A question for both antis and pros

[mustangsally]

Has there ever been a case that made you rethink your stand for or against the death penalty?

I am against the DP but one particular case really made me question that stand. A few years back, a man raped and murdered two little girls and also a woman. Police believes there is other victims in another state as well. I knew the one little girl and her Dad because when I waited tables, they used to come in to the restaurant I worked at. She was such a sweet, beautiful girl who had her life snatched away from her much too soon. Her father was a recovering alcoholic and once his child was so brutally raped and murdered ,he crawled back into his bottle and hasn't come out since. I ran into him not to long ago at a local department store and this poor man was still a mess almost 13 yrs after her death.

What was worse is the adult victim was buried in a garage a few doors down from where I lived. This killer lived down the street from me . I used to walk past his house on my way to the laundry mat and this man was always sitting on his front porch.

When all of this came to light ,when he was arrested , almost 4 yrs after the fact, I was stunned. Once all the details came out about how much those poor girls suffered I was enraged. It really made me rethink my stand on the death penalty.

I have always been against the death penalty but actually knowing a victim and spending time with her family and hearing of the unspeakable things this man did to her and the others was hard for me. I attended her funeral and it was a gutwrenching experience.

I thought about it and came to this conclusion .If I preach against the DP but yet I harbor a wish for this one man to be executed I would be nothing more then a hypercrit. Even though I believe he is pure evil , I would be just as bad if I wanted him dead . I am told he is in protective custody and he rarely ventures out at rec time because other inmates has threatened his life so his life has to be pretty miserable and maybe that is a just punishment , because he is scared he may one day be killed and always has to look over his shoulder. Inmates don't think much of those who rape and murder women and children and I have been told the inmates is making life hard for him. Maybe that is a just punishment for him.

Although it was hard for me to come to this conclusion ,even he has a right to live.

[catskillz]

To pick only a few..

Gary Gilmore
Napoleon Beazly
Dominique Green
Dobie Gillis
Joseph O'dell

I'm sure these cases speak for themselves!

In addition i could ad a very long list of cases..

Best, catskillz.

[tulla63]

Yes. There have been cases which made me question my stand on the death penalty.

Theodore Robert Bundy
Kenneth McDuff Jr.
Richard Ramirez
Jeffrey Dahmer,
John Wayne Gacy

I'm sure there are more, but this is who I can come up with right now. These people makes me question my stance every day. I consider that as a good thing.

However, when it comes down to it, I would not even want a death sentenced imposed on Adolf Hitler. It is a question I ask myself daily though.

Love,
Turid

[damaris]

Bill Benefiel.......

This case made me rethink alot. But execution will not solve anything or bring the deceased back, so I am still against the death penalty.

[jj]

I do not think there is something wrong with questioning your beliefs some times. If we didn't, we wouldn't be human. All this means is that we have compassion for everyone, to include the victims.

but in the end, you come up with the same conclusion.... the taking of a life is wrong no matter who does it.

[tulla63]

But execution will not solve anything or bring the deceased back, so I am still against the death penalty.

That is exactly what makes me come to the same conclusion every time too: It's not going to solve anything, the deceased will not come back and it's also been revealed lately, that it does not really provide closure for the victim's families either. I guess for some, it does, and I know I should talk for them, (that wasn't my intention either, I'm just mentioning what I've read and heard some other victim's families say).

They are not speaking for entire group of victim's families though.......

But I agree with your statement totally.

Love,
Turid

[tulla63]

Joy said:

I do not think there is something wrong with questioning your beliefs some times. If we didn't, we wouldn't be human. All this means is that we have compassion for everyone, to include the victims.

but in the end, you come up with the same conclusion.... the taking of a life is wrong no matter who does it.

You're right, Joy!

I wish I could somehow be able to explain how murder and execution are tragedies that effects the parties involved, their families on both sides and also society as a whole.

I am actually happy that it's not up to any of the parties to impose sentence on anyone. And I most definetely DO understand the hate and the frustration the murder victim's families are going through having a closed one lost to murder.

