Posted on 08/01/2019 10:32:29 AM PDT by detective
Daniel Lee Lewis was involved in his first murder when he was 17 years old. It was July 24, 1990. Enraged by a teenage party prank, he beat Joseph Wavra unconscious. Then Lewis ran to get a knife and helped Wayra’s murderer hide the crime. This was only the beginning of Lewis’ seven-year crime spree that included burglary, bombings, public shootouts, and murder.
The crime that landed him on death row happened on January 11, 1996. He and his partner, Chevie Kehoe, kidnapped a Tilly, Arkansas gun dealer with his wife and stepdaughter. Lewis had burglarized William Mueller’s home a year earlier, and came back believing gold and other valuables were still hidden. He tortured and killed William, then did the same his wife Nancy and, finally, her eight-year old daughter in an attempt to force them to reveal the location of this supposed hidden treasure.
He was convicted of all three murders by a jury of his peers on May 4, 1999. While Kehoe was sentenced to life without parole, prosecutors successfully argued that Lewis’s lack of remorse and long history of violence, even while incarcerated and awaiting trial, demonstrated he was a candidate for the death penalty.
On May 14, the jury returned a verdict of death. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder was asked to withdraw the death notice, but he declined. Nancy Mueller’s mother, Earlene Branch, said, “It’s hard to be a Christian and think of killing somebody. But I don’t see any other answer. I don’t want them out influencing anyone else.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
Capital punishment acknowledges both the existence of objective evil and human government’s responsibility to execute justice.
To compare capital punishment with the killing of the innocent is reprehensible.
Keeping hideous murderers alive for decades on death row is what money grubbing lawyers do; they also demand the death of a child in nine months or less and even if it survives an abortion because they’re looked upon as non-human - like 0bama said: .......
It can be argued that life imprisonment is crueler than the death penalty.
Exactly right. Any state unwilling to kill you right back (as Texas advertises) doesn’t value the lives of their citizens much.
“Turned twenty-one in prison, doing life without parole....”
Really bad dogs get euthanized. And this a bad dog.
Sometimes, some people really ARE beyond redemption.
Innocence and guilt are NOT relative terms. There is only one standard of innocence, and all kinds of degrees of guilt.
It could. But your average gallows bird doesn’t see it that way or they wouldn’t keep pushing endless appeals.
We need public executions and to bring back convict labor.
Government is inherently corrupt and can never be trusted with capital punishment.
Do you have objections to repressive and corrupt regimes like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia inflicting capital punishment?
If so, why.
If you do believe that the US has a more ethical criminal justice system than most other countries, that we protect the innocent (abortions) or individual rights better than other nations, I strongly disagree.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
We are an exceptional nation. Exceptionally bad at least with respect to NON violent offenders (remember I am referring to NON violent offenders). Unless of course you believe that non-violent offending Americans are inherently more evil than non-violent offenders in other countries and deserve to be locked up for long sentences.
This type of mentality means that these judges, prosecutors cannot be trusted with more consequential offenses.
Luke 16:10 (NIV) “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
Keeping hideous murderers alive for decades on death row is what money grubbing lawyers do
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The entire criminal justice system is rigged for the purpose of enriching judges and lawyers at the expense, and often the very lives, of the nation’s taxpayers. As I never tire of saying, in any truly civilized country anyone found guilty of maiming and/or murdering another person, except in self-defense, would be charged, tried, convicted, sentenced, and PUBLICLY HANGED within a month of apprehension. No appeals and no exceptions. Oh, and motive for committing the crime would NEVER be a matter for consideration.
“Government is inherently corrupt and can never be trusted with capital punishment.
Do you have objections to repressive and corrupt regimes like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia inflicting capital punishment?
If so, why.
If you do believe that the US has a more ethical criminal justice system than most other countries, that we protect the innocent (abortions) or individual rights better than other nations, I strongly disagree.”
You are dishonestly misrepresenting what I said and what the article said.
You are saying that protecting the innocent from violent criminals who tortured and killed innocent families is bad because no government is perfect. You say that because communist governments have killed thousands and sometimes millions of their own innocent people that protecting innocent people in the United States is somehow wrong.
Allowing evil, violent criminals to prey on the innocent will not prevent mass murder by evil communist regimes.
In fact, the Communist Party which celebrates the arrest, torture and mass murder of the innocent strongly oppose imprisoning or executing violent criminals in the United States. Those who support the murder of innocent people by totalitarian government use arguments very similar to the one that you use.
Take the examples in the article. Read about their histories and the crimes they have committed. Explain why executing them is immoral and having society pay to support them and then free them is moral.
Back in the early 1900's it normally was six to eight months after conviction and the longest I read was a bit over a year.
I think lawyers for the convicted are paid by the state (i.e. taxpayers) which is one reason for them to drag out appeals.
Aborted babies do not have that luxury and are killed in nine months or less or even should they survive an abortion.
What grinds my teeth are those people who stand around with candles when some murderer is executed.
“Take the examples in the article. Read about their histories and the crimes they have committed.”
No, I will not. The US criminal justice is horribly corrupt and first must reform before it can be trusted to exact capital punishment. Sure, they can have them do life sentences and be sequestered from the public if necessary. That way, they can’t threaten the public.
But I would never agree to grant this authority to so corrupt a nation and criminal justice system as we have in here the US. We have one of the best constitutions and BOR in the world, but it has been so utterly shredded that now the US is the prison capital of the world and we have 655 prisoners per 100,000 far far greater than any nation. No one comes close. Due process and 4the amendment, totally worthless now. This is a damnable indictment of our criminal justice system and all the corrupt and evil people that run it.
“Those who support the murder of innocent people by totalitarian government use arguments very similar to the one that you use.”
What, that makes absolutely no sense. Do you actually have the addled belief that I support the murder of innocent people? Any inference that I support a totalitarian government because they make disingenuous arguments from a hypocritical point of view against capital punishment is ludicrous. What are you saying, if you don’t support capital punishment you agree with totalitarianism?
The author of this excellent, precisely reasoned article is an LCMS pastor.
Post 10: well said. Better you than me dealing with such depraved cynicism.
If we don’t take the lives of proven murderers, then we affirm that the lives of their innocent victims were not all that important.
It would be little different than taking the life of a deer during hunting season. Acceptable.
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