As I watched the green light above the camera turn to red my stomach tried to rebel one more time. I didn’t want to do this. Our grief should have been a private thing, shared only with our family and the small community of our friends. Jan’s death had been hard enough without the media avalanche we were being buried under. I was about to interviewed once again when all I wanted to do was cuddle with Bea and our remaining children as we tried to comfort each other. Someone had to speak out though and I am much more accustomed to public speaking than Bea is. Not that I was prepared for what I was faced with. I’ve somehow become as much a story as Jan’s murder.
We have been adamant in our statement that we don’t want the man executed. It’s not that there is any doubt of his guilt. He boasted about killing the “abomination” on his website and posted pictures of her body. That video almost killed Bea. She ended up in the hospital less than half way through after we made the sheriff show it to us. I forced myself to go back and watch the rest when she was stable and sleeping in the ICU. I really hope he is right about the existence of hell; he deserves to be punished eternally for what he did to my daughter.
We have fought hard to separate our principled objection to the death penalty from the horror of what he did. Many people have had trouble understanding that. Since last Friday I’ve been called a hypocrite after I attacked that reporter, Crandall. I am philosophically a pacifist but still have a temper. When Crandall suggested that my son Joe bought on his own fate by becoming Jan, I attacked him and had to be hauled off by the other members of the press. I would normally have more self control but I’d been berating myself for days for failing to protect her. It was one more attack and I wasn’t going to let her be hurt again.
So against legal advice, the same advice I’d give to someone else in this situation, I’m going to try one more time. I’m going try to explain that Jan really was a female. I’m going to try to explain that only a total ban on execution protects the falsely convicted and those who may be able to rehabilitate themselves. That becoming murderers ourselves does nothing positive. That it does nothing to discourage others from killing. I’m going to try to explain that I’m human and grieving. That I shouldn’t have become violent.
I’m going to try not to cry this time.
Comments
Banned
In my world a man like that would not have made it to trial.
I can be evil on the evil does that make me good? No evil man can enter a strongman's house twice because he will not live past the first time. A weak man invites him in and gives him breakfast.
Emotion, yet peace.
Ignorance, yet knowledge.
Passion, yet serenity.
Chaos, yet harmony.
Contemplation, yet duty
Death, yet the Force.
Light with dark, I remain Balanced.
Well . . . .
I don't completely understand what you wrote, aside from the first line, which I agree with. Some people willingly give up their humanity to become evil. They should ve treated like rabies-infected animals. You don't try to cage and rehabilitate mad dogs, you kill them, as quickly and humanely as possible. But die they will.
I do find it amusing when people want the death penalty but want it without "cruel and unusual punishment". Sorry but if we are going to have the death penalty then it should be done as quickly as possible. If that requires something others see as cruel and unusual, well thats just too bad.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Why bother?
A man convinced agin his will is of his ain opinion still.
I don’t know who said it first, but I do know it was a very long time ago.
I could give you erudite arguments as to why you should pass a sharpened piece of steel against the jugular veins and carotid arteries of such a being. However, you either don’t need my arguments and are already sharpening your steel, or my arguments are doomed to fail before I present them. So I shan’t bother.
The difference between a right wing bigot and a left wing apologist in practice is precious little. It is purely a matter of whom you agree with. Many who stand in the middle ground would burn both of them at the stake.
Don’t you just despise the centrists who can’t make their minds up?
Eolwaen
Love These Type of Replies
The ones that use several hundred words to explain why they are not going to reply.
As a reasonably intelligent person I will listen to another intelligent person's response. I may not agree with them, but as they listened to me, so I will listen to them. And who knows, they might be able to present a case that will change my mind. It is possible.
But the comment that infers that you are morally superior and therefore your beliefs should be the ones that should rule us loses me right from the start. I don't rule you, just as you don't rule me. But together we should be able to reach a compromise. But if you don't/won't try then we both lose.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I Believe
My point was that two people whose ‘I believe’ statements are different can not reach compromise. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. There weren’t reasoned into their ‘I believe’ statements and can not be reasoned out of them. In my first post perhaps I should also have written.
I could give also you erudite arguments as to why you should not pass a sharpened piece of steel against the jugular veins and carotid arteries of such a being. However, you either don’t need my arguments and are protecting them from the steel, or my arguments are doomed to fail before I present them and your steel is already sharpened. So I shan’t bother.
