One of these things is not like the other one

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Why is a swift death seen as a worse punishment than spending one's life behind bars (and prison is a pretty grim place, violent and dehumanizing and lacking in opportunities for moral redemption or intellectual enlightenment) contemplating the vicious crime that put one there?  Not surprisingly, at least one of the Petit murderers is asking for the death penalty.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
>Sent: Nov 11, 2010 12:22 PM
>To: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>Cc: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: One of these things is not like the other one
>
>Capital punishment is the perfect sentence in a perfect criminal
>justice system. If you acknowledge that the system is not perfect, and
>you practice capital punishment, you have to be willing to accept that
>eventually the state will commit murder by executing an innocent
>person. To deny this is intellectually and morally dishonest. There is
>no way around this.
>
>
>On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Michael Bailey
><michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> kneejerk anti-capital-punishment boilerplate (but it needs to be said):
>>
>> no matter what you do to Steven J Hayes, it won't bring back the
>> people he murdered.  All capital punishment does is continue the
>> horrible revenge tradition.
>>
>> Well, that's actually not all it does.  It also reinforces the idea
>> that the State has a right and even a duty to kill people.  Slippery
>> slope.
>>
>>
>>
>>  rich wrote:
>>> and then you have this case. there's always exceptions
>>>
>>> A jury sentenced Steven J. Hayes to death on Monday for his part in a
>>> home invasion in Cheshire, Conn., in which a woman and her two
>>> daughters were killed, in a crime of such incomprehensible savagery
>>> and randomness that the trial upended a debate about capital
>>> punishment. [NYT] The sentencing followed trial that lasted nearly two
>>> months, during which jurors were “exposed to images of depravity and
>>> horror no human being should have to see,” as Judge Jon C. Blue of
>>> State Superior Court said while thanking them. (Also see The New York
>>> Post and The Wall Street Journal.)
>>>
>>> Jurors said that they were in accord about choosing the death penalty
>>> and that their three days of deliberations were spent solemnly
>>> considering when capital punishment can be invoked and wading through
>>> the complex legal questions it entails. Also, the punishment may not
>>> be rendered anytime soon. Mr. Hayes will now enter the appeals process
>>> that follows any death penalty verdict, a legal labyrinth that can
>>> last decades. [NYT]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 11:06 AM, Robin Landseadel
>>> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>> From "Outside the Beltway"
>>>>
>>>> A Comparative Fact Regarding the Death Penalty that Gives One Pause
>>>> STEVEN L. TAYLOR
>>>>
>>>>        Gallup released a new poll on US attitudes towards the
>>>>        death penalty and unsurprisingly finds that support has
>>>>        remained relatively steady since 2002:  In U.S., 64%
>>>>        Support Death Penalty in Cases of Murder.
>>>>
>>>>        What struck me was the following observation:
>>>>        The use of the death penalty has been declining worldwide,
>>>>        with most of the known executions now carried out in five
>>>>        countries — China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United
>>>>        States.
>>>>
>>>>        When dealing with issues of justice and human rights, that
>>>>        isn’t exactly the company I would think that the US would
>>>>        aspire to keep.  We are talking about three authoritarian
>>>>        regimes with questionable human rights records (China,
>>>>        Iran and Saudi Arabia), a pseudodemocracy in the context
>>>>        of an ongoing conflict (Iraq), and the country that sees itself
>>>>        as a beacon of liberty and democracy (the US).  One of
>>>>        these things is, theoretically, not like the others.  At a
>>>>        minimum this comparison ought to give us all pause for
>>>>        thought.
>>>>
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/23oglwb
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respects a
>> violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural
>> liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the
>> whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all
>> governments, of the most free as well as of the most despotical." -
>> Adam Smith
>>