Where is the justice?

[emrys250]

Moving away from the capital punishment discussion and more towards the title of this thread, Where is the Justice?:
Is justice even possible in a situation where someone commits multiple murders? Take the Nazi leaders involved in the holocaust, for example. They are responsible for millions of deaths. Is there anything that society can do to the Nazi’s that makes up for the what they did to humankind, and the jewish people in particular?
I might be able see the justice in taking the life of someone who took the life of someone else (…or is an “eye for an eye” just?), but when someone takes the lives of multiple people, they only have one life to be taken from them themselves. It doesn’t seem like you can achieve justice in a mulitple murder situation (on earth, anyway).

 

[Mintaka]

A life for a life isn’t really justice, either. It’s better than “six lives for a life” (which is the kind of vendetta that rule was intended to prevent). But if I take your life and the state takes mine, how does my life pay for yours? How does my death help your survivors, or do what you were meant to do?

Even human justice isn’t about perfect payback.

 

[mlchance]

But if I take your life and the state takes mine, how does my life pay for yours? How does my death help your survivors, or do what you were meant to do?

You’re seem to be conflating different theories of justice, namely retributive justice with restorative justice. Both seek to meet the demands of justice, namely that people be given what they deserve, but one focuses on giving the criminal what he deserves while the other focuses on giving the victim what he deserves.

In the case of murder, it isn’t possible to give the victim what he deserves.

As to where the justice is, all of the demands of justice were ultimately met on Calvary.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[dessert]

Listen to yourself ! Is life so meaningless to you that it is okay for some jury or judge to execute you wrongly for a crime you did not commit ???

Just another mistake ???

How would you feel IF YOU are the one mistakenly executed ??? How would you feel if your son or brother were wrongly executed ???

“I’m sorry, we made a mistake”, just doesn’t cut it.

It’s one thing for some to accidently take a life, in an accident or on an operating table. Those are some of the risks of living around cars or getting an operation.

BUT to be wrongly convicted of a murder and then to be killed because of it, CAN be avoided IF you are stll alive to be exonerated. IF they kill you, they can NOT bring you back to life.

The death penalty can NOT be reversed, once you are DEAD, no one can bring you back to life. YES mistakes are made all the time, and that is precisely why the DP should be illegal.

I would feel bad if I were wrongly accused and you know that happens all the time because someone can just see me doing something and assume they know and have come to a conclusion already. So I do see this all the time.
But the murder is a fit of spontaneous rage which maens they had thought about it previously and then went over the edge.
There is man’s justice, the consequences of the broken law. I don’t think Jesus preached agaist the dp. I think people so know what they are doing entertaining the thoughts before hand just not aknowledging their thoughts to anyone as we do on these threads. We talk discuss and some even tell their innermost thoughts even bad fruit thoughts but we don’t have a gun or knife to injure anyone except to hit the computer.

People that can’t control their rage or won’t acknowledge it and let osmeone else help them need to pay the price of the bad fruit.
After all tell me this didn’t not Jesus tell the thief on the cross he was forgiven but he didn’t take him off the cross. and maybe that person was actually innocent? do you think Jesus should have or would have taken him off the cross if he were innocent?

Eventually we will have more than prisons full we will have an entire city full of bad fruit and isn’t that what they did to people put them all together on an island so should we put them all on say Rhode Island?

I reitterate I have been wrongly accused and there is sometimes no way to get others to believe the truth.
Even if the truth is staring them right in the face. This is not justice.

We have a justice system so our peers can judge each one, but in the long run the judge has the last say and many overturn the verdict anyways, even when it is guilty as charged.

 

[JohnHasSeriousQ]

Last week we had a triple homicide in our city. Where is the justice? Is prison too good for the demons that are out there?

Is the Bible also violent?
Is God violent?
As a secular humanist I believe that a person who commits a violent act is responsible, but not possessed by demons as many Catholics believe. Wouldn’t being possessed by demons dissolve any responsibility? One need not look to Christianity, God or the Bible for moral authority (after all God did send his only son to be killed, right?), because we each have in us the ability to discern right from wrong. It is of our choosing as individuals or as a society as a whole what acts we carry out. With that mind, it should be easy to see why I am also against the death penalty.

 

[thistle]

dessert;1826642:

Last week we had a triple homicide in our city. Where is the justice? Is prison too good for the demons that are out there?

Is the Bible also violent?
Is God violent?
As a secular humanist I believe that a person who commits a violent act is responsible, but not possessed by demons as many Catholics believe.

Wouldn’t being possessed by demons dissolve any responsibility? One need not look to Christianity, God or the Bible for moral authority (after all God did send his only son to be killed, right?), because we each have in us the ability to discern right from wrong. It is of our choosing as individuals or as a society as a whole what acts we carry out. With that mind, it should be easy to see why I am also against the death penalty.

How do you know what many Catholics think. You are like many non-Catholics who think they know what Catholics think but in fact have no clue!

 

[puzzleannie]

Last week we had a triple homicide in our city. Where is the justice? Is prison too good for the demons that are out there?

well, where is your link to the action taken by the law enforcement and criminal justice system on this case? Unless you can show that justice is not being sought in this case your question makes no sense. We do not try and convict and sentence criminals before they have even been identified and apprehended.

