File under: Not one effing CLUE, he has not.

[lagilman]

from the AP wire:

"He made one mistake and now it's costing him his life," said Kenneth Smith, 35, who visited (death row prisoner Kenneth Lee Boyd) with his wife and two children. "A lot of people get a second chance. I think he deserves a second chance."


What was the Boyd's (Smith's father) 'mistake?'

Killing his estranged wife and father-in-law, while their two sons from that marriage were present (one pinned under his mother's body, the other trying to get the gun away from his father). He does not deny having committed the murders.




I hate people. I really do.

Comments

[rosefox]

I don't think he's suggesting letting him go free. I think he's suggesting commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment. Big difference.

[chaoticgoodnik.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong, but I read the post as "This is not the kind of thing it is appropriate to describe as a mistake," rather than, well, anything else.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it's the word choice. "Oops! Sorry, I seem to have inadvertently killed two people. It's okay, kids, accidents happen."

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

An Australian citizen was hanged in Singapore this morning. He was caught trying to smuggle heroin back to Australia. He said it was because his convicted drug running twin brother needed his help. The heroin found on him was enough to supply 26000 doses on the streets.

It's a horrible way to die, and I'm sad for his mother. But nobody can travel to Singapore and not notice the penalties for drug running. They don't keep their incredibly harsh penalty system a secret.

He knew he was committing a crime. He knew the penalty for that crime. He went ahead and did it anyway.

Explain to me how the Singapore government was unfair. He wouldn't be dead now if he hadn't smuggled heroin. And yet there were folk here calling for a minute's silence to honour the memory of this man. The dead drug dealer. Whose actions might well have led to more deaths from od's in his adopted country.

This wasn't an accident, and neither was the guy you're talking about. Where is the compassion for the victims? Why do people insist on wailing for the criminals?

[rantmaster.livejournal.com]

I too consider this a bad word choice. First degree murder is not a mistake. That's why it's first degree murder.

I'm not saying I'd be more forgiving if he did it in 'the heat of passion', or if it was accidental, rather than deliberate death. Choosing to be violent for any reason besides self-defense is the wrong choice.

[lagilman]

well, it was twofold. One, the utter effing cluelessness of describing premeditated double murder as a "mistake," yes.

And the other was the uter effing cluelessness and callousness of saying this guy deserves a second chance -- after he took away any chance two other people had.

Where is their second chance? Didn't they deserve one, too?

I've mixed feelings about the death penalty. But that wasn't what I was talking about, here.

[lagilman]

Wasn't actually referring to the sentence, but the total failure-of-empathy-or-cluefulness of the quote... (see below)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Because the criminals are around to stare into the camera with big puppy-dog eyes and quivering lips and raise their Bibles to say that they've Found Jeebus and will be good and nice people forever more, while their victims are too dead to rebut.

That's the snarky (and often true) answer to the quote above. Then there's the deeper question of the morality of the death penalty itself, which is a whole 'nother thing. (And its corollary tie to the abortion fight, which is yet another head on the hydra.)

[rosefox]

Perhaps the son was referring to getting caught, rather than the murders themselves....

[rosefox]

I don't see second chances as zero-sum. I feel that if anyone deserves a chance to atone for past errors in judgment, everyone does; and while there is no way to ensure that everyone gets that chance, the least we can do is, as a society, refrain from taking those opportunities away from people who would otherwise have them.

(Mind you, I really hate terms like "deserve" and "atone", but that's the language that's being spoken here.)

I agree that it was callous and clueless to say it the way he did, especially given that families and friends of the victims will likely read about it, but I don't disagree with the substance of what he said.

[debg.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, every word, including my mixed feelings on the death penalty. I've never been against it for the usual reasons; we're a species, and when a species hosts a rogue member in its midst, and that rogue becomes predatious of the species, it has to be dealt with. As a predator species ourselves, we can either drive the rogue out or kill it. The instinct in the end is protection of the whole. Where I do object to it on the bottom line is the panoply and smug saintliness of the rationale: "The Bible says...."

This guy had stalked his ex-wife. He'd sent one of their sons over to her house with a bullet and a threat. This was premeditated, he'd threatened it, he knew damned well there was a consequence.

Every action has a reaction. Every act has a consequence. He knew what the likely result of his act was, and he did it anyway.

"Mistake"? Um, yeah, right, sure. On what planet?

[deire.livejournal.com]

Sure he can have a second chance. Just as soon as his victims can. When he brings them back to life, we'll talk amnesty.

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

Which begs the question ... why are people so gullible? What need does this naievety feed?

Not that I don't think people can't turn their lives around. They can. But I get sick to death of hearing all the reasons and excuses. We've got 9 Australians looking at the death penalty for heroin smuggling in Indonesia. They got done after Schapelle Corby got done for weed -- and the media circus over that was huge. You'd have to be dead not to notice. Yet they were apprehended with the heroin sticky taped to their bodies. Kilos of the stuff. Street value in the millions.

Now they're trying to say they didn't know what it was.

There's a good chance they'll get shot on a beach at dawn. Or spend the rest of their lives in an Indonesian hell hole, with no chance of parole. While the Bali bombers get time off, but let's not go there.

And yet again, we have the handwringers complaining that this isn't fair.

They know they're committing a crime, they know the penalty, they do it anyway. And we have become so corrupt in our society that the idea of consequences is anathema. No wonder the Asians despise us as weak. We are weak. We let people get away with such crap. Spin any old line and you can get away with making money out of peddling stuff that kills people. And the arrogance that says, we'll come into your country, we'll knowingly and eagerly break your laws ... but don't you dare hold us accountable because we're Australian!

Makes me sick.

Maybe this time the message will get through.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Which begs the question ... why are people so gullible?

Do not start me. I live in a country where a very vocal, very powerful group equates Saddam with 9/11, big business with Jesus, and thinks pro-life isn't incmpatible with urging the death penalty for more and more people.

Why are they gullible? Because they don't want to think (or can't) and what they're told fits their prejudices. I don't know how many times people have proudly announced that they don't read, or that they hate all news but Fox because the stuff they don't want to know is "lies."

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

Well, on the whole I'm not terribly fond of abortion, and there are some instances where I support the death penalty. I don't think it's a cut and dried thing. I don't think you can say, if you're a supporter of one you can't do the other. The situations aren't the same. An unborn child is innocent of everything, full stop. Some criminals I believe have forfeited their rights to breathe. That's the theoretical position, anyway. Facts make things messy, I agree, but I do think it's a case of each situation on its merits, and no blanket rulings.

The whole Jesus and big business thing makes me angry, and it makes me laugh. Those folk are so wrong I sometimes wish I could be there to see their faces when they find out in person just how wrong they were ...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Oh, I support the death penalty. I also support choice, because it is the Mother who has to decide if the impact of pregnancy on her life is worth it.

I can also see the "child is innocent" argument, but when it's used here it's usually used as "All life is precious" and "Life is a beautiful choice" - which are pretty incompatible with "Gays should be executed" and "death row appeals should be limited" - sentiments which are usually also coming from the same group of people.

As for the other - I used to say that all I asked of Heaven was to see some people's faces on Judgement Day.