Sgt. Peter Voto and P.O. Gary Tedesco.
Posted on 01/30/2002 9:16:30 PM PST by Coleus
Sgt. Peter Voto and P.O. Gary Tedesco.
I don't know the condition of the officer, or who he is yet (we all know each other since we're only a 110 man dept.) but we won't have to worry about parole.
Well, you make yourself sound like quite the quick draw artist. Sorry if I am amused, but perhaps you are surfeited with my lack of enthusiasm for the death penalty because you would as fain not entertain opinions on it other then your own to begin with. Youm seem to infer that I care to pick on you; I don't. That would be pointless, because I know honorable intentions are at the core of your opinion on capital punishment.
Reply to me if you wish, don't if you'd rather not. You are smart, with excellent rhetorical skills. On that level I welcome discourse on the issue of capital punishment, which has been a central one to me. Over th years, my readings on it has had deep effect on me, even changing my mind on abortion. I am now throughly against that murderous practice too, and I never expected that to happen.
The only undercurrent in my post is the knowledge you do not suffer fools. Many people parrot stance and dogma they adopt without any structure to it that only comes from engaging in critical thought and study about what thay are talking about. I am not in that category. (Well, not on this issue anyways.) ;-)
Usually it is difficult to invoke, clean, articulate discourse on this topic. Usually the capital punishment argument becomes replete with malice and pregnant with anger for the other side of the argument, and that is unfortunate.
I have learned not to take anything around the discussion of this issue personally, and I am stoic enough not to grind sharp the war ax if someone else does. Well, I have made my point, and you have made yours. I will respect your wish to not have me respond to your posts on capital punishment any longer. Please do not be offended by this response, I assure you it is meant as a respectful one.
I have no desire to pick on anyone, especially someone who knows as much about Stonehenge as you do. I happened across that thread, and was impressed with your depth of knowledge on it.
I had thought I was knowledgeable on it, but your observations about it sent me back to the books to check out more about it. Take care, and as I said, I won't ping unless it is to respond to a post by you to me.
Longest serving N.J. inmate, convicted of killing two officers, released from halfway house
The Associated Press
2/11/02 3:51 PM
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) -- A man convicted of killing two police officers in 1963 has been released from a halfway house and is on parole after more than 38 years in custody.
Thomas Trantino, who turned 64 Monday, had been the state's longest serving inmate, having spent most of his adult life in prison.
Trantino was rejected for parole nine times. But a year ago, the state Supreme Court said the parole board lacked proof that he posed a threat to society and sent him to a halfway house for a year.
The Department of Corrections confirmed Monday that he had been released late Sunday or early Monday. "A couple of hours one way or the other don't matter," said Jerry Voto Sr., the son of Peter Voto, one of the Trantino's victims. "The point is, he's out." Trantino's lawyer, Roger A. Lowenstein, said Trantino had a job lined up and would most likely move to another halfway house in Camden.
"It's really a non-event," Lowenstein said of the release. "He's probably going to move from one halfway house to another."
Trantino was sentenced to death for fatally shooting the officers in Lodi, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 after the state's death penalty law was deemed unconstitutional.
The two officers -- Voto, 40, and Gary Tedesco, 22 -- were shot to death after they responded to a disturbance call at a bar where the men had been drinking. Voto was beaten and shot in the head. Tedesco, who had been forced to strip to his underwear, was shot in the stomach.
Trantino surrendered the same night; his accomplice was shot to death two days later by police trying to arrest him.
I do not believe in the death penalty for the same reason I oppose abortion; that human life of any situation and condition deserves to be valued more then granting the state the authority to end it.
I listen to many who rage about the need for capital punishment and hear their anger and desire for blood atonement. But revenge should never be the goal of the justice system, and the desire for it is poor justification to gain it by putting more and more people to death.
Capital punishment is one of those issues that blur the lines as far as the ranks of those for or against it. I have argued with very liberal people that loudly proclaim it's need, and stood with conservative people in audiences of speakers who are against it at the nearby University of Oregon. That has always amazed me.
As I said earlier, I would trade this person in a second for the lives of these fallen cops, but as this guy has lost most of his life to prison, and has learned to be of value at helping others, I can live with him spending his sunset years being out in the community serving it.
It has to hurt him knowing first hand seeing the world his youthful self was deprived. And I hope he is preparing himself to meet those he brutally murders when he passes on. In anyone's afterlife, those killed should be the first ones a murderer should meet.
Don't presume that because you believe it would hurt you if you were in his shoes, that it must hurt him.
Death comes to all men in time. Contending against the state as if capital punishment is somehow more heinous than--say, a child's death by cancer--is silly and phony.
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