76-yr old man executed in California

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CatholicCid:
Let me put it this way. I’d feel safer in a society with 100,000 brutal murders in prison then in one that executes 1 murder because they could not stop him from harming others when in their custody.
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Could you elaborate? Could not follow your train of thought.
 
Sorry for the delay.

I was refering to how I’d feel safer in a place where, when in prison, an inmate could do no harm to society.

The numbers were just to represent what i meant 👍

Though, after some thinking, in response to your original question of the parolee (sp?) living in my house, if the Corrections system found him safe enough to release to me, I suppose I wouldn’t mind. Though, if he did do harm due to my negligence, I would accept the responsibility in my part of failing to protect others from him.
 
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CatholicCid:
Though, after some thinking, in response to your original question of the parolee (sp?) living in my house, if the Corrections system found him safe enough to release to me, I suppose I wouldn’t mind. .
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Do you know how many parolees have committed horrible grisly crimes while on parole?

Do you really want to put your family’s life on the line, based on the judgement of some bureaucrats who don’t have a very good track record?
 
vern humphrey:
Do you know how many parolees have committed horrible grisly crimes while on parole?

Do you really want to put your family’s life on the line, based on the judgement of some bureaucrats who don’t have a very good track record?
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It was a hypothetical question so I answered back with a hypothetical answer. Would I do such a thing now? No, more or less because I would not trust the parolee to be safe or fully reformed to return to society without causing harm.
If our system was 100% working and such, then yes.

I also believed it was more or so directed to what I was saying.

If I (the system) had a parolee (inmate) in my custody and I failed to protect society from him, I would be partially responsible as I was to protect society from him.
I would not shoot him then ask for the next parolee to come live with me, because there would be the chance of a repeat.
I’d correct what I did wrong and make sure that it didn’t happen again while the parolee was in my custody.
 
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CatholicCid:
It was a hypothetical question so I answered back with a hypothetical answer.
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So when you said you would do it, you really meant you wouldn’t do it?
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CatholicCid:
Would I do such a thing now? No, more or less because I would not trust the parolee to be safe or fully reformed to return to society without causing harm.
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Nor does anyone else. Violent criminals are like sex offenders – close to impossible to reform.
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CatholicCid:
If our system was 100% working and such, then yes.
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As we say in the Ozarks, if the dog hadn’t stopped to scratch himself, he’d have caught the rabbit.

There’s no such thing as a system that works 100% – pefection is not a human quality.
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CatholicCid:
If I (the system) had a parolee (inmate) in my custody and I failed to protect society from him, I would be partially responsible as I was to protect society from him.
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And if you didn’t have him in your custody, but you were instrumental in getting him parole, would you also be partially responsible for the damage he did to society?
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CatholicCid:
I would not shoot him then ask for the next parolee to come live with me, because there would be the chance of a repeat.
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Who proposed to shoot parolees?
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CatholicCid:
I’d correct what I did wrong and make sure that it didn’t happen again while the parolee was in my custody.
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Not so long ago, a judge gave bail to a violent sex offender who was awaiting sentencing. While out on bail, he attacked a family, killing all but two children, whom he kidnapped. One of the children he later killed.

How do you “correct” something like that?
 
vern humphrey:
So when you said you would do it, you really meant you wouldn’t do it?

Nor does anyone else. Violent criminals are like sex offenders – close to impossible to reform.

As we say in the Ozarks, if the dog hadn’t stopped to scratch himself, he’d have caught the rabbit.

There’s no such thing as a system that works 100% – pefection is not a human quality.

And if you didn’t have him in your custody, but you were instrumental in getting him parole, would you also be partially responsible for the damage he did to society?

Who proposed to shoot parolees?

Not so long ago, a judge gave bail to a violent sex offender who was awaiting sentencing. While out on bail, he attacked a family, killing all but two children, whom he kidnapped. One of the children he later killed.

How do you “correct” something like that?
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Eh… I think I confused you a bit with my rambling…

My general point is:
A man went to prison for life because of his crimes.
The System failed to protect society as this man was able to order a murder while in prison.
Killing him does not fix the fact that dangerous men in prison can still harm society. All it does is prevent that 1 man from causing harm.
I say fix the big problem so we won’t have to worry about the little problems.
The System failed to protect society from this man while he was in the system. That is the big problem.
This man caused 4 deaths before we killed him. That’s the little problem.

If there was no big problem, then 4 people would still be alive.

