Society is brought up with the “eye for eye” doctrine when it comes to justice.
Yes, a big problem mentioned by Sister Helen Prejean (author of Dead Man Walking) when I attended one of her talks a couple years ago.
it’s pretty bad to me. he didn’t even deserve life in prison imo.
in fact, Donald Trump is a worse human being than this guy was, and instead of putting him to death, we elected him president. But Donald Trump comes from a rich family, so he can do whatever he wants.
I always assumed if someone gets the death penalty it’s because they are guilty of murder 1. This guy was not.
Also, in the case of the guy in New Moon Shine’s thread who was put to death last August, he was severely abused as a kid by his step-father, horrifyingly. He didn’t know the victim. His accomplice did. He claims it was some ptsd and a fear of that other guy that pushed him into it. The other guy was the one who actually killed the victims though. His part in it was pretty awful no matter how you look at it, but 33 years later, he’s an entirely different person and not a threat to anyone. seems ridiculous to put an entirely different person to death.
severe abuse can fuck you up in the head. the victims didn’t deserve what happened to them, but neither did he when he was a kid and violently abused by his step-father.
I would imagine deciding that someone has done something grave enough to deserve to be murdered is easier to do when your local government has validated this opinion.
oh and Brandon Bernard was 18 when he committed the crime and 40 when he was put to death. It’s never fast and it sounds like he also turned into a good person who had a lot of remorse for what he did.
Debatable. It certainly sounds as though it was a pre-meditated murder. And I know that in some jurisdictions if you are complicit in the crime then you are just as guilty. Like the guy driving the getaway car in a bank robbery is guilty of robbing the bank even though he wasn’t even on the premises. And when a guard shoots one of the bank robbers and the bank robber shoots the guard and kills him, then the guy driving the getaway car can be found guilty of premeditated murder. Because he knew that was a reasonably probable outcome of robbing a bank, and he was complicit in the crime.
I’m not sure precisely where federal law lands on that legal principle, so standard IANAL disclosures…
idk, seems like getting in with the wrong crowd can therefore make you guilty of some pretty horrific crimes.
when i was a teenager, i had some friends who would shoplift a lot. i often went shopping with them. i never shoplifted myself, but they always did. was i guilty too? much lesser crime than murder, but still a crime. i was a minor though and had no idea that i could be guilty by association then.
BTW, I say all that as it was applicable in a criminal case where I sat on the jury.
Everyone agreed that the defendant did not directly do X himself, but that his friends did do X.
The law stated that if the defendant’s actions in any way made it easier for his friends to do X then we should find the defendant guilty of X.
The defendant’s defense was that his actions did NOT make it easier for his friends to do X. We found otherwise. He was convicted of X.
His friends all pled guilty to X and got lighter sentences in a plea bargain. He pled not guilty and ended up with a harsher sentence despite his actions not being as bad as his friends’ actions.
Rough.
If you were driving them to and from the mall and you were aware that they were planning to shoplift, then in some jurisdictions you could be found guilty of shoplifting.
If you created a distraction for the sales person then yes.
If you had no knowledge that they were planning to shoplift and you did not knowingly help make it easier for them to shoplift then you should be fine. You have to have criminal intent to be guilty of committing a crime.
I didn’t drive them to the mall. I didn’t have a license. I was just there. common sense told me that they were gonna shoplift though. i didn’t create a distraction.
some of those shit heads went on to steal from me. assholes. but i digress.
Based on what you’re saying I doubt that you were guilty of committing a crime. Just of choosing crappy friends.
i can take my minor situation and blow it up and the guy was likely scared of the gang leader. was ordered to do something, so he did it. the couple was already dead. so, he is also somewhat in the situation of picking crappy friends. he was 18. 18 year olds tend to be stupid.
Well several things… according to CBS (which could be wrong of course, but I’m basing my position on it being correct and reserve the right to change my mind if it turns out to be incorrect) it said that he participated in the robbery and abduction. It’s not JUST that he was ordered to set fire to a car that contained dead people.
Following orders is rarely a valid excuse, especially when there are dead bodies involved… dead bodies that you helped create. (Which he did by participating in the abduction.)
Yes, he may have been scared of the gang leader. He shouldn’t have joined the gang. Maybe it is difficult to avoid being in a gang. That sucks. I don’t think that excuses it though. I certainly do wish that there was less gang activity in this country sucking young people in. But when the young people do join the gang and then do horrible things, they are going to be punished.
IFYP. Race has much less to do with it than money. OJ being a prime example.
Thus my argument for speeding up the execution dates once guilt is clear and the chance of a change in verdict is essentially nill. People shouldn’t spend 15+ years on death row while appeals about how to execute them go round and round. You can’t even get anybody on death row today without substantial DNA evidence. Our odds of executing an innocent person which were already very low have dropped dramatically in the last 30 years.
What is a sufficiently low probability of executing an innocent person?
or stop executing people. there isn’t a really good reason to execute people.
That is one of the main premises of Dead Man Walking - a person is defined by an impulsive act they did as a young person and pays the price when they are older and wiser. Not giving a convicted felon an chance to become a productive member of society is a missed opportunity.
My wife was a social worker for years. My great aunt spent her entire career as one. While its true that a lot of abused kids go on to have these types of problems its not the vast majority. Poverty cycle left out of that, too many other factors. Kids who were sexually abused like your example tend to be worse off.
Almost all kids who go through this type of thing actually end up self-abusing in one form or another for at least a while. Some go on to abuse others. Their history doesn’t excuse perpetuation on others.