 

[dessert]

well, where is your link to the action taken by the law enforcement and criminal justice system on this case? Unless you can show that justice is not being sought in this case your question makes no sense. We do not try and convict and sentence criminals before they have even been identified and apprehended.

I don’t have a site but you can check the progrss with the Janesville Wisconsin Gazette maybe on line?
It has taken awhile to do the autopsies and actually charge the person with the murder.
They think they have all the proof they need meanwhile he is being kept in jail for an arrest of DWI and 60,000 bond which he couldn’t post.
This is just from some personell in the sherifs office others etc. They found several different knifs scissors etc in his house with blood on them. He was a neighbor for about 2 years. always going around helping peoople even an 85 year old lady. It was in a trailer park, not large small quite small.
He claims he doesn’t remember doing it but as soon as they stopped him from a chase, a couple days after the murder he said he didn’t mean to kill them, as soon as they stopped him for DWI.
The day the bodies were found a friday morning noon time he was out side comforting the family around him, sick right?

There is heresay that the woman had a relationship with him maybe as a favior, The daughter had a boyfriend that states the man was harrasing them the night before the murder.
The man statements claim that he was feeling guilty about the affair with the woman because the man is married.

Lots of anger going on in the whole situation.
so I guess you could call this a crime of passion but the man had a couple sex assault charges in Madison, against him from the late 80’s but nothing since.
He held down a good job you know well good at a pizza place for 3 years.
We have had other murders but nothing like this and they of course mostly ended up at the mental instituions so I assume this will go there.
Now Dalmer who was sent to prison died at the hands ot his peers so I am hoping that this man can get prison because he cannot control his behavior so something is in possession of him when he goes into a rage.
I do believe people totally space out when they go into a rage maybe swearing badly throwing things etc but not killing and if you ask them they can’t remember because they aren’t rreally in control of themselves .
They rationalize what they did or are going to do or have someone do this for him.
If you go to our gazeete and the week before my first post a friday it happened and there was a front page story on the entire thing for about 2 weeks straight and I will let you know if the trial will be in the near future or what ever happens.
www.gazetteextra.com the janesville gazette

 

[dessert]

dessert;1826642:

Last week we had a triple homicide in our city. Where is the justice? Is prison too good for the demons that are out there?

Is the Bible also violent?
Is God violent?
As a secular humanist I believe that a person who commits a violent act is responsible, but not possessed by demons as many Catholics believe. Wouldn’t being possessed by demons dissolve any responsibility? One need not look to Christianity, God or the Bible for moral authority (after all God did send his only son to be killed, right?), because we each have in us the ability to discern right from wrong. It is of our choosing as individuals or as a society as a whole what acts we carry out. With that mind, it should be easy to see why I am also against the death penalty.

As a secular humanist then what happens to a person when they go into a rage and have a glasy eyed look of insanity on there face? dessert

 

[Sixtus]

Dessert wrote:

Is God violent?.

Well if you can conceive 'infinite perfection of love as violent, then I am not sure I much care for Secular Humanism

As a secular humanist I believe that a person who commits a violent act is responsible, but not possessed by demons as many Catholics believe.

Actually Thistle you are not particularly well informed of Catholicism. The vast majority of violent acts are indeed ‘by human choice’. It is however, from hard experience that I can say in a property where a viciously violent crime has been committed, I have discerned nothing but ‘pure evil’! I presume you are not sensitive enough to be able to!

God or the Bible for moral authority

But that does not absolve us from moral responsibility!

(after all God did send his only son to be killed, right?),

Son actually. Not quite, His Son IS God. As God He CHOSE to redeem humanity which He created

It is of our choosing as individuals or as a society as a whole what acts we carry out.

Then Thistle you evidently never been under the infuence.

If it is all down to ‘choice’ then please tell me why it is that folk including St Paul ‘choose’ good but do bad!!

Presumably you have never seen or experienced a demon?

Trust me YOU DO NOT WANT TO!! It is not a pretty sight, let alone smell!!

 

[thistle]

Dessert wrote:

Well if you can conceive 'infinite perfection of love as violent, then I am not sure I much care for Secular Humanism

Actually Thistle you are not particularly well informed of Catholicism. The vast majority of violent acts are indeed ‘by human choice’. It is however, from hard experience that I can say in a property where a viciously violent crime has been committed, I have discerned nothing but ‘pure evil’! I presume you are not sensitive enough to be able to!

But that does not absolve us from moral responsibility!

Son actually. Not quite, His Son IS God. As God He CHOSE to redeem humanity which He created

Then Thistle you evidently never been under the infuence.

If it is all down to ‘choice’ then please tell me why it is that folk including St Paul ‘choose’ good but do bad!!

Presumably you have never seen or experienced a demon?

Trust me YOU DO NOT WANT TO!! It is not a pretty sight, let alone smell!!

