[Former Military Chick]

Europe telling us what we should do, what a hoot. But, hey at least this group gave us an email PressUnit@coe.int so let's tell them what we really think of their budding into our business.

Better yet ask them about Germany releasing that Mohammed Ali Hamadi,where was their outrage over the parole of this convicted terrorist who murdered U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem?

[Hank Rearden]

Wow! The Council of Europe! The Council of Europe. Well, ok then.

[scooter2]

“The death penalty is a brutal and vindictive travesty of justice” said Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

I would invite Mr. Davis to go have "aerial intercourse with a motivated pastry".

[rockabyebaby]

Well damn, listen up people, the council has spoken, Clarence lives, someone get Aaaaarnold on the phone.

[ncountylee]

Has Terry Davis come out against honor killings or executions in mooseland?

[sr4402]

Uh, why are the Europeans interested in Clarence Ray Allen all of the sudden? Who is he to them? Was Tookie anything to them?

[keat]

Well I'll give them props for admitting he is guilty and at least taking a principled stand. Unlike Mike Farrel and the loonie left in the U.S. who will claim he is or might be innocent and, even if he did it, his victim probably had it coming anyway.

[TChris]

If executing a monster years after the crimes were committed is wrong, does it follow that you would support executing monsters more quickly after they commit their crimes?

[Antonello]

Mr Allen is not an innocent man. He was found guilty of a particularly gruesome crime, but in executing him at his advanced age and decades after the crime had been committed, the authorities are coming close to win the contest in cruelty and vengeance.

So let me get this straight...

We shouldn't execute him because we spent too much time giving him the chance to appeal the sentence? Well, Mr. Davis, if it makes you feel any better, I'm up for changing the schedule to one such as shooting them behind the courthouse right after their conviction. Would that make you happy?

[mtbopfuyn]

I'm too lazy so could someone in Europe please look up where in the US Constitution it says they have a say.

[gondramB]

"He was found guilty of a particularly gruesome crime, but in executing him at his advanced age and decades after the crime had been committed, the authorities are coming close to win the contest in cruelty and vengeance."


It is very sad that it takes so long to execute people who commit horric murders... if the secretary general wanted to be truly helpful he would urge the Senate to confirm judges faster to cut down the backlog and execute justice faster.

[Former Military Chick]

PING

[chimera]

“The death penalty is a brutal and vindictive travesty of justice” said Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, in a statement issued today.

Have any of these clowns ever uttered so much as a peep of protest at the televised spectacles of the Islamofascists beheading innocent people? Have they ever spoken out against the barbarians who strap explosives to their children and send them to blow up scores of Israeli civilians? Until they do, it's a little difficult to put much stock in their whining about the "brutal and vindicative travesty of justice" that results in the execution of a duly tried and convicted murderer after decades of appeals and due process.

[ZULU]

"..the authorities are coming close to win the contest in cruelty and vengeance.."

REALLY Mr Davis???

At least WE never hanged, drew and quartered people, lashed anyone around the fleet, used torture chambers, or crucified anyone.

Not that I think some of our present day felons don't deserve such treatment.

Mr. Davis has no concept of the meaning of Justice. Justice means equal measure. Somebody who willfully takes the life another for no valid reason should forfeit his own. That's Justice.

But we can't expect a Euroweenie to understand that can we?

[delphirogatio]

Fine. They don't like executions. Ok. Then we aren't "executing" this piece of human debris. We're "euthanizing" him. There. All better?

[IronJack]

This is the most uneducated, inarticulate argument against the death penalty I've read since Ninth Grade debate class. Perhaps the good Secretary General is more eloquent in his native language, but these "arguments" wouldn't convince me to spare a bait worm.

[Jack Deth]

Memo to Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council Of Europe:

Yo, Concierge!

Here's a twenty. Go find me a Hooker and a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Jack.

[trebb]

This is not just about the life or death of an old man - what is at stake is the respect for human dignity in American society as a whole” Terry Davis said.

I hate to be the one to explain it to Mr. Davis, but there is nothing civilized or dignified about coddling the scum of the earth and keeping them around to keep being a detrimental influence on the rest of us. Being dignified and civilized, as a society, requires the culling out of the undignified and uncivilized.

[azhenfud]

Isn't Europia the place where hoodlums riot, kill, and destroy with impunity?

They're a fine lot to cast stones at the US.

[samtheman]

and decades after the crime had been committed

And whose fault is that?

[Antonello]

I am of the personal belief that the death penalty lacks effectiveness as a deterrent only because of the lengthy delay between being handed down and carried out.

It was very easy to steal a horse in the Wild West. No one locked them to the hitching post. There weren't lowjack devices hidden under the saddle. Barns and corrals didn't have CCTV systems being monitored around the clock by security guards. The ratio of police/citizens was quite low as well. Despite all this, horse thefts were rare - because if you stole one and got caught, you could count on dancing in air. Very soon. Publicly.

Drawing out the punishment for years means there is a great disconnect between the crime and the consequence. The larger this disconnect, the less it influences the decision to do the crime.