Killing this man only offered an illusion that will shatter when another inmate in the system harms society just as this man did. If we execute him, then another illusion is setup and we’ll continue in a large circle losing countless lives in the progress.

We may not be able to reach perfection, but that is no excuse to not stride for it. 👍

I’m sorry if I confused or mislead you.

In Christ,

CC
 
This was just 20 years over due. We judged his body and mind and found him deserving of death. God will judge his soul.
 
I’m afraid that some of you may be suffering from a deliberate manipulation of your heart strings by his attorneys.

This “wheel-chair bound” old man was strong as an ox and was able to walk to the death chamber. He could do more pushups than I can do at 2/3 his age.

For a blind man, he was able to look around the room, pick out his supports and smile at them at the end.

Welcome to the theater of the bizare that is California.

BTW, he only had 10% of the supporters outside of the prison that Tookie enjoyed and no Hollywood names amongst them.

Maybe it was because he was considered “white” until he entered prison and then discovered his roots, probably to access Peltier’s network of Native American supporters.
 
Here is the link for my original comments:

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/17/MNGG0GOGUB1.DTL&hw=San+Quentin&sn=006&sc=200

For additional insight, this wonderful man even "organized the dregs of society (i.e., the poor) as crime lieutenants.

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/17/MNGG0GOGUB1.DTL&hw=San+Quentin&sn=006&sc=200

I think we need to find a lost lamb more worthy of our tears. Frankly, if the 9th Circuit can’t find a reason to tie the execution up in knots, they must be pretty bad people. The criminals that is, of course, hmm, strangely it also applies to many of the justices as well – welcome to California!
 
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CatholicCid:
Eh… I think I confused you a bit with my rambling…

My general point is:
A man went to prison for life because of his crimes.
The System failed to protect society as this man was able to order a murder while in prison.
Killing him does not fix the fact that dangerous men in prison can still harm society. All it does is prevent that 1 man from causing harm.
I say fix the big problem so we won’t have to worry about the little problems.
The System failed to protect society from this man while he was in the system. That is the big problem.
This man caused 4 deaths before we killed him. That’s the little problem.

If there was no big problem, then 4 people would still be alive.

Killing this man only offered an illusion that will shatter when another inmate in the system harms society just as this man did. If we execute him, then another illusion is setup and we’ll continue in a large circle losing countless lives in the progress.

We may not be able to reach perfection, but that is no excuse to not stride for it. 👍

I’m sorry if I confused or mislead you.

In Christ,

CC
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I have NO IDEA what the word “illusion” means in this context. Could you expand or explain the word as used in this post?

[A metaphor is supposed to be obvious to readers or listeners. This one has me stumped.]
 
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CatholicCid:
I say fix the big problem so we won’t have to worry about the little problems.
The System failed to protect society from this man while he was in the system. That is the big problem.
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Okay. How long will it take you to fix the system?

I say “you,” because I don’t know any corrections officers who believe it can be fixed as you visualize it – so if it is to be fixed, the job must fall to someone who believes it can be done.
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CatholicCid:
We may not be able to reach perfection, but that is no excuse to not stride for it. 👍
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How many innocent lives are you willing to sacrifice while we strive for it?
 
I too dislike the death penalty, to me this seems like nothing more than revenge. The family have had retribution, the man would have died in prison anyway, he spent over a third of his life in one of the worst types of prisons.

This act was pointless, society did not need protecting from a blind, deaf man in a wheel chair.
 
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Libero:
I too dislike the death penalty, to me this seems like nothing more than revenge. The family have had retribution, the man would have died in prison anyway, he spent over a third of his life in one of the worst types of prisons.

This act was pointless, society did not need protecting from a blind, deaf man in a wheel chair.
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A blind, deaf old man in a wheel chair with a penchant for and a demonstrated ability to kill other people from his prison cell.
 
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TomK:
I’m afraid that some of you may be suffering from a deliberate manipulation of your heart strings by his attorneys.

This “wheel-chair bound” old man was strong as an ox and was able to walk to the death chamber. He could do more pushups than I can do at 2/3 his age.

For a blind man, he was able to look around the room, pick out his supports and smile at them at the end.

Welcome to the theater of the bizare that is California.

BTW, he only had 10% of the supporters outside of the prison that Tookie enjoyed and no Hollywood names amongst them.