Thank you for your arrogant rant thinking you know what I know or don’t know about the Catholic Faith. Judging from other threads I know more about the Church doctrines than you do and also I accept them all, unlike your apparent doubts about a few.
However this thread is not about them. If you would be so kind and point out to me and the other posters where I said that the vast majority of violent acts were NOT by human choice.
If you can do that I will apologise to you because I happen to think that violent acts are by human choice and the result of people rejecting God’s love and turning to evil.
A few unforunates of course are genuinely possessed.
If you cannot show me where I said what you implied (which would mean your comments are tantamount to liable against me) then I expect your public apology.

 

[puzzleannie]

thanks to OP for update on the case cited
I still don’t understand why the question “where is the Justice?” since it seems the wheels of the justice system are moving along just fine. It also seems there is more to the story that emerges as more details come forward. My only point is that a better question may be “What is the source of evil and violence in our society and what are we doing as a society to combat it?” Since we live in a society whose economic system seems to be based on marketing violence and sin of every kind, I don’t think we have to look too far for the answer.

 

[Iowa_Mike]

Last week we had a triple homicide in our city. Where is the justice? Is prison too good for the demons that are out there?
A woman and her two children were killed in a trailer park at night quietly no one heard anything. There was blood all over so probably knife and several assailants. If they are ever caught isn’t prison too good for them? I’m all for them repenting and going to the church even if someone hired them to kill they still have to pay for their crime. I used to be against the death penalty and so has been our state but now I doubt it is a good thing to let such horrific crimes go unpunished and let them out to kill again? What do you think ? Aren’t they possessed as in the bible stories. Our state is now about half divided on capital punishment.
dessert

VATICAN CITY, February 7 (CNA) - Made public today was a declaration of the Holy See delivered during the course of a world congress on the death penalty, held in Paris, France from February 1st to the 3rd.

“The Paris congress,” reads the French-language text, “is being celebrated at a time in which, because of recent executions, the campaign against the death penalty is facing new and disquieting challenges. Public opinion has become sensitized and has expressed its concern for a more effective recognition of the inalienable dignity of human beings, and of the universality and integrity of human rights, beginning with the right to life.”

As in previous meetings on the same subject, “the Holy See takes this opportunity to welcome and affirm once more its support for all initiatives that aim to defend the inherent value and inviolability of all human life, from conception to natural end. In this perspective, it is worth noting that the use of the death penalty is not just a negation of the right to life, but also an affront to human dignity.”

“The Catholic Church continues to maintain that the legitimate authorities of State have the duty to protect society from aggressors,” but “some States traditionally include the death penalty among the means used to achieve this end,” an option “that is difficult to justify today.”

I lifted the above quote from the Catholic News Agency’s web site. I am a strong supporter of the death penalty and believe that my position is within Catholic teaching. The Church always points out that the authorities of the State have the duty to protect society from agressors when they talk about the death penalty. In the U. S. today it is not uncommon for a white collar criminal to get more jail time than a murderer. I recently saw a story where a man convicted of murdering his wife received only 10 years in prison. When he gets out of jail is there anyone out there that wants the person living next door to them? Yesterday I saw a news story where a man murdered a little girl. In his profile they reported that he had been previously convicted of murder. I have to ask why is he on the streets?

While most governments have all the tools to protect society from murderers without employing the death penalty, they don’t use them. When they do use them and murderers are reliably kept away from the rest of us…I’ll change my view.

Iowa Mike

 

[Black_Jaque]

I think the Church teach is that you may use the death penalty to protect the society from being assaulted again by the prisoner.

You may NOT use the death penalty as a means of satisfying justice or revenge.

In societies where the innocent can be protected without the death penalty we are obliged to use non-lethal means.

Now, I sometimes wonder if mutilation could be justified. For example, castration. It tends to take the heat out of violent offenders. Would help prevent prison riots and such.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Interestingly, in scripture we never see locking someone up as a punishment for a crime. If there is restitution to be made it is commenserate with the crime. If murder then they have forfeited their life. It would be an injustice for him to be locked up. It would be an injustice for him to live.

Mel

Our Lord rejected the scripture calling for ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’.
He mandated a better way.
If you prefer the Jewish Law and scripture, then by all means go, see a rabbi, and get youself circumcised.

 

[dessert]

Go to my link google search feb 7 2007 page 4 to read more and an update. They are trying to get a tight case before they charge him. dessert

 

[Iowa_Mike]

I think the Church teach is that you may use the death penalty to protect the society from being assaulted again by the prisoner.

You may NOT use the death penalty as a means of satisfying justice or revenge.

In societies where the innocent can be protected without the death penalty we are obliged to use non-lethal means.

Now, I sometimes wonder if mutilation could be justified. For example, castration. It tends to take the heat out of violent offenders. Would help prevent prison riots and such.

I agree with your premise…unfortunately our legal system does not protect us adequately. Convicted murderers are regularly released on parole from prison or are released as ‘cured’ from a mental institutions. These people have a very high recidivism rate and many more people die at their hands…

Iowa Mike

 

[dessert]

Go to my link for an article today, Feb 11 2007 front page two articles.
Might I say that my dh and I were block nighborhood watch leaders for a couple years. This was the best experience and you will find out a lot about your neighbors, this is not Mr. Rogers neighborhood