examine the death-penalty-eligible cases where a plea bargain occurs. Frequently, the criminal accepts a plea bargain under the condition that he cannot receive a death penalty in the sentencing phase!
These murderers wish to avoid the death penalty.
I personally believe very strongly that if murder cases that made it into the media sometimes had a death penalty administered with 12 months, then a few potential murderers would be deterred from their crimes.
My moral calculus is very simple, innocent person's life >>> murderer's life.
Even so, I would still have a good chance of voting for "life in prison without possibility of parole" were I on a death penalty eligible jury.
However, my likelihood to vote for that option is LESSENED by the people that break that social compact.
If I was inclined to vote for LWPOP, but knew that any person that disagreed with that verdict and had decision making power in the long chain of people to preside over the prisoner's outcome could usurp the jury's decision, then I would be more likely to vote for the death penalty.
If you are a person that does not support the death penalty, then don't usurp the provisions of LWPOP!
I have no moral problem with the death penalty. for heaven's sake, we have a million dead guys insuring our freedom and they didn't do anything wrong. So a murderer....
Thing is, given family experience, not to mention all-to-frequent news, I wouldn't trust a prosecutor for the time of day.
Hence, acquit. Can't be too careful.
Death is a fitting punishment for some crimes.
In 30 years this guy will be promoting a book on the late night talk shows.
I honestly don't see how live in prison without parole is any form of lenience. If I were in my 20s and given the choice between life without parole and death by lethal injection, I'd choose death in a heartbeat. He will live in hell for the remainder of his pitiful life.
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