Newsworthy on this Wednesday Afternoon
3 hours ago
Monday, November 9, 2009
No Mercy shown to D.C. Sniper
John Allen Muhammad who is the mastermind behind the sniper team who attacked a suburb in our nations capitol in October 22, was denied being saved from execution. He is known as the D.C. Sniper. There were three weeks in October where Muhammad and one other guy killed ten people and hurt three. They teased the police with phone calls with threats, and written messages. They demanded 10 million dollars to stop the shootings. Muhammad has plead his innocence in two lengthy trials with no such luck. He is to be executed tomorrow night Tuesday, November 10th, with lethal injection at 9p.m. Muhammad's real intention was to kill his wife and gain custody of his three children. He was convicted of capital murder and terrorism charges in Virginia for killing a man by the name of Dean Harold Meyers a Vietnam veteran. He also was convicted in Maryland for six murders. I feel this guy deserves the death sentence but I think he should have to stay alive and think about it for a little while longer. I don't feel that any murderer deserves to ever be free again but I don't feel the death sentence is that effective in some cases. I feel that some should be sentenced to life in prison so they have to think about what they have done. But the murderers such as Muhammad who have killed many people and possibly have people who follow them, who are out of jail, I feel deserve the death sentence. It's harsh and it's sad since they are human beings too, but sometimes it has to be done to ensure the safety of others.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I do agree that this is a terrible thing. However, I'm sort of iffy on death sentence. Life in prison sounds traumatic because you have to spend, well, the rest of life in prison contemplating whatever you did or grieving over the bad deeds you've done (or so I think). Furthermore, death penalty would not be beneficial in that there are trial costs, appellate costs (costs needed for the court to go through a series of appeals), and execution costs.
However, life in prison in itself is also costly. It will require the need to increase or maintain facility spaces.
Some pros/cons [http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/uauje/PDF%27s/issue1996/Death_Penalty.pdf]
I am with Kasper in that I'm very iffy on the death sentence as well. Obviously, this D.C. sniper deserves to never live in a community again, but killing him and locking him in jail for the rest of his life hypothetically would have the same effects on society (in that he would be out of it).
In terms of actually punishing a criminal, I think a life sentence is more harsh than the death sentence. With the death sentence, one just dies. With a lifetime in jail, one has to think about what they have done and live in an uncomfortable setting.
However, there are some benefits to the death sentence. As technical as this may sound, the death penalty overall is much cheaper than supporting a human being in prison for the rest of his or her life. Paying for people to live in prison costs money, usually tax payers' money. Because of this, I do see some reasoning to the death penalty.
There is this thing about humans: They have a lot of trouble truly understanding long periods of time. Have you ever really stopped to consider how incredibly long a time a life sentence is (assuming we had a good prison system that actually had some healthcare for the inmates)?
I am against the death penalty in any situation. I am also against a life sentence in most situations. However, having people in prison for less time really only works if we: 1. Had a good prison system. and more importantly 2. Actually spent some time and money (quite possibly the time and money that we WOULDN'T be spending on keeping those inmates in prison for much longer periods of time) on rehabilitating the convicts. It is way more possible than you think it is to make someone who committed crimes at one point in their life able to be good, functioning citizens.
Pertinent to this case: I do not think we should use the death penalty, and I think ideally we wouldn't use the life sentence either, however, I'm not real sure about that part in the situation as it is now.
-Ilan Seid-Green
Post a Comment