Sources said that no statute has been found to allow the death penalty for Malvo, 17, since he is a minor. Federal law has no provision for the execution of minors, but Virginia law does. http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/10/29/sniper.shootings/index.html
It seems in this and other articles that the questions is not “what laws did they break?” but rather, “How can we kill them and how quickly.” That is an understandable question for individuals, and I say fry 'em, but seems rather blood thirsty and unjust for a government.
Why is it important who tries them first? Is it a question of who will be able to execute them, will the citizens of Virginia feel unavenged if Maryland executes them? Do the prosecutors just want to be gung ho to be re-elected? Will the executeion date in one state be set back by appeals in another?
Why is a government expected to be different than the people that make it up? Is it simply a matter of formality, or power… i.e.- a government has the power to back up its words, therefore it has to walk on eggshells when discussing such matters?
I, for one, see no problem with a government becoming upset at the prospect of someone violating the law of the land.
I’m far more sadistic. I’d say keep them alive, but limbless, eyeless, and toothless. We would then parade them around the country as circus oddities to be despised and scorned for the rest of their lives.
But that’s just me.
Because the government provides justice, not vengeance or the furtherance of a prosecutor’s political career.
It doesn’t decide to kill someone and ask what law suits the purpose, it asks what laws were violated and the punishment is according to thse laws.
One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that the possible imposition of that sentence seems utterly bloodthirsty. These men are caught. Had they been accosted and resisted, I’d have no problem with the police shooting them in self-defense if they failed to surrender and threatened attack.
But now they are in custody. We can assure that they are never released. What does it gain us to kill them?
Of course, at this point, with the taste of fear still in peoples’ mouths, the case still front page news and the impulse to vengeance dominating everything, it’s not about justice. Some cynic might suggest that it is about making some prosecutor’s reputation and grabbing headlines while headlines can still be grabbed. Remember, there are elections to be won and ambitions to be satisfied.
We can only be relieved that none of the jurisdictions involved authorizes drawing and quartering as a punishment for Murder One. If we did I’m sure we would have some district attorney or attorney general saying “we should get them first because we will not only kill them, we will hang them, cut them down while they are still alive, disembowel them, chop off their arms and legs and stick their severed limbs up at the welcome centers on the interstate highways and their heads on the dome of the Capitol building as an example to others.”
The general law proffesor jive about why the states want to be the one to execute is that the reason for this sort of punishment is to give officialized and government sanctioned outlet to the public’s outrage. Is it bloody and vengeful? Perhaps. But that’s what most citizens seem to want in such a situation: can anyone deny that? The government is a monopoly on violence: in this case it isn’t just about ending violence, but rather giving expression to the public’s desire for violence in response. It’s either this or lynch mobs.
Each community, feeling wronged, wants a bite at the same apple. Each wants to use the captured criminal to express it’s outrage via their particular justice system, their official outlet for accusation, evidence presentation, and punishment.
Hey, I don’t like it either, but that seems a fair approximation of what’s going on.
I’m not sure I agree with the explicit assumption at the end of your second paragraph. Is it, in fact, a choice between this and lynch mobs?
We would not, in this day and age, be likely to permit public beheading as a method of execution, even though at one time this was a perfectly acceptable way of dispatching the condemmed. Why not? Because we, as a society, have standards of decency and humane treatment that have evolved from that more bloodthirsty time; we recognize now that it ill befits us to kill our prisoners in such a bloody way. Even enthusiasm for the electric chair, once itself thought a humane alternative to other forms of execution, is now waning, and lethal injection seems to be the preferred method of ending the lives of the condemmed.
Is it so far-fetched to extrapolate this line of thinking to apoint where we, as a society, simply agree to confine a prisoner for the rest of his natural life, rather than kill him? Is it really true, as you suggest, that this would spawn lynch mobs intent on frontier justice?
I’m not sure I agree with the explicit assumption at the end of your second paragraph. Is it, in fact, a choice between this and lynch mobs?
We would not, in this day and age, be likely to permit public beheading as a method of execution, even though at one time this was a perfectly acceptable way of dispatching the condemmed. Why not? Because we, as a society, have standards of decency and humane treatment that have evolved from that more bloodthirsty time; we recognize now that it ill befits us to kill our prisoners in such a bloody way. Even enthusiasm for the electric chair, once itself thought a humane alternative to other forms of execution, is now waning, and lethal injection seems to be the preferred method of ending the lives of the condemmed.
Is it so far-fetched to extrapolate this line of thinking to apoint where we, as a society, simply agree to confine a prisoner for the rest of his natural life, rather than kill him? Is it really true, as you suggest, that this would spawn lynch mobs intent on frontier justice?
—Is it so far-fetched to extrapolate this line of thinking to apoint where we, as a society, simply agree to confine a prisoner for the rest of his natural life, rather than kill him? Is it really true, as you suggest, that this would spawn lynch mobs intent on frontier justice?—
First of all, I made clear that the case was not mine. But second of all, the idea IS that, yes, if the government does not give adequate official expression to the real desires of its people, then it is not just courting the disaster of people expressing their outrage OUTSIDE of the system, but it is actually failing in its duities. That you can point to a trend in more humane methods of killing is beside the point: whether or not there is a jump to using life in prison in the future, that doesn’t change the basic argument for what’s going on now, and why it might be a government duty to carry it out (and even fight over what government entity gets to carry it out) as long as it happens to be the real desire of the public community involved.
Leaving only his ears, so that “every shriek of every child at seeing [his] hideousness will be [his] to cherish – every babe that weeps at [his] approach, every woman who cries out, “Dear God, what is that thing?” will echo in [his] perfect ears … [so that he will be] in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.”
Whenever one of these terrible crimes is committed, I see a series of posts inventing terrible tortures to inflict on the criminal, because ‘death’s too good for them.’ I have to be honest- this makes me really uncomfortable. I don’t want to torture anyone to death. I think there are good reasons why many states don’t execute minors. And this impulse- the desire for not just an eye for an eye, but the worst thing we can think of- is one of the reasons why I don’t like the death penalty. Give them a fair trial, and if a jury finds them guilty, lock them up for the rest of their lives. I will be content that justice was served.
Wow. Ideas such as this truely scare me. By getting enjoyment out of the cruel torture of another human being show me that many of us have a mindset not much different than that of the sniper himself.
