Sometimes ...

[Hawkmoon]

... I forget idealistic notions of abolishing the death penalty because of the possibility that the occasional innocent might be executed in error. It's cases such as this one that make me think that I really don't see any reason in the universe why society should be feeding, clothing, and caring for animals such as these for the next 50 to 70 years:

http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7406&eeid=6770085&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+ne+topnews&ck=

Men convicted in Fla. home invasion gang rape

Published: 8/28/09, 7:29 PM EDT
By BRIAN SKOLOFF

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Two men were convicted Friday in the brutal gang rape attack on a woman and her young son in a South Florida housing project and could be sentenced to life in prison.

Tommy Poindexter, 20, and Nathan Walker, 18, were tried together but with separate juries. Poindexter's panel found him guilty of rape, kidnapping, assault and burglary. Walker's jury returned less than two hours later, also convicting him on similar charges.

Poindexter now faces eight life sentences. Walker could be sentenced to 11 life terms.

A third defendant, Avion Lawson, 16, pleaded guilty and testified against Poindexter and Walker. A fourth defendant, 17-year-old Jakaris Taylor, is set for trial next month.

The defendants made limited admissions to the attack, but also tried to deflect blame. Lawson claims he raped the woman once, then left soon after. Poindexter's attorney says her client raped the woman, but didn't participate in any other crimes. Walker's attorney didn't acknowledge any guilt.

They were all teens at the time of crime, but were charged as adults.

Authorities say fingerprints and DNA found on clothing and condoms inside the apartment identified the defendants. They are still seeking additional suspects.

Poindexter showed little emotion as the verdict was read, occasionally bowing his head and resting his chin on his clasped hands. Deputies say he asked to be handcuffed during the reading because he wasn't sure he could control himself.

He looked over his shoulder as he was led out of the courtroom and mouthed, "I love you," to family members in the gallery. They cried and quickly left the courtroom, shouting obscenities as they walked from the building.

Walker didn't show much emotion, either, staring straight ahead as the verdicts were read.

Attorneys for both men declined to comment until after sentencing on Oct. 13.

Poindexter was convicted on eight of 13 counts. The jury found him not guilty on several counts related to the suspects having forced the mother to perform oral sex on her son. Walker was convicted on 11 of 14 counts, and his jury did find him guilty in the mother-son sex acts.

During the trial, prosecutors told jurors that it didn't matter how many of the crimes each defendant actually participated in - they were all equally responsible for the entire episode since they were present inside the apartment.

Earlier in the week, the 37-year-old female victim described for jurors the terrifying night of June 18, 2007, in her public housing complex apartment a few miles from downtown West Palm Beach.

She recounted how she prayed for her life and cried in pain as she was repeatedly raped and her son beaten by 10 masked, gun-toting teens. Then she testified about being forced to perform oral sex on her son, who was 12 at the time. The victims were then doused with chemicals in an attempt to clean the crime scene.

Throughout the attack, the suspects demanded money, but she had none. The victims had fled even worse poverty in their native Haiti several years earlier, landing in the crime-plagued Dunbar Village housing complex where the attack occurred.

[Declaration Day]

I do believe in the death penalty, in cases where evidence / confession is irrefutable.   In the case of these defendants, I think it is justified; a person who is capable of such a heinous crime is beyond rehabilitation.

[taurusowner]

Every time I read a story about someone kidnapping a child or keeping their own child locked up for years as a sex slave, and one of those stories seems to come out every few months, I wonder how anyone can be opposed to executing them.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

guys like this i'd be willing to give em the shot myself

[Standing Wolf]

It's cases such as this one that make me think that I really don't see any reason in the universe why society should be feeding, clothing, and caring for animals such as these for the next 50 to 70 years...

Especially since it costs more to keep a man in prison for a year than it would to send a deserving young person to virtually any college in the country.

[roo_ster]

Especially since it costs more to keep a man in prison for a year than it would to send a deserving young person to virtually any college in the country.

Not if Joe Arpaio was running the prison.  Tents, balogna, pink clothing FTW.

[RevDisk]

So Poindexter admits to committing rape, and his family gets upset, leaves and starts cursing enough to warrant a mention in the article?  I'd like to have enough faith in humanity that they are cursing the defendant, vowing that they wish to slam the needle in his arm themself.  I somehow doubt it... 

