Um – Mr. Beazley is over 18 now. As I understand it - and please correct me if I’m wrong – the CORC does not forbid executing people for crimes committed when they are under 18.
In any event, I agree that the death penalty should be abolished. Although I cannot objectively prove it, I am convinced that every human life is sacred, even if the human in question has killed others. While I would certainly support killing A to stop his imminent kiiling of B, once B is dead, I think society is served simply by locking A up so he can’t commit any further homicides.
Specifically, Mr. Beazley’s appeal not only addresses his age (a losing argument in Texas, in my view), but also the inadequacy of his first appellate counsel, who has submitted an affadavit admitting that this was his first capital case, and that he failed to investigate the case as thoroughly as he should.
This info comes via ABC News, not reading the filing. Hopefully, the actual filing also identifies a specific result of that failure to investigate; a mere admission that performance was deficient does not entitle the defendant to a new trial or sentencing unless he can show that, but for the deficiency, the original results would likely have been different.
It isn’t in front of me so I don’t know the wording, but… come ON, what a cop out. That leads to “Well, he’s 13, so we won’t execute him… we’ll lock him up for five years and THEN execute him!”
RickJay, Beazely committed the crime 5 months shy of his 18th birthday. Why would he have not been eligible for the death penalty at that age and then become elgible for it less than six months later? I can buy that a child younger than 14 or so may not fully understand the consequence of his/her actions, but once you start to hit 15 or so you know what society expects of you as a citizen and you know that murder is one of the big no-nos of life and that the consequences to yourself can be dire.
MGibson our difference of opinion is why lawyers get to ask questions prior to the trial. We’d probably both be on someone’s 'don’t want 'em" list. It sounds like our disagreement is not so much about the guilt as the appropriate punishment. It would be an interesting jury room, and frankly it wouldn’t take much to push me into the death penalty camp in most cases. I used to be pretty consistently pro-death penalty in all cases, but I guess I have gotten wimpy as I got older.
I’m only marginally pro death penalty. I do think certain people deserve to die but I’m concerned about executing an innocent person. I wouldn’t cry a river of tears if we ended the death penalty provided there was life without any chance of parole. That means if the guy lives to be 100 and can’t possible harm anyone he will still stay in prison.
If I was a juror and the defense provided me with a legitimate mitigating factor I could very well vote life instead of death. I just don’t consider the fact that a victim resisted to be a legitimate mitigating factor.
So, it seems that the international community doesn’t think we’re breaking our woed, while they do likely what we’re up to, not having a good excuse like the absence of a government.
Why would I? The fact that life in prison is a “hellish nightmare” is well documented. Even children as young as junior high age have seen enough commentary on the brutalities or prison life that it gets mentioned in their drug awareness essays. I’m not sure why you felt this little bit of sarcasm was necessary. I’ve not violated any of the laws of my community which would require separation from the community and loss of my personal freedoms. If you mean to imply that I am unaware as to the brutalities of prison life you are wrong. I’ll not further hijack kneekettle’s post to explain. I already clarified my intent with MEBuckner and I’ll repeat it here since apparently you only read part of my post.
I stand by my original comment and the follow up post.
Hitler
Pol Pot
Nicholae Ceaucescu
Timothy McVeigh
Richard Speck
The Unibomber
Lawrence Brewer (killer of James Byrd)
Napoleon Beazley
Are there people on the list who have done such horrible deeds that they should be regarded as a monsters rather than a human beings? If so, does NB’s unprovoked murder of Mr. Luttig and attempted murder of Mrs. Luttig qualify?
december:Are there people on the list who have done such horrible deeds that they should be regarded as a monsters rather than a human beings [sic]?
What would be the point of that? All the people on your list fit pretty much any generally recognized definition of “human being”. Sometimes human beings commit monstrous crimes. I see no point in trying to establish a new ethical/anthropological classification of “monster” to further complicate the problem of human evil.
Sorry, I seem to have assumed that the point would communicate itself without any effort from me.
My point is that it’s approprate and moral to eradicate a monster. So, e.g., it was natural and proper that Roumanian citizens killed Ceaucescu after he was finally overthrown. If one puts NB in the same category, then the propriety of executing him is obvious.
However, I’m not sure that NB’s evil actually reaches that high a standard. I merely raise the question.
I don’t think most people who support the death penalty do so because they think the people they are executing are “monsters,” as in some non-human thing.s As a person who supports the death penalty in theory though not in execution (ha), I can see how calling people “monsters” would make it easier to kill them – that’s why I think it’s a cop-out.
My O, FWIW, is that if the death penalty is acceptable (and we’re not really going to rehash that again, are we?), then there is no reason not to put this guy to death. There appears to be no indication that he didn’t know what he was doing at the time of the crime, no indication that he didn’t intend to do exactly what he did. I think I would agree that there is an age below which the death penalty should not be imposed, even if the crime was done intentionally and with full knowledge of the consequences. But I’m thinking 15 or 16, not 17 and a half.
I also think that when you follow a man into his garage and shoot them in the head, you take your chances that his son is going to be a federal judge. Or the chief of police the governor or whatever. Perhaps that’s another reason not to go around shooting people in the head.
december:My point is that it’s approprate and moral to eradicate a monster.
That sounds as though you simply came up with the category “monster” in order to define away any ethical problems with capital punishment: “well, if someone is a monster, then by definition it’s appropriate and moral and natural and proper to eradicate him/her!” Sorry, I still don’t believe it’s valid to put certain human beings into a separate category like that for the sole purpose of defining their human rights out of existence. (You might want to take into account the fact that some medieval communities considered that Jews, for example, were naturally degenerate and/or inhuman monsters who had no natural claim to humane treatment. I really don’t think we want to try to revive that sort of classification, even with the best intentions to keep our categories defined according to deliberate criminal actions rather than according to, say, religion or race.)
And trying to validate this line of reasoning by appealing to the plots of horror movies is more funny than persuasive, I’m afraid. I don’t think your Ceauscescu example really cuts much more ice: executions of criminals and assassinations of leaders are matters of established law, not of idiosyncratic moral perceptions of “monsterhood”. Admittedly, passionate and widespread moral perceptions can and do change the ways established law is enforced, but that’s not a good reason to try to make a concept as vague and arbitrary as “monsterhood” a legitimate part of the criminal justice system.
Good point, but, in a way, it’s begging the question. Note that a pro-lifer could argue that killing fetuses is wrong because it’s like killing Jews. You and I would respond, “But, fetuses aren’t people.” See the circularity.
Try this question: Why should the evil Pol Pot have a greater right to remain alive than some innocent fetus? As a matter of pure philosophy, I have difficulty coming up with a good answer.
How about abolishing the execution of fetuses, but permitting life inprisonment? (Sorry, it’s Friday afternoon, and I’m feeling a bit silly.)
december:Try this question: Why should the evil Pol Pot have a greater right to remain alive than some innocent fetus?
It’s all a matter of your initial assumptions. If you are strictly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances but do not believe that a fetus is a human being, then it’s clear that Pol Pot, whatever his crimes, has a human right to stay alive that the fetus does not have. If you have different assumptions, you’ll come up with a different answer. In either case, you don’t have to invoke an artificial category of “monster” to get a satisfactory answer to the question, and invoking such a category won’t resolve the differences in the opinions of people who have fundamentally different assumptions.
(And no, andros, I don’t think december is actually trying to turn this into an abortion debate—AFAIK he’s a pro-choicer. IMHO it was just an attempt—although IMHO a failed attempt—to justify the moral category of “monsterhood” by illustrating how morally fuzzy these issues are without it. No argument there, I just think they would remain equally fuzzy with it, if not more so.)