Tookie Williams' timeout

Union Leader ^ | Kathleen Parker

[Brilliant]

It means he'll be on the street in 20 years or less.

[NCLaw441]

The same logic applies to life in prison without parole, or even 1 year in prison. What business of the state is it to imprison someone who is potentially innocent?

Sorry, I don't buy it. Yes, the state makes mistakes, due to lying witnesses or misguided prosecutors. There are evils in our society, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore justice, or sacrifice justice because someone may, MAY die due to the wrongful acts of another.

I oppose the death penalty too, and I have a recipe for avoiding it: don't commit pre-meditated murder, and you are certain to avoid it.

[Nalu]

We need to turn San Clemente Island into a Devils Island where the scumbag criminals are sent.
Never to be heard from again.
No visitors. no Mail, No electricity.
Feed them a single cheese sandwich and a orange everyday.

BTW Die Tookie Die

[al_again]

Let's start with the obvious - one is reversible, one isn't.

[NCLaw441]

You said: Let's start with the obvious - one is reversible, one isn't.
***
How can one reverse a wrongful imprisonment? Can you return that time to the person? If you have lost part of your life, can the state return it to you? No. Yet we don't hear many arguments about ending imprisonment. The "one innocent life" argument sounds compelling, but what about innocent lives lost due to the failure to do justice? I agree there are no perfect solutions, but the country has spoken, through its people.

[Slings and Arrows]

Ms. Parker is wrong. Alive, he's a danger to other inmates, guards, and anyone who gets in his way if he tries to escape - he knows he'll be spending the rest of his life in prison, and has no reason not to kill. Dead, he's only a danger to worms who get sick eating his foul carcass.*

[*No worms were harmed in the making of this rant.]

[Drammach]

You hit the nail... on the head..

As long as he's alive, some radical, Leftist Liberal Governor or President can always pardon him or commute his sentence to "time served", or some such nonsense..

Only a properly carried out death penalty will guarantee this piece of filth never violates another human being again..

[al_again]

I agree there are no perfect solutions, but the country has spoken, through its people

Very true - but I think there is a definitive shift occurring. I see people recognizing the inherent weaknesses in our justice system and taking steps to correct them. You see CCW laws being passed nearly everywhere. Even better, right to defend laws are starting to come into play.

Limit the power of the state and increase the rights of the citizens to defend.

I think the people will speak again and this time it will be against the death penalty.

[IronJack]

Dead, he's a martyr; alive and confined for life, he's just another nobody.

No. Dead, he's a fading memory. Alive and confined for life, he's only confined until the same reprobates who saved him from execution can convince some moron judge that he should be released. ALive, he's still wasting valuable air and justice is still not served. Alive, he's an insult to every Californian who demanded a death penalty be made into law.

This piece of garbage should die; no amount of inverse reasoning or clever counter-argument should change that.

[TheDon]

One major problem with life imprisonment is that the killer is able to kill again. Execution is the only way to protect society.

[RunningWolf]

I saw those pictures they were worse than horrible beyond comprehension.

He is not a martyr in any sense, these celebrities make a mockery of themselves.

Fortunately, hollywood or the press seems to have little influence on death penalties now days (by the time it gets to this stage).

At the risk of being flamed however, I do not rejoice in the tragedy (note word used) of the victim or the perp. Yes justice must be served and ultimately it always is.

Wolf

[Dustbunny]

Tookie is not innocent. He is a brutal sadistic murderer that should have been executed 20 years ago.

[Dustbunny]

Tookie is not innocent! He should have been executed 20 years ago.

[LK44-40]

I have no wish to further elevate Williams in the public eye, but the circus surrounding his Dec. 13 execution date forces reflection.

I decline to yield one inch to "the circus." He should have been executed many years ago. The Susan Sarandon types do everything they can to throw sand into the machinery of justice and then, in the end, argue that it has taken so long and been so expensive and the perp, meanwhile, has found Jesus so we should just call it all off. I am unmoved.

I admit that I am, though, troubled at wrongful convictions, although not sufficiently to still the hand of justice. One way I manage this problem in my own mind is to reflect that most wrongful convictions (I have no data...I admit) are probably against chronic felons. Their history helps (legally or illegally) to put them in the fix that they are in. I just consider it a secondary consequence of being criminal scum that you are exposed to some jeopardy of taking an occasional fall that, strictly speaking, you don't deserve. This is an injustice that does not in the least disturb my slumbers.

[starbase]

["It is whether the government should be in the business of executing people convicted of murder knowing to a certainty that some of them are innocent."]

This hyper-educated nonsense makes me sick. First of all, what's with this cheesy phrase "in the business of"? No one is making a business out of this, and to lower things to that childish level of expression is on par with the expression "take a chill pill". Cute, suburban, and unrelated to reality.

Secondly is that "knowing to a certainty" bit. Is he claiming that the authorities "know" the accused is innocent? If so, MAKE THE CLAIM!! But the closest thing to saying they know, of course, is to say not that they know, but that they "know to a certainty", whatever that means.

You know, I've really been torn about the death penalty recently. The argument that gives me trouble is that, as long as we have the capability to lock them away for the rest of their lives where they can't, and won't, kill anyone again, then why kill them?

I think, going forward, I'll support life in prison and no execution. The deterrent is the same, because out-of-the-picture is out-of-the-picture.

But for now the law is death, so I say carry out the law and kill him.

[Ciexyz]

Any indications on how Arnold is leaning on the clemency issue?

[dennisw]

The left will try to keep the most heinous killers away from the electric chair and the lethal injection. They demand endless appeals and evidence. Even one innocent man executed is too much.

This is in stark contrast to how they treat abortion. Killing of the innocent unborn is a right that should never be questioned according to them. No fetus, even one 8 months old, is innocent.

[dennisw]

You know, I've really been torn about the death penalty recently. The argument that gives me trouble is that, as long as we have the capability to lock them away for the rest of their lives where they can't, and won't, kill anyone again, then why kill them?

I think, going forward, I'll support life in prison and no execution. The deterrent is the same, because out-of-the-picture is out-of-the-picture.

#1 Killers deserve to be killed. Executed if you will. They get what they did to others. The scales of justice get balanced
#2 The taxpayer should not have to support killers in prison. Swift executions are the most desirable

[starbase]

[#1 Killers deserve to be killed. Executed if you will. They get what they did to others. The scales of justice get balanced #2 The taxpayer should not have to support killers in prison. Swift executions are the most desirable]

Hmmmm, I wasn't thinking about the taxpayers. It is very expensive to keep them in there. Still, I think we might have the money for that.

What's your take on the out-of-the-picture is out-of-the-picture argument, if we take money out of it?

[dennisw]

How about real justice where killers are executed instead of getting to live for decades after their lethal crimes? How about justice for the victims and their anguished families? If someone dear to me was murdered I would feel much better when the killer was executed

You are only concerned with keeping killers out of society. Out of circulation