Criminals rarely spring out a vacuum.  Not saying that every bad kid had bad family, but I have noticed a strong correlation. 

If it was my family member and the dude admitted to the crime, I'd volunteer to testify for the victim to support the death penalty. 

[PTK]

I have a strong suspicion that if any of them do not serve long prison sentences, they will not be among the living very long once released.

[Hawkmoon]

I have a strong suspicion that if any of them do not serve long prison sentences, they will not be among the living very long once released.

With 8 or 11 life sentences, you might think they won't ever see the outside again. But the courts have a disturbing tendency to impose multiple sentences so they run concurrently rather than consecutively. I see no point in that. What good is 500 concurrent life sentences if they all allow the punk to be paroled after 20 years?

[PTK]

Exactly my thinking.

[Balog]

Something is deeply, deeply wrong with a society that won't exterminate vermin like this.

[vaskidmark]

Something is deeply, deeply wrong with a society that won't exterminate vermin like this.

On the other hand, it is less costly to simply incarcerate someone than it is to execute them, and executing them often takes just as long as a "life" sentence.  I do not think for a moment the jury was thinking about this when it handed down the verdicts.

stay safe.

skidmark

[Balog]

On the other hand, it is less costly to simply incarcerate someone than it is to execute them, and executing them often takes just as long as a "life" sentence.  I do not think for a moment the jury was thinking about this when it handed down the verdicts.

stay safe.

skidmark

That's also a problem. Doesn't change my position.

[MillCreek]

On the other hand, it is less costly to simply incarcerate someone than it is to execute them, and executing them often takes just as long as a "life" sentence.  I do not think for a moment the jury was thinking about this when it handed down the verdicts.

stay safe.

skidmark

I recall us discussing this very point several months ago when a study was released showing it is more expensive to execute someone than to keep them in prison for life.  Several states have cited the cost as one of the rationales to discontinue the death penalty. 

[RaspberrySurprise]

I wonder how much of this cost is due to government inefficiency and if there are ways it could be reduced while still keeping the system fair.

[vaskidmark]

I wonder how much of this cost is due to government inefficiency and if there are ways it could be reduced while still keeping the system fair.

Unless you consider SCOTUS decisions government inefficiency, there is really little that can be done to reduce the time from sentencing to carrying out the execution.  To make matters worse, SCOTUS has come within the proverbial red hair's breadth of hearing an appeal based on the time between sentencing and execution creating a "cruel and unusual" condition.  Thank $diety that they decided that because it was happening more often than not it could not be considered unusual.

I do not recall any opinions from SCOTUS regarding consecutive multiple life sentences, but I've not been following that area since retirement.

In my unhumble professional opinion (and I am admitted to the Supreme Court of Virginia, both the Eastern and Western US District Courts for Virginia and the 4th US Circuit Court as an expert witness on corrections management - just so you know several folks thought I knew what I was talking about) the death penalty should be carried out in no more than 60 calendar days from the date of sentencing, and should be both open to public viewing and available for viewing on either on post-prime time commercial or cable public access channels if it is to have any social deterrent effect.  Beyond that time period it serves no purpose but to ensure the convicted person is completely and utterly incapacitated from ever commiting a crime again.

So there are the two sides of the question of incarceration and the death penalty - deterrance (pretty much an abject failure) or incapacitation (pretty pricey but effectiveness increases the longer criminals remain locked up).

As for our choir members?  There does not seem to be much suggesting habilitation in their past, so rehabilitation looks not to be an achievable goal.  There does not seem to be a mental health problem that could be treated into remission if not an outright cure.  Assasination in the name of society (as some choose to describe capital punishment) has a low benefit to cost ratio.  That pretty much leaves general population starting in a maximum security setting and reduction to medium security level when they get to be about 40 or 45, and then to minimum security after they hit retirement age.  Maybe by then we could let them out on supervised community service work gangs - like picking up litter on the highway or painting the insides of schools during summer vacation.

stay safe.

skidmark

[S. Williamson]

Why is it that the punishment no longer fits the crime?   

Shoot someone and they die, get shot by the same caliber in the same place.
Starve someone to death, no food for the rest of your life.
Inject someone with sodium thiopental, pancuronium, and potassium chloride (in that order), then, and only then, do you receive lethal injection.

[RaspberrySurprise]

In my unhumble professional opinion (and I am admitted to the Supreme Court of Virginia, both the Eastern and Western US District Courts for Virginia and the 4th US Circuit Court as an expert witness on corrections management - just so you know several folks thought I knew what I was talking about) the death penalty should be carried out in no more than 60 calendar days from the date of sentencing, and should be both open to public viewing and available for viewing on either on post-prime time commercial or cable public access channels if it is to have any social deterrent effect.  Beyond that time period it serves no purpose but to ensure the convicted person is completely and utterly incapacitated from ever commiting a crime again.

I'd be more inclined to say a year is a better time limit. The biggest thing I have against the death penalty is that I don't trust the gummint to not screw things up and end up axing the wrong person.

Why is it that the punishment no longer fits the crime?

Part of being civilized is being better than the criminal scum you are punishing. There's nothing wrong with hanging, firing squad, or lethal injection. Doing something that, in essence, is little better than torture before killing them cheapens us as a whole.

[Antibubba]

Most of you have probably heard about the girl in California who has turned up alive 18 years after being abducted.  I don't want to discuss it here, but how can anyone be adequately punished for something like that??  Outside of the fantasy punishments* we often banter about, how can we as a society or individuals possibly return in kind the kind of pain and horror the criminal brought upon his victim? 

We can't, not without perverting ourselves.  Which is is why a sane society metes punishment, not vengeance.  The Nuremberg Trials held the Nazi leaders up to to the light and showed the world the only civilized response we could have made upon uncovering monstrous evil.  Trial, verdict, punishment.  Should anyone care to, the Wiki entry about "Spandau Prison" is illustrative.




*And think about what that says about us...




 

[vaskidmark]

Most of you have probably heard about the girl in California who has turned up alive 18 years after being abducted.  I don't want to discuss it here, but how can anyone be adequately punished for something like that??  Outside of the fantasy punishments* we often banter about, how can we as a society or individuals possibly return in kind the kind of pain and horror the criminal brought upon his victim? 

We can't, not without perverting ourselves.  Which is is why a sane society metes punishment, not vengeance.  The Nuremberg Trials held the Nazi leaders up to to the light and showed the world the only civilized response we could have made upon uncovering monstrous evil.  Trial, verdict, punishment.  Should anyone care to, the Wiki entry about "Spandau Prison" is illustrative.


*And think about what that says about us...

Thank you for repeating the truth.

stay safe.

skidmark

[Gowen]

The expense to execute someone is ridiculous.  125 years ago, they tried them, they convicted them and they hung them with a reusable rope. 

[taurusowner]

It's only expensive because we choose to make it expensive. 

[Hawkmoon]

That's also a problem. Doesn't change my position.

Agreed.

I read today that the creep who kidnapped that girl in California 18 years ago (the one who just turned up alive) had previously been sentenced to a 50-year term and a life term for a previous kidnapping and rape -- yet he was out on parole when he kidnapped this girl (who is now a 29-year old woman). He is 58 now, so he was 40 when he grabbed her. The other sentences were, I believe, when he was 25. So having been sentenced to life for one charge and 50 years for another, he was out on the streets within 15 years to find another victim.

I can't find words adequate to express my disdain for a system of criminal "justice" that could allow this to take place.

[GigaBuist]

The biggest thing I have against the death penalty is that I don't trust the gummint to not screw things up and end up axing the wrong person.

I feel the same way but I'm not against the death penalty entirely.  I just want it done differently.  If somebody gets set to die then another person should be responsible if they are later found innocent.  That could be either the prosecutor or the judge presiding over the case.  After talking it over with my father I think it should be the prosecutor but I'd also be willing to let ANYBODY step up to the plate and hold the baggage if they really wanted to push for the death penalty.

[Viking]

With 8 or 11 life sentences, you might think they won't ever see the outside again. But the courts have a disturbing tendency to impose multiple sentences so they run concurrently rather than consecutively. I see no point in that. What good is 500 concurrent life sentences if they all allow the punk to be paroled after 20 years?

You mean like that guy in California who only served 11 years out of a 50 year sentence? And then he went on and did...exactly what he did to warrant the first sentence? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!