Maybe it was because he was considered “white” until he entered prison and then discovered his roots, probably to access Peltier’s network of Native American supporters.
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So, maybe he was neither blind nor crippled. Where and how did the blind/wheelchair business get started?
 
A blind, deaf old man in a wheel chair with a penchant for and a demonstrated ability to kill other people from his prison cell.
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He is deaf and cannot use a telephone well if at all.
 
He had to pay for what he had done. The guards can’t control their every move, if they prevent them from receiving mail or having visitors or making phone calls all of a sudden you are violating their rights. There are some people that you cant control, some people that need to be put in a cage and left there with no outside contact other than spiritual, even then you risk a security breech. you can try and control them all you want but then you get the ACLU breathing down your neck about prisoners rights! forget that what about victims rights?! you dont let a rabid dog run around and bite people or hurt people, you put it down.
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MikeWM:
Hence my argument about the prisons needing to be better. He shouldn’t be able to order people murdered while in prison. The fact that he may have done so again is an argument for a more secure prison system, not for killing him.

Mike
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TarAshly:
He had to pay for what he had done. The guards can’t control their every move, if they prevent them from receiving mail or having visitors or making phone calls all of a sudden you are violating their rights. There are some people that you cant control, some people that need to be put in a cage and left there with no outside contact other than spiritual, even then you risk a security breech. you can try and control them all you want but then you get the ACLU breathing down your neck about prisoners rights! forget that what about victims rights?! you dont let a rabid dog run around and bite people or hurt people, you put it down.
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Edward Albee, in Desert Solitare told a story.

He was the Summer Ranger at Arches National Monument back in the days when there were no paved roads or any facilities there. As he said, his job was to find people who got stuck on the sandy roads and to pick Kleenix off the sage brush. The Summer Ranger lived in a trailer, with a single electric line coming miles and miles across the desert.

One morning he got up, went out and sat on his steps to pull on his boots – and found a rattlesnake between his feet!

It was quite cold and the snake was sluggish. He managed to yank his feet out of the way and jump over the snake. He went to the tool shed and got a shovel. Since it’s illegal to kill anything in a National Monument, he scooped up the snake, took it a quarter mile into the desert and dumped it.

A couple of days later he was coming out his front door and there was the snake again. He jumped over it, got the shovel and took it a mile out into the desert and dumped it.

A couple of days later he was coming out his front door and there was the snake again. He jumped over it, got the shovel and chopped the snake into little pieces.

The moral of this story is, you can only cut a rattlesnake so much slack.
 
Wow. This is quite an argument. Just a couple of points:
  • Life is sacred from conception to natural death.
  • It is a sad day when anyone is murdered: pre-born children, innocent bystanders and, yes, even convicted felons (even if they are deserving of the sentence).
  • The death penalty has not, so far, eliminated violent crime in this country. People still commit heinous crimes.
  • I do not think parole should be an option for certain criminals, murderers and sex-offenders being included. Those who snuff out others’ lives (or alter them for life) should not be allowed to live the remainder of their days in a manner of their own choosing. Their criminal actions have eliminated their right to such freedoms and there is no convincing evidence that these criminals can be rehabilitated.
  • There is no way we can make our world 100% safe from violent criminals. The devil is real, and he is at work in the world. We can only do the best we can. I am not so sure that the death penalty makes a tremendous difference in the crime rate, although I would be interested if anyone had some statistics on this.
  • A death penalty case is much more expensive for the taxpayers than a life without parole case.
  • As for fixing the system, I think one main thing that needs fixing is the emphasis on prisoner’s “rights”. While they deserve to have adequate necessities and legal council (as their human dignity demands), there is entirely too much favor given to perpetrators of crime in this country and not enough focus on helping their victims.
  • We may need to revisit what we consider “hard time”.
I guess I’m just not all that sure that the death penalty is such a great idea. I have a hard time with the whole issue. Perhaps this latest person put to death was not in as bad shape health-wise as we were led to believe. His last crime *was * commited 20 some years ago. So that problem seems to have been addressed. He was no longer harming society, no? I don’t know. I just have a hard time reconciling the death penalty and my beliefs.
I do have an uncle who is a retired prison warden, by the way. So I have personal knowledge of both sides of the issue. And my Uncle, a devoted Christian (alas, not Catholic, yet 😉 ) is also not a convinced defender of the death penalty. I do, however, understand everyone’s arguments, and have much respect for the thoughts and convictions behind them. This is a tremendously difficult issue.
 
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