According to Wikipedia, this is what the judge said to Ted Bundy at the conclusion of his trial:
“Take care of yourself?” He said it not once but four times. Why would a judge tell a man who was going to be executed to “take care of himself?”
“I don’t feel any animosity toward you?” What kind of judge would publicly say that to someone who had just been convicted of the cold-blooded murder of a bunch of young women?
An honest one?
I don’t get what you’re on about. Would you have preferred him to say “I can’t wait to see you fry”?
I mean, it’s just kind of hard for me to imagine anyone, let alone a judge, not feeling animosity towards Ted Bundy. Maybe he just came off as an extremely nice, charming guy during the trial.
From what I’ve read, he came off as a nice, charming guy to everyone. That’s part of what enabled him to commit his crimes.
I suspect “take care of yourself” might have been a coded way to say “get right with God.” I don’t know what else it could have meant. The whole thing sounds like it has a religious subtext to me. Like, “I’m trying not to hate you, but you’re going to fry so you better get out the sack cloth and ashes and start doing some serious fucking praying.”
That would be my guess anyway.
Is there a General Question here?
I’m not sure where else to put it. I guess if there is a question, it’s, “why did the judge in that case speak so kindly to a convicted mass murderer.”
Yeah, I was thinking that. “Take care of yourself before the seat of judgment.” On the whole, the judge’s comments sound like those of a man who is dismayed that such a seemingly intelligent, charming man could have gone so wrong. It’s at odds with today’s popular view of serial killers as being innately, irredeemably bad, but I can understand what the judge meant.
There’s at least one religion I know of which says something like “hate the sin, not the sinner”. Perhaps the judge was a member of that religion.
Such a philosophy is probably a good one for a judge, who needs to be impartial.
But I wouldn’t expect widespread acceptance of that philosophy by the population as a whole in the US, certainly.
I’ve got a cite for a judge who strongly believes in not judging people:
http://www.spiritualityandcommunity.com/magazine/iss0107/judgenot.pdf
[pdf warning]
He’s retired now, but I knew him when he was on the bench, and that element of his philosophy has not changed.
As to the OP’s question, I’m with the ‘telling him to get right with God’ crowd. I suspect the only GQ way to answer this would be to dig up record of a conversation on the topic that someone had with the judge. Unfortunately, most judges tend not to have those discussions…
Need a judge say more?
Maybe he recently saw the trailer to Shocker, and wanted to make sure that Bundy knew the judge wasn’t condemning him because he wanted to.
See, this is the kind of fair, unbiased pronouncements we look for from our leading jurists.
Every judge is a lawyer who got ambitious.
Well since we are speculating …. if you have ever been a jury member in a Trial for a serious crime you probably had the guy who said this:
*Look I know we see by the preponderance of the evidence he did this, I know what we swore to do, but this is more responsibility than I want … we are potentially sentencing him to Death, Life, 40 years etc. can we run the evidence again?
*
Sometimes there are tears from jurors, even when they agree evidence shows guy is clearly a kidnapper or killer or whatever – when you come to the conclusion.
I think you are reading a judge who is delivering the Death Penalty as his legal judgment deems appropriate but he takes it (suitably) very seriously and as a human he isn’t entirely comfortable with it (or more likely isn’t relishing & delighting in being the one to actually do it).
For me, the disconnect really is in the “take care of yourself,” as if he has any time to take care of himself. Like, “You better straighten up and fly right, or else something bad might happen to you one of these days!”
Um, you just sentenced him to death, judge. something bad IS going to happen to him. Your warnings are too late.
Of course, the judge also probably knew how LONG it would take to carry out a death sentence–around 10 years. So that’s a good piece of your life to do SOMETHING with, whether it’s in prison or not.
Ted Bundy did show a very nice, personable face to the public. He was very nice to people he knew. Only once during his trial did he get angry, and the change that came over him was unbelievable.
Read Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me for details.
:D:D:D
That’s a screen spatterer!
That’s my take on it. I’m an advocate of the death penalty but I would never be happy about convicting someone to death. I doubt that the judge was delighted with the sentence, and in some respects, he could evenrespect Bundy’s knowledge and ability in a courtroom.
Absolutely awesome book. Rule has parlayed being a personal acquaintance of Bundy’s into quite a career. More power to her.