Posted on 10/30/2007 5:27:32 AM PDT by theothercheek
In July Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were sexually abused and brutally murdered by parolees Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, who now face the death penalty. The Hawke-Petit family – including husband and father William, who survived the attack – were members of the United Methodist Church in Cheshire, CT, a liberal activist church "where parishioners take to the pulpit to discuss poverty in El Salvador and refugees living in Meriden," reports The New York Times.
The church has been led by three pastors in a row who oppose capital punishment in favor of "restorative justice," and several congregants attended midnight vigils two years ago outside the prison where CT executed its first convict in 45 years. The parishioners are anguished over how they should respond to the capital charges brought against the defendants, according to The Times:
The killings have not just stunned the congregation, they have spurred quiet debate about how it should respond to the crime and whether it should publicly oppose the punishment that may follow. It has also caused a few to reassess how they feel about the punishment. …
The Rev. Diana Jani Druck, who led the Cheshire congregation from 2001 to 2005, said the Petit case would be an interesting test for the congregation and the state.
The case, she said, lacks some of the factors that make some people object to the death penalty as patently unfair, like race. (The suspects are white, as were the Petits.) Because both defendants were caught fleeing the crime scene, there may be fewer questions about mistaken identity. And the gruesome nature of the crime, combined with the kinship many congregants felt for the Petits, may stir feelings of vengeance even in death penalty opponents, she said.
She herself acknowledged feeling "real violent anger" when first shown photographs of the suspects. But on reflection, she said, "I just don’t see what purpose is served in putting them to death."
In this case justice could be served only if restorative justice meant the defendants could restore the lives of the Hawke-Petit mother and daughters. As this is not possible, retributive justice - the state and the people of CT do unto the defendants what they did unto the Hawke-Petits, only much more humanely - is the only just punishment.
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog.
Either the DP or the taxpayers support these scumbags until they die a natural death. Sounds like an easy choice.
OH wait! CT
Fry ‘em. Not only for the sake of justice, but for the protection of society.
Well, lady reverend, how 'bout so we gurantee they never murder anyone else?
The death penalty will make doggone sure neither one of these pukes does this again.
Maybe the leftwing nutballs up there ought to listen to Dr. Dean, the guy who used to be Governor of the nearby and almost adjoining equally nutball state of Vermont. He said as Governor he learned that if you just lock up these guys who commit gruesome murders they are going to kill someone else.
He said it's going to be a guard, or a white collar criminal more than likely, but the recidivism rate is 100% so it's going to be someone if you don't execute them.
That means that if you elect to NOT execute them, you end up facilitating the murder of someone else.
I'd think stopping those murders would be something beneficial even in the minds of a morally corrupt leftwing lunatic.
Restorative Capital Punishment, could only be considered after they find a way to have the vivtims enjoy Restoritive Living, as in rising from the dead.
What's that old line about a conservative being a liberal who was mugged....
One view to which the rebuttal would be to lock them up for the rest of their lives in solitary confinement so they can't harm anyone again. Another view is that human life is so sacred, it is unjust for someone who brutally snuffed out a human life to continue to enjoy any of the pleasures of life himself.
“Restorative Justice” is one of the secular socialists’ methods of keeping those whose actions further destroy our traditional society on the street doing the SS’s job for them.
Here’s an example:
http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/001489.html
For those not familiar with the case, it involves a man who repeatedly raped a little girl from age 3 to 7, and a secular socialist judge gave him SIXTY DAYS in jail.
No, the concept of "restorative" justice is a sham. And since all justice is retributive in nature, it should be designed to exact retribution in proportion to what was stolen. In the case of a human life, only another life is adequate.
Sure cuts down on repeaters.Like they used to say in Texas,”We don’t hang horse thieves because they stole a horse,we hang them so horses won’t be stolen.”
That’s the church that Hillary claims to be a member of.
How about because they don't deserve to live.
Perhaps after they are parolled again and kill another family, she will see the purpose. And if not there will always be another family after that.
The girls wee tied to their beds, raped, doused with gasoline, set on fire & burned to death.
And yet some people don’t think this is enough for the death penalty
So I ask, what would they consider a grave enough offense for the death penalty?
Well duh, If they aint breathin then theres no chance of another community having to 'deal with' all these feelings.
When caught red handed, a speedy trial, a speedy appeal, and a speedy PUBLIC execution are the only sensible course of action.
within a few days these scumbags would have no more tears shed for them...
These well-meaning liberals are so confused. Society has a right to protect itself from evildoers, and this pair of career criminals had gotten off the hook so often in the past that they simply learned that a jail sentence is no barrier to repeating the crime once the opportunity arises again. In the case of murder, many murderers who are allowed to live end up killing again (another inmate or a guard) even if they are kept in jail for the rest of their lives. So society is not protected by allowing them to live.
There is no such thing as “restoration” in the case of murder. As for retribution, we no longer practice blood vengeance and exterminate the killer’s entire family, as is done in primitive societies. In any case, true retribution would take the form of raping them and then burning them to death, which is what they did to their young victims. Nobody is proposing that.
They need to be removed permanently from society. Furthermore, the fact that they are removed by means of death shows the gravity of their crime. Once a society starts to treat murder as just another misdemeanor - which it did in the 1970s - it devalues all life and even social structure (which in good part is directed at keeping us from murdering each other or being murdered by each other). The death penalty shows exactly how important society considers the life of the innocent to be and how seriously it takes a violation of this basic rule.
And when murderers are freed to kill again,
those who freed them effectively sentenced the future victims to their own death penalty.
I put this in front of a anti-punishment lib, and he appeared confused for a moment, then the libfilter kicked in and he said that it was the price we have to pay in order to make sure the innocent are not punished... (followup - what about the innocent future victims? - it got circular after that.)
the only problem is that these same people get their panties wadded up over this inhumane treatment, because the killers dont get to socialize and it causes mental problems ...
If they remain alive, there is always a chance that they will walk the streets again, among our children...
Good points all. Also, the idea that people who want justice are somehow “vengeful” is off kilter. People have an innate desire to see right rewarded and wrong punished. It’s not that they are foaming at the mouth to hurt someone.
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