Well if my own two cents is worth anything I would like to say that when a murderer confesses and the law has undisputed truth that the person is actually the murderer, capitol punishment is befitting of the crime.
I do think they let these people off too easy, putting them to sleep and then killing them. I think their deaths should match their crimes.
Timothy McVeigh confessed with no remorse. He deserved worse than what he got.
He was not a lunatic, he was a
radical. I actually met him one night when he lived in Tucson. He was not a lunatic. He was, as many young middle class white men are, mad at a government that takes their hard earned wages and gives it to professional welfare families and prisoners to do with it the things they are denied in society without it.
To keep people like this in prison for the rest of their lives is just a drain on the rest of the country's pocketbook and morale.
We here in America pay taxes so that prisoners can get three square meals a day, college educations, have gyms, cable television and libraries. They live better than good moral people who struggle out among society just to get by.
Personally I have been laughed out of offices granting funding for an education beyond High School for being a middle class white girl...behind minorities, refugees, and prisoners, I am the last in line. Its wrong but I won't go around killing other people for it.
I paid for my own college education, struggling to raise a child and keep a roof over my head at the same time. It wasn't easy.
However, a criminal can, in prison, get an education, a college degree, and change their name before their release in order to start life among society anew. With their reccomendations, they can be (and have been) my bosses.
I think the judicial system should rethink what effects they are having on society as a whole when they put criminals in prison. and give them priveledges that they require us to pay for and then let these people out to have better lives than us.
I like the Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff's method...canvas tents and bologna sandwiches. People don't want to go back.
'nuff said for now.
Moni
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[This message has been edited by Moni (edited 06-11-2001).]