My daughter was close to to being raped on one occasion. I know positively that if he had the chance of raping my daughter, I would be able to kill that person with my bare hands in the most henious manner known to humankind.

That would have made me a mudererer.

Not that I would mind spending 21 years in prison for it, but if justice was up to the parties, we wouldn't be living in a civilized socetiy. There is no limit for what a person can do to another once a loved one is in danger.

And that is perhaps also why justice is up to the courts.

Thank Good Lord it is!!

Love,
Turid

[mustangsally]

I am glad to read that I am not the only one who feels this way. Yesterday kind of brought this back for me because when I went to visit yesterday, this man also had a visitor . Yes he is in the same prison as my loved one. I was sitting at the first booth which means I see every one who comes in and I looked up and there he was right in front of me . I truely believe he recognized me because at one point when he was waiting to go back,after his visit was over ,he was standing behind my fella and just stared at me .Good thing there was glass seperating us. I was getting visibably upset so my fella told him that he needed to move away. Yesterday was a very hard day for me.

Joy I totally agree with your comment .I feel a great deal of compassion for MV and their survivors and that is what made me question my stand . I just feel ending a killers life ,and supporting that end ,makes me no better then the killer and really solves nothing but cause more pain for another family.

[Mo-DAWG]

yes, many times i see cases with children involved i re-think the whole thing again and again... but i DO look beyond my emotional side and the reality i still see is, DP changes nothing, its just revenge, it brings no victim back to life..it´s inhuman and SIMPLY WRONG!!!!!!!!!
Mo-DAWG

[EddieStratton]

"Has there ever been a case that made you rethink your stand for or against the death penalty?"

No. The premeditated taking of human life is a crime, period.

I do come up against this argument sometimes: 'What if it was YOUR child who got murdered?'

Well, truthfully, I'd be filled with the most intensely violent emotions, and I am absolutely certain that if I got my hands on the perpetrator I'd tear them apart with my bare hands. It's a natural reaction, and if I didn't feel it I'd be inhuman and robotic. This understandable reaction is also the very reason why I shouldn't be allowed to have a central role in the punishment of the offender, if we consider ourselves to be in a civilized country.

Countries which do allow the victim's relatives to have a major role in the punishments meted out by the courts are generally regarded by civilized societies as barbaric. For example, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are both known to allow relatives of the victims to take part in the punishment of offenders, and as a result of this we rightly regard their legal systems as medieval in the extreme.

With our more developed theories of modern jurisprudence, we tend to applaud more civilized concepts such as impartiality and objectivity. We don't allow the victims' families to have a say in the punishment of offenders precisely because they are too close to the crime, emotionally super-charged, and as a result they're unable to make an objective decision. In law, this is called a conflict of interest, and cannot therefore be considered to be a fair expression of judicial due process.

Ed

[tulla63]

Gary Gilmore

What a coincidence, Katz! Actually, I remembered it when all this happened. It was on the news here in Norway daily at the time. Gary Gilmore was executed a month before my 14th birthday.

I was in shock. I knew people had been executed in the US many years ago after my sister bought a record from San Quentin (Johnny Cash) when I was 10 years old. I kept having nightmares and problems concentrating after hearing this.
¨<br>Then a few years go by, and we hear about a person who spent more than half of his life in various juvenile halls and prisons who insisted on being executed as soon as it could possibly be arranged.

At the time, it looked like I was the only one who were interested in this case aside from the news media. No wonder - not many - with exception of the 13-years old we have on this board - care much about death penalty and executions.

I actually even remember hearing when it had happened. I'm not sure as to how many hours time difference there is between Norway and Utah, but my guess is that Norway is about 8 hour ahead of Utah.

I'd been to school, and had just left the subway, when a neon-sign spreaded the information that Gary Mark Gilmore had been executed by firing squad in Utah.

I never forget that day.

Did you see the film: "The Executioner's Song"? It was aired on national television here in January of 1987. 10 years after it happened.

Love,
Turid