My words were not arguing one side of the case or the other. They were examining the possible out come of any such discussion. I was prepared to write ‘hundreds’ of words not because of any perceived moral superiority on my part, and no such inference was intended, but in an attempt to convey the fact that for example hard line anti fox hunting hunt saboteurs can not reach any accommodation with fox hunters. A West Bank settler and a Palestinian are another such example, where being in the same room as each other whilst the other is talking is not the same as listening.
As to academic debate concerning such a situation, sure I’ll get involved with any one over the issues of capital punishment, but morality is as ephemeral as fashion and as constantly subject to change, so I believe (yes a statement I can not be reasoned out of) morality has no part to play in such discussion. And I wouldn’t dream of challenging anyone’s ‘I believe’ statements because I’ve better things to do than bang my head against a stone wall for the pleasure of stopping. I did not perceive this string of comments to be the place to engage at that level though. Maybe I was wrong.
Many consider me to be totally amoral which is near enough the truth because I find morality to be a weak tool in serious debate, far better to rely on cause and effect. I’m far more likely to be swayed by a vegetarian’s arguments that in an over populated world eating meat is an inefficient use of resources than I am by the immorality of killing animals.
If any of this is offensive and I concede my cynicism can be so, my apologies are sincere, but it is what I believe, and I wouldn’t dream of denying anyone else the right to hold their own different I believe statements. Which of course can lead to war, terrorism and the cases like the one that inspired all these words.
Eolwaen
Death is too easy
My thinking is different and probably a bit on the weird side but for a person like in the story, death is too quick and easy. I favor something that some would label as cruel and unusual punishment, involuntary SRS and housed with the general male prison population. I also favor this for rapist and child molesters, they need to suffer in the same manner as they have created suffering.
It's interesting
I find it interesting that a character who never actually appears in the story has drawn all of the responses. I do think that this individual might well be legally insane. Certainly he believes that what he has done is right or he wouldn't brag about it. I would give you the well documented cases of Tom Horn and Tom Dooley(Duelley) as examples of at least questionable executions. In any event, killing one killer does nothing to lessen the evil in the world, killing them all would only introduce more evil.
I believe
I admit I’m playing devil’s advocate here.
There are many who would argue that just because some one is insane is irrelevant. They would argue society has a right to protect itself, and insane killers should be the first to die. It’s an ‘I believe’ statement.
Too, they would argue ‘questionable’ executions refers to legal technicalities which makes them neither right nor wrong, merely of dubious legality.
Too, there are many who would disagree that killing all the killers &c. would increase the amount of evil in the world. Since evil is a relative term depending on your ‘I believe’ statements, both stances are definitely ‘I believe’ statements.
Regards,
Eolwaen
Eolwaen
The death penlty
There are fates worse than death!!!
Beverly
Having read your comments on Cyclist's stories I know that you know that all too well. If it would stop such things from happening I could enthusiastically support the death penalty.
Endless debate
And what of the one who is killed? What were Jan's views on the death penalty? Jan was killed because that man declared her an abomination. But who gave him the right to make that declaration? By killing, isn't he then an abomination to society? By killing, isn't he ignoring a part of his beliefs?
She was called a hypocrite for attacking that reporter. How was she a hypocrite? Did she try to kill him? If she did, then yes the label would be apt. But for beating him up? Maybe if one of his fellow reporters had admonished him for the question, he wouldn't have been beaten.
But the question was asked and deserves an answer. Look what Hitler did just because some weren't pure German in his mind. They didn't deserve their fate either, nor did they bring it on themselves.
The death penalty debate has raged on for years, with no clear cut winner except the one who would have been put to death.
But in claiming the death penalty inhumane isn't society in a way condoning what was done? What deterrent is there if a murderer knows if caught they will only be jailed?
If the death penalty is carried out, is the executioner then no different than the one being executed?
Isn't society hypocritical in this area because it justifies when it's acceptable to kill and when it's not? Isn't killing killing regardless of the justification? If killing is wrong for one reason, shouldn't it be wrong for any reason? Isn't it really the justifications that are the real reason the debate continues with no true resolve?
Others have feelings too.
no sane person goes out and
no sane person goes out and kills someone else so by definition killers are insane.
that being said.
I have never understood the, (Not guilty by reason of insanity) plea, shouldn't it be (Guilty by reason of insanity) their not claiming they didn't commit the crime, only that they weren't in their right mind when they did it.