Now because of Martinez's actions, his parents must look after him 24/7 because he needs constant attention due to his loss of any motor skills. Many neighbors of the Martinez family in San Diego say that “They’re just nice people."
In my own opinion, Martinez's own actions and consequences shouldn't have any effect on his family. Having a son in jail for serious crimes is bad enough, but now having to house their son in their own house again and giving him constant attention is now a punishment for the family instead of for Martinez. Even though he is now paralyzed, he escaped and is now in the free world. Since he was costing the taxpayers of California $625,000, there were little options left on the table for him. Release or more sucking of the taxpayers money. What do you guys think? Should he have been left in jail to serve out his 157 year sentence, or was release the best option? Are there any other options not brought up, ie. death penalty? Martinez is undoubtedly a sick man, but was releasing him the best choice?
8 comments:
Since Martinez is completely paralyzed, I feel that release was the best option for him. If he is unable to harm those around him anymore and he is under constant surveillance , then there is no reason for him to stay in prison anymore. As for the death penalty option, I think that it is unnecessary to change a person's punishment to life in prison to death just because he is paralyzed. Also, the death penalty does cost tax payers a lot of money as well.
This is a very hard decision to make. While I morally think that the abuser, kidnapper and rapist should rot in prison for the duration of his life, I cannot believe we're spending $625,000 tax dollars on this man's health. Raising his sentence to capital punishment is ridiculous because it would draw so much attention to the criminal. Instead of looking like the criminal that he is, I worry that the American people would see a man who was a victim of prison violence and would feel overwhelmingly sympathetic.
I think this situation relates to the death penalty in various ways. Morally, I say to keep the death penalty and let Martinez rot in jail for the rest of his life. However, I cannot agree financially. The amount of money we are completely wasting on the death penalty and high profile criminals such as Martinez is completely absurd.
I cannot even fathom the emotions of the family who must take in their convicted son. I believe that forcing the Martinez family to take in their son and bear the consequences of his actions is awful. It is unfortunate that no other alternatives were available for the rapist.
While Martinez is a criminal and definitely should be punished for his crimes, I think his release from prison was completely justified. He poses no physical threat to anyone anymore, and his medical bills shouldn't be paid with taxpayer funds. In a way, Martinez is still imprisoned: being out of jail but still unable to do anything he wants. To me, there is absolutely no good reason to keep him in prison just because he is permanently disabled. While this doesn't mean that any disabled inmate is eligible for release, I think the Martinez case is a very special circumstance that was rightfully taken into account.
I do not agree with the fact that someone who is "unable to harm others" is eligible for release. If this was the only reason for Martinez's release, I would think that many prisoners would figure out ways to escape through causing a borderline injury. However, like Sam said, Martinez is a special case in which the financial issue plays a huge part. Although I do not know how much total funding a prison gets from taxes, $625,000 does seem to be a large percent of that and if the prison has to spend excess money on a single man and thwart the spending of other industries, I also feel like Martinez's release is justified.
I believe that releasing Martinez was a good choice. Since he is a quadriplegic, he is no serious threat. I agree with Sam that spending $625,000 of taxpayers money on a rapist's health is unbelievable. Though he deserves to be in jail and serve out his entire sentence, it is wrong that the money of taxpayers should be spent on him. I think that the state was right in not giving him the death penalty, as it would have cost taxpayers even more money, both for Martinez's health bills and for paying for his death. I believe that release was the best option, as he poses no serious threat and is now no longer a burden on the state.
I also agree that releasing him was the lesser of evils in this situation, but this one instance hints at a larger problem regarding prison finance in the US... Check out this infographic that compares prison finance between countries, states, and the cost of higher education v. the cost of prison. While this is interesting, it also misses a lot of the moral and legal complexity of the issue—as Samantha said, the added cost of trying inmates on death row can be financially absurd, and with California voters rejecting Prop 34, I'm interested to see if any prison reform will be able to enact a partial solution...
I think that we should leave that up to the person(s) he raped or their family or families. Personally, I believe the burden should rely upon the Martinez family but my opinion shouldn't count for anything since I don't pay taxes.
This is one of those issues that is so complicated morally and there may not really be a right or wrong answer. However, though I do think that $625,000 is a lot of money, this is not a good message to be sending out to other/future inmates. It is not fair to the victims or their families to allow him to be free, just because he is too much of a burden on taxpayers. I was actually going to link the same stats that Olivia did, because this brings up a much larger issue of the finances in the criminal justice system and how some things may need to change.
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