Comments on: Our children as killers

By: Jack Hartleb

Jack Hartleb — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:01:21 +0000

Regarding you coverage of a Black lab retriever being resquied from freezing water. It’s troubling thst your “news men” are commenting on world news and yet they have no idea what they are talking about labs being killers. Is this how they handle the rest of the news. No wonder people watch other news services!

By: TEO NIZZI

TEO NIZZI — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:12:30 +0000

Ciao Gerry i write from italy. it is from ten years that i would thank you for the book you write “H0w to argue and win every time. From time to time I read some phrases of you r your book and ypu are right.. I became a commercial of a bank, also for your words…. I have to thank you a lot… the courses of became commercial had nothing meaned to me…. i learned from your phrases more than that courses…. Thank you a lot Mr Gerry You are the best………

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:46:29 +0000

Gerry,
As usual, your moves are brilliant! Your blog is the great idea. If I were to become a lawyer, you would be my buddha.
In Light,
Linda (that woman in California you told Randy to put on the back burner).

By: Cliff Harrison

Cliff Harrison — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:10:22 +0000

Gerry, as a Christian, I oppose the death penalty. Almost all of my Christian friends support the death penalty. I secretly ask myself how they can call themselves Christians and still believe in the death penalty?

It is, as you say, a motivation for revenge. Vengeance is an attribute of hate. The Bible tells us that if we are angry with our brothers, we are murderers.

It utterly amazes me how liberals oppose the death penalty, yet support abortions. And, how conservatives oppose abortions, yet support the death penalty. Killing in any form is wrong, and in my heart, non-Christian.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, and killing killers only makes us killers. Life without the possibility of parole is the only sentence which can bring true justice for a victim without reprisal being factored into the sentence.

When I was in my 20s, I opposed the death penalty. During my 30s, I supported it; mostly because of the large number of cases I heard of and learned of, with victims so brutally murdered. Then in my 40s and 50s, I opposed it again. Why? Because I had grown as a Christian and better understood God.

John 15:12-14 is all one needs to read in the Bible to know how Jesus wants us to decide the death penalty issue, or any other issue regarding hate or love or how we treat others.

Cliff

By: gerryspence

gerryspence — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:54:29 +0000

David:

Your argument is well said and well thought out. I applaud it and thank you.

Gerry

By: David Beauvais

David Beauvais — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:23:05 +0000

Gerry is right when he says the death penalty diminshes all of us.

I can come up with dozens of reasons why DP is bad public policy: the cost, the possibility of killing the innocent, the cruelty of telling a person the exact date and time of their death, a curse not imposed on the murderer’s own victims, the psychological violence of interminable delays and stays through an uncertain court process and many others. But the moral argument is the most persuasive.

By condoning state-sanctioned killing, we legitimize killing for the right reasons to punish people who kill for the wrong reasons. But most people are skillful at rationalizing their bad deeds and this includes the state. The hypocracy of state killing leads to moral ambiguity because it mutes the message that killing is wrong, and in some instances promotes the very thing that the state killing machine is supposedly designed to discourage.

I don’t agree that killers seek out non-DP jurisdictions to commit their crimes. This idea ascribes too much rational thought to people who are uncommonly immature, impulsive and unconcerned with consequences. Most murderers probably didn’t know they were going to kill when they woke up that morning. Then there are others who are arrogant enough to think they won’t be caught, the sociopath with a 140 IQ.

Given all of this, it should be clear that the death penalty does not deter murder. And an argument can be made that it has the opposite effect. I thought of this when I read a story out of Georgia a few years ago where a guy opened fire randomly on customers in a Walmart parking lot and managed to kill a few. When asked why he did that, he said he wanted to die but lacked the courage to commit suicide and figured he could get the state to kill him. I wonder how many people commit murder with that conscious purpose or subconsciously seek to get the state to kill them too.

By: gerryspence

gerryspence — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:15:31 +0000

Well said, again, El Guapo.

Gerry

By: El Guapo

El Guapo — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:36:50 +0000

As a 3L who has worked at a capital litigation firm, my problem is not with the death penalty, but the prevalence of the death penalty. In an elected judiciary–like the one in my state–judges and prosecutors retain their jobs by being “hard on crime.” Because of that, they seek the death penalty in too many murder cases and the law evolves in an ad hoc manner in order to uphold the death penalty imposed by the jury seeking revenge. This system allows at best a conflict of interest and at worst state sanctioned murder.

By: Randy

Randy — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:10:02 +0000

Kozinski is a Jewish guy, who told you we, as a Nation, are not obliged to make a suicide pack, with ourself.
You defend people who kills others, is that not glorifing their death instincts ?
Does not one faced with one who wants to kill him(her) have a duty to life, to protect life, even if the choices are not so nice, you call that self defense, don’t you, when you opt to ?
Some, call those Christains , who fought Hilter’s machine saviors, but then others call them just people led by Hitler’s Pope, American Christians.
You must feel quite smug, never having worn the uniform of a U S military man, in some front lines, with hard choices.
How wonderful that all your freedoms of expression are so protected, that you can tell us we are nothing but slaves, and perhaps lay it at the door of some Church(or if not that, the insane).
But, then the biggest opponent of the death penality are some priests.(yes, the Churches)
Most people respect life, treasury it, and aspects of civilization, however, how can you say that a supporter of the death penality, a fellow like Alex Kozinski, is not honoring life, by seeking to protect it against barbarians, who would have no hesitation to remove many lives in a community.
Many regret that mass murderer Tim McVeigh’s life was cut short, not because he is devoid of being a swell fellow, but because it was never fully known why he brutally—in cold blood— killed small kids(infants) in a day care center, and about 160 people in OKC..
He just calls them(that incident) collateral damage, a clear disrespect for life, & civilzation.
You apparently felt your life was in danger,(once) and made an exception for the dead panality(imposing it)–as so noted in your pleas in Wyo.
So, why is you life any more precious than others who may be put in harms way by cold blooded killers who are prone to harm others ?
You say an eye for an eye, if, however, it was your eye that was first, then are you still for skipping the penality that society imposes on cold blooded killers who have a fundamental disrespect for life ?
Sometimes life of a society is put in situations to defend life by actions to protect it.
Isn’t that honoring life ?
Where do you really—deep down– come down on life(at the dawn), is a death sentence through abortion, something you are against, or is that something, that fits into some other category, with some other set of slogans, maybe to then castigate those you call some church members, or some religious members, and ascribe barbaric code words, to then, & put that under you poetic love.
Yes, life is precious, it should not be wasted by allowing those who would snuff it out to turn society into a jungle. Mercy is reserved, most often to the barbaric, but do not some cheapen life by honoring cold blooded killers, when mercy is not warranted, as determine by that jury, you so say has such wisdom. Kozinski is not disrespecful of life, is he, do you think your respect for life is more than his, because you align with cold blooder killers, who have been convicted, all be in a cell ?
Of course, this is all in the framework of the example of Tim McVeigh, his act of war, and when deaths happen in acts of war on society, why do some want to delude themsleves to put some other gloss on it, that is always most curious, isn’t it ?

By: gerryspence

gerryspence — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:40:00 +0000

Thanks for the telling facts, Tony.

Proponents support the death penalty because, although we are supposedly a Christian nation, we have been nurtured on “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” Old Testament article of faith. The same does not prevent murder. It never has — not from the beginning. But the need for vengeance and our fear of our own species has persisted in history like an eternal pestilence.

Gerry