Posted on 07/26/2010 11:48:46 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Forget the death penalty, which is nearly a dead letter already.
The impending parole of 77-year-old Henry Michael Gargano after 43 years in federal prison for murdering Northlake policemen John Nagel and Anthony Sperri should spur a serious examination of the need to abolish life sentences. The U.S. Parole Commission has set Gargano's release for Sept. 3, citing his model behavior over the past 10 years, advanced age, poor health and little likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior. Opponents of Gargano's release include Officer Nagle's son, the deputy Northlake police chief and 6,000 supporters who signed petitions.
Gargano's incarceration has achieved the primary purpose of severe sentencing: removal of a violent monster from further opportunity to prey on society.
But needless continued imprisonment of hollow shells of one-time offenders should not be held hostage to relatives, colleagues or friends of victims decades later. If you asked what would really quench their thirst for justice, most might want to get the offender alone in a room and rip him apart. While that is understandable, it is not within the scope of the criminal justice system to authorize.
The lifelong warehousing of physically and mentally broken down old men shouldn't be as well.
I suspect that at 77, skimping to try to make the social security check last through the month would be a step down from federal prison where everything is provided for. He would probably prefer to stay in the pen...
Long after the memories of the event fade, long after people return to their lives and memories of the carnage fade from societies conciousness, this vermin and the pack of bleeding hearts that surrounds it is still begging, pleading, and bribing to get out of prison.
Unfortunately, they OFTEN get their way. Think about the Pan Am 103 terrorist living in Libya, in freedom today and even being herolded as a hero. Or the RAF terrorists in Germany that have mostly been set free.......... The fact that the death penalty is “permanent” is a pretty convincing argument to us few.
“I like the cyanide capsule solution.”
BTW, is that the red pill or the blue one. I get those two all confused.
This is a very dangerous argument, at least to Catholics. Right now, the Catholic Church condemns the practice of capital punishment because we have other means to permanently remove deserving offenders from the public. If you introduce the idea that there should be no life imprisonment, you re-introduce the practical need for capital punishment to the Catholics
The guy he killed is still dead. Right?
He should be also.
That’s not a real police publication...it’s a slimy, sleazy, liberal publication - - - right?
That EXACTLY what it is! Every time the debate about the death penalty comes up advocates are told that we'd abolish the dp and impose life sentences that meant LIFE. But that's a lie. Every time an article is written about a long time incarceree we always hear about how old he is, how feeble, what a model prisoner he is. We never hear about what a monster he was before his arrest. What's to stop a 77 year old man from killing when he gets out? NOTHING!
Yep. This was the libs selling point in getting many jurisdictions to back off from the death penalty. Now they are just trading up. Soon all penalties and sentences will be at the whim of the local communist party officials. Political crimes will carry the highest penalties.
Only if the convicted felon is sent to live with a liberal upon release.
Otherwise, no.
DEATHROW
Fire up Ol’ Sparky
See the Dead Man walk
12 men said it, no more talk
Its time for him to go feel the spark
Flip the switch do not balk
We’ll carry him to his funeral pyre
Where his body will meet a hellashious fire
Justice is now known .
Into Hell his ashes will be strown
His soul be damned to the devils flock
Where there is an eternal lock
Here he will remain for all of time
All of this over one thin dime
PROSOUTH
#430CCSD
As long as break the offender down physically and mentally first, I suppose you can release him.
Don’t allow him exercise. Feed him a high-carb diet. Keep him isolated.
When he’s released he won’t be able to commit any more crimes.
What ever happen to to hard labor?
If prison is to be a deterrent shouldn’t it be punishment?
Our prison system switched to correctional facility but
doesn’t correct anything.
Lets see, liberal judges have screwed up:
1. Parents from responsibility of parenting
2. Schools by removing neighborhood pride and parents
3. Prisons by turning them into county clubs
What else?
Anyone serving a life sentence should be forced to serve it in a penal colony, not a prison. That way, they'd be forced to fend for themselves among a bunch of other quasi-humanoid mutants and probably wouldn't live much past the age of 40.
Other than time....what is the difference between a "life sentence" and a death sentence?
The end result is the same.
So...let's use "replace" instead of "abolish".
Then, the question becomes, "Should the "life sentence" be "replaced with a death sentence"?
Answer: YUP!
I guess this goes to show that anybody who believed that a “life without parole” sentence meant what it said was a fool. I figured this was coming.
I’m for breaking convicts physically and mentally - no exercise, high-carb diet (high tech “bread and water”), small, single cells with few or no personal items, no entertainment (or education), no windows, and otherwise isolated from human contact. Just a little a steel plaque that lists their crimes and their sentence.
That way, no matter how the rest of system screws up, the person coming out of the prison will be a minimal threat.
From the practical side of the house, there is a weird phenomenon that needs to be taken into account.
That is, some of the big prisons in the US are turning into retirement and nursing homes for criminals. And that means the *expense* of incarceration, with medical care, goes up and up.
While many *need* to be confined (and forget about the death penalty for those already “in”, because even if we started to quickly execute *new* convicts today, we would still have approaching a million old convicts for another 30-40 years), keeping them under strict confinement might be reserved for the still extremely dangerous, with lower level (and less expensive) security for the rest.
So the best solution might be to create minimum security geriatric “prison-towns” in very rural and isolated parts of the US. Possibly even subcontracted to some of the larger Indian tribes, to provide guards, food, electricity and water.
The tribes might even provide medical care, while training tribal doctors geriatric medicine at the same time—a medical specialty in increasing demand.
Those convicts who are ambulatory could spend their time farming by hand, to produce some or most of the food they eat.
Such prison-towns could import aged convicts from other States for a price—a lot cheaper than those States keeping them, themselves.
The bottom line is to keep them confined and out of trouble, at much lower cost then they are right now or will be in the future.
Sure. Just use a bullet and there sentence is instantly commuted. /s
I prefer hemp. Public executions by hanging.
The author misses the point. The law must operate and must be seen to operate.
Potential murders are likely to be deterred by the possibility of 43 years in prison, granted. But they will be encouraged by the very real probability of getting out on a technicality, politically motivated pardon, loophole or being sprung by a nitwit judge much, much sooner. In a sane society Hurricane Carter and Bill Ayers would have swung decades ago. Both are guilty as hell and free as birds.
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