Posted on 12/13/2004 5:04:17 PM PST by BJungNan
What will death row be like for Peterson?
A considerable amount of mail flows into my cell from people out there in the world asking what it's really like living day-to-day on San Quentin's Death Row. I'm always tempted to quip, its's a hell f a lot better than dying here. But then I really don't know if that's true -- yet.
I answer every letter even if the writer is rapidly pro-death penalty. It's easy for me to understand their attraction to the concept of killing convicted murderers. In the abstract, the death penalty has an elegant Newtonian -- for every action there is an opposite reaction -- symmetry that easy harmonizes with the Old Testament -- eye for an eye -- overtone which strikes a reassuring resonance within a majority of citizens.
(Excerpt) Read more at gogov.com ...
You've taken my sentence out of context. And I was framing someone else's argument, not my own. I don't equate justice with revenge.
For some offesnses I'm pro- slow death penalty.
This guy is a terrible writer. He is trying really hard to impress his reader. He buddy, don't quite your day job...heehee.
If Scott had known that he faced being drawn and quartered, before he murdered his family . . . well, we'll never know if that might have served as deterrent?
Bravo!
I prefer slowly flaying and rolling liberally in salt myself.
Posts like that are why I love FR, LOL
I'm would not exaclty phrase my side of this issue as you you have for me in the sentence above. But, without doing a rewrite, I will say you have captured the essence of our differences on this issue.
Now, may I ask, where were you last Saturday night? Can you confirm that? Were you anywhere near the 7/11 at 1 a.m.? Can your wife confirm that you were sleeping? Does she normally wake up when you get out of bed in the middle of the night? You seem to have come into some extra money, almost the exact amount taken in the 7/11 robbery in which a clerk was shot and killed. Where did you get his cash? Do you remember the name of the person that bought your lawn mower? Well, did you get his license plate number or any other contact information? No, you say you just put the riding mower out on the lawn for sale and someone came by and wanted to buy it? But you did not get his contact information? And he happened to pay you in cash? Don't you think it a bit odd someone would be carrying that much money with them and almost to the penny the amount that was stolen in the robbery and murder? Step over to the car please and look towards the rear side window. Is this the man you saw at the 7/11? It is? Okay sir, we have a witness here that says it was you that held up the 7/11 and shot the clerk. I am going to read you your rights now. And you the lady's and gentleman of the jury, how do you find in the case of AppyPappy against the people of ...?
Cause . . . I heard something else. But I'm asking.
No, no, rapidly IS good. The quicker the better. If it was quicker, then the death penalty would be the deterrent it was meant to be. As it stands now, with monsters on death row for 20 years, it has lost its meaning.
I agree with the verdict but obviously not with the death sentence as should be obvious from my comments in this thread. As for the jury, they made me sick listening to them. Rush is playing their comments now.
One idiot said, I wish I could have heard from him. I wish he would have taken the stand. I don't think I have ever heard any attorney suggest this would be a good idea. Did we have a juror that did not understand why he did not appear in his own defense? (besides the fact he is guilty and would have been ripped to shreads)
These jurors may have reached the right verdict in the criminal portion of the case, but they are in real la la land (must be a San Francisco thing). The ones that were interviewed anyhow.
All that cholesterol and caffeine is bad for your health. Not nearly as bad as a lethal injection though.
We were just getting started. Turns out the guy had an affair, he was broke and about to lose his house...I mean, come on. I don't have the resources of a state prosecutor to come up with circumstantial hypotheticals here. But, I have seen a kid convicted on less than what I detailed in my hypothetical.
They don't seem the type to judge by weird hypotheticals. It was enough to consider the facts in the case, and consider them reasonably. RWC is not SF. Frankly, even the west side, the Sunset district, of SF is not SF, as you mean it.
The people around there, locally and who drove in, were not generally opposed-to. As I said, one 'beach-bum' looking guy, maybe in his fifties, shaggy hair, skin and bones, approached the chubby Examiner-girl handing out those freebie papers (that were all of 60 pages, which is less than it sounds). She had been surrounded by cameramen told to get some 'background' on the crowd. And this obliging woman was dramatically holding up a paper with the word - DEATH - featured over the fold (the Examiner, btw, is the bankrupt, and now struggling under new private Asian-ownership, I think, paper that once competed with and combined with the Chronicle in the Sunday edition - no more). She obviously was there to supply the stand-ups with a paper and a headline, for the worldwide coverage, in hopes it would get the fledgling Examiner some publicity. And this 'beach-bum' sort approached this woman, cameras rolling, and said - I'm OPPOSED to the death penalty. But he was such an obviously desperate nut, that even the background-seeking cameramen kept the shot on her. And then another guy walked past, as I said before.
What you suggest what not a popular opinion there, except perhaps with those manequins in the tents - if you've ever seen a reporter in full dress, you'd think it was something that just escaped from the wax museum. That can't be a real person, you say. It just doesn't look real. And then it starts to speak - and it's startling. They look MUCH more lifelike on camera, and nicer too. The local gal for KGO, one of about four or five on the scene, was scowling as I stood behind Allred. Maybe she didn't like Allred. But, you never see those expressions somehow. And she was being fed live to stations all around the Bay Area. It's much different in person. Disappointing. And awfully scary.
Anyhow.
Wow, thanks for the first hand insight. I should temper my comments about the jury.
Alright - why DIDN'T you think they made sense? I thought they made sense. Care to elaborate?
No, I'll stick to discussion of the death penalty in this thread. I've had enough of Peterson. He is guilty as far as I'm concerned. It is only a minor difference that he got the death penalty, at least in California where he likely will never ever face actual death by execution.
The Feds don't mess about.
They'll appeal, but probably on the basis of 'misconduct' in the judge dismissing numerous jurors at the last minute - unless that's also part of your more general complaint. But in order to consider the death penalty, you have to consider it precisely in those cases where it genuinely applies. Scott Peterson.
I'm not pro-death either. The recent execution of the Texas lady changed me. She committed her crime 20 years before her execution. By execution time she was an entirely different person ... and no longer capable of the crime she was convicted of. I saw no point in her execution other that simple vengence.
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