Actually, civilized countries (like modern Germany) attempt to rehabilitate prisoners with an eye toward releasing them some day. Even murderers.
I’m of two minds here. I see their point, but I would have a problem ever releasing someone like the two Petit killers who committed their heinous crimes here in Connecticut nearly 20 years ago. And if anyone was ever deserving of execution, it would be these two.
I don’t think they have to release someone who they think is still dangerous.
No, of course not. That’s why the percentage released in the quote above is 75% and not 100%. But they still attempt to rehabilitate all prisoners with an eye toward possible release someday.
It is extremely condescending to claim that someone who forms an opinion that differs from yours is brainwashed by someone else (with the implication that you, in contrast, have reached your conclusion through rational consideration). What you have just written can be accurately summarized as “Wake up, sheeple!”.
I had a similar reaction to that post. I grew up in the same society and i don’t feel like i need blood for justice. I don’t see any reason to assume that the family of the victim does, either.
To the point about closure, although the offense is said to be against the state, this is just how it has to be in order for victims to get justice without devolving into a society of vigilantism. For various reasons it’s both convenient and important to refer to “the state” as its own entity with interests that supersede and outlive the individual, but ultimately it derives its legitimacy from its ability to serve the needs of the people, i.e. dispense justice.
If the people want retributive justice, then the state loses its legitimacy among its constituents if it doesn’t deliver that. And whether we admit it or not, whether we express it this way or not, large segments of the public understand justice to be partially retributive in character. There’s no real restitution for the taking of a loved one’s life. Some people are too depraved to rehabilitate. In those cases the only satisfaction of justice is retributive. They must pay. Maybe they can’t repay me, maybe they can’t repay the state, but all the same, they must pay.
If this is what the people want (and it seems that more people want this than anyone’s comfortable admitting), and the state doesn’t deliver it, then the state loses its legitimacy as a dispenser of justice, which is a load-bearing pillar of the state’s whole legitimacy. So while the individual need for restitution or retribution gets subsumed into the interests of the state, it very does much matter.
I’m going to add some perspective from the victim’s survivor’s side. For background, my brother and his best friend were kidnapped, stuffed into the trunk of the friend’s car, and driven around for hours. Eventually they were taken out of the trunk, beaten, then run over with the friend’s car and left for dead. The friend did die, but my brother survived.
Five young men (aged 17-22, IIRC) were arrested and convicted of a litany of charges. Their guilt was not in question - each of them implicated the others in their confessions and at their respective trials, and some implicated themselves, too. Of the five, I believe four are dead. All went to prison, where I think a couple of them died (don’t remember how). Two were released after serving their terms but their lives ended as a result of continuing to make bad decisions. One remains incarcerated, serving a life term but eligible for parole.
The local DA’s office kept my family updated on the convicts’ fates for probably 40 years, as things happened (ie releases, additional convictions, death). I think they still contact my mother every time the last one has a parole hearing.
In all that time, we have persevered. We went on to have typical lives. My brother still had nightmares for the rest of his life, but with time and therapy, they became less frequent and less upsetting. At first, I desperately wanted the DA to seek the death penalty. (They did not.) Even after convictions and sentences, I wanted them dead. Eventually I realized that my bloodlust was only hurting me. My preoccupation with their punishment made me less of a person than I wanted to be. I had to let go of my anger. Once I did that, I no longer ‘sought closure’. I had my closure: each of the perpetrators was arrested, tried, and convicted. I had to move on. So I did.
For me, closure didn’t come when I learned of each of their deaths. In fact, I felt sorrow for them for their wasted lives, the hurt they caused us and their own families, and for the friend’s mother who never, to her dying day, was able to grieve and move on. I did not dance on their graves. I had - and have - things that are more important to me.
(My experience and opinions only. I don’t pretend to think anybody else should react or behave as I did.)
Not an assumption, but I seriously wonder if a family’s beliefs about the inhumanity of the suspect and the urgent need to execute them is constantly reenforced by the police that arrested them and the prosecutors that try them. Far too often the need for a win on both their parts and the almost unique contact they have with the victim’s families can create a feedback loop.
There’s no conflict between a general philosophy of rehabilitation and limited sentences, which we have in Canada, too, and preventing someone from ever being released. In Canada, the latter is accomplished by declaring someone a “dangerous offender”, which is an extra hurdle the court must go through and which rarely happens, but once done it means normal rules don’t apply.
Exactly.
Death penalty cases come with tons of reviews and appeals, regurgitating all the facts, bringing back in the families, etc. If Christa Pike was just sentenced to life without parole, that would be the end of it. Instead, the wound is reopened over and over.
Thank you for sharing and I’m sorry to hear your brother and his friend went through that.
In my experience with grievances of any magnitude, closure is something you have to give yourself.
That, IMO, is the “TL;DR” of it all. Thank you.
Although I’m not in favor of the death penalty, I’ve just read the details of exactly how she tortured her victim. I have no sympathy for her.
It’s not a red herring when elected lawmakers, elected governors, and :cringe: elected judges pass laws, make clemency decisions, and pass sentence based on what they think will thrill or mortify voters more: state-sponsored vengeance or letting convicted murderers live out their lives at state expense.
The victim’s mother has been quite explicit. This isn’t the first article I read about her position, but it was the most explicit I could find off the cuff:
She has been very clear that, to her mind, justice for her and for her murdered daughter demands death for Christa Gail Pike.
See also:
Exactly.
Well, don’t they make sure to do an alcohol swab right before the lethal injection?
One cannot dismiss blood lust or assume how anyone will feel or react after their kid is murdered. One person may eventually move on, another may feel forever cheated that they could not enact bloody vengeance with their own two hands and a state execution where you get to watch them die is merely cheap consolation.
See? You just never know when a “patient” will survive her execution and when she does, you sure don’t want her needle hole infected… the state might get sued!
Me either, but it’s absurd for @SuntanLotion to assume that being opposed to the death penalty for murder, or objecting to unreliable and torturous execution methods, equates to considering murder “acceptable in society”. That’s bullshit. You can be unflinchingly opposed to murder but still not want murderers killed or tortured in the criminal justice system.
Not because you consider the murderer’s actions “acceptable”, but because you consider it wrong for non-murderers to deliberately inflict death or physical suffering on criminals, however heinous, who are no longer a direct danger to their fellow humans. No matter how much the heinous criminals may arguably have “deserved” such suffering and death.
The State wants to be totally certain that the only thing responsible for the death of the prisoner is The State.
I agree. I failed to make it clear that my statement intended only to share my lack of sympathy for Pike.