I’m opening this in the Pit because I think it’s going to end up here anyway.
A local man was sentenced to death yesterday evening for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
I’m not sure how I think about this, to be honest. There are a whole lot of people running around this world with zero consequences for doing the exact same thing. On the other hand, shouldn’t these bastards learn what it’s really like to suffer?
No obligatory goat-felching, I’m just really disturbed. I want to see the guy fry on one hand, and yet on the other I don’t. What do you guys think?
Being that I am against the death penalty, I find it disturbing that it is being used for more offenses than it previously was. I sense a slippery slope.
One of the arguments against capital punishment for non-capital crimes is that there is no incentive for the perp to keep the victim alive. Whether or not, of course, the perp is thinking about his eventual conviction/sentencing when he’s committing the crime is debatable, however. I myself am against the death penalty, and this seems a troubling development.
I spent years not telling because I was told i would destroy the family if I did. My father made any negitive concequences to the family for his actions my fault. I spent the years from the time I was 12 till he died when I was 15 trying to figure out how to comit suicide if I got pregnant. The only reason I didn’t otherwise was because I believed it was my job to protect my sisters. I honestly hope there is a hell and he is burning there.
I understand the jury’s desire to punish this guy. I hear of these cases and everything in me wants to have these people strung up by their genitals and pecked there by Prometheus’ mythical eagle for all time. I think that in giving in to that desire to punish to the degree he deserves they are condemning thousands of children to hell. It is hard enough being told you will be responsible for your family desending to poverty, breaking your mother’s heart and destroying the family, without being told you will be responsible for a parent’s life. As much as no child deserves to be abused they desperately need not to be raped a second time by the trial system.
I’d have no problem with the killing of a pedophile in order to prevent the rape of a child. I would, however, as the member of a jury have a hard time sentencing him to death in lieu of life imprisonment.
This coming from a dad, make no mistake that I find this behavious the vilest on Earth, it’s just that I think it’s a sickness and while it disgusts me to no end, I couldn’t kill someone as punishment for it.
No, I will unremittingly say that I am against this. I support the death penalty for first-degree murder and owning a Britney Spears CD, but… well, as detestable as child rape may be, as deplorable it may be, it’s not deserving of execution. Throw the fucker in jail for forty years… afterwards, if he’s still alive, his dilated shit-smooth ass will make him think twice, thrice, and one time more before he even tosses a stray gaze in the general direction of another kid.
According to the article, it may not have been his first time. I’d have trouble (and I hope most juries would, too) applying the death penalty for a first time offense.
Multiple offenses, however? I’m not so sure I’d have trouble voting for the death penalty.
I’d have to hear more information regarding the crime before I could definitely support or oppose the sentence. I did a search for more information on the case, but found nothing more substantive than a description of the rape as ‘brutal’.
If anyone raped an 8 year old child, I will volunteer to pull the switch for free. I will cut his balls off and stick them in his mouth before I pull the switch. That’s a fact.
Too quick and easy, for one thing. I’d just stick him in prison, life sentence, no hope of parole, and then spread the word on what he is and what he done.
As usual, people are leaving the child out of their answers. Leave off what your reactions would be and pay attention to the child. There is a reason she made up a story about who hurt her.
I believe the indictment read The State of Louisiana v “The Defendant”. The jury “put him down” to protect society as a whole. Good on them for having the courage of their convictions.
This is a difficult one for me. It’s a subject that’s unfortunately very close to my heart. And I’m torn.
Do I hate the person who did this to me? You bet. I hate him with all my heart. I’m not a hateful person, but I’ve hated him since I was 7 years old. I hate him with a white-hot burning passion that I’ve never felt for anything or anyone. I’ve often thought if I were to see him in the street one day when I was in my car, I’d try to hit him. It’s not rational, but neither is what he did to me.
But should this be given the death penalty? The heart is saying “Kill the bastards”, but my head is saying the punishment is too harsh. And then I look at how much my relationships, sex life, and intimacy issues suffered over the past 20 years and I wonder if the punishment is harsh enough.
The fact of the matter is that unless it’s happened to you, you don’t know what it’s like to want them dead. You can imagine and you can think you know, but you don’t.
I’m glad I’m not the one making the decision. Because I don’t know what I’d decide in this case. I know how that little girl feels, and for me, that would be enough to kill him myself.
I think furlibusea makes an excellent point. As much as one might want an ‘evil’ person in society to die/fry/suffer eternal torment, how hard must it be for a child already to tell someone what is going on, let alone if it means she is going to send that person to his death.
I wholeheartedly believe that there exist some people that just don’t deserve to live, and that allowing such people to go on living is decidedly contrary to the best interests of society. Methinks that the case in the OP is one of the most clearcut examples of this.
If you had asked me before my children were born, I might have leaned towards life in prison over death. I did not believe in the death penalty before they were born.
Now that I’m a parent, I can’t be objective. I know that if he/she had raped my child, in my heart, I’d want to I’d kill the rapist myself.
“A man who was convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter was sentenced to death Tuesday evening.
The man, whose identity was not released in order to protect the victim, was convicted Monday of aggravated rape for an attack that occurred five years ago”
So, is the girl 8 now and was three when the attack occured? Or was she 8 when the attack occured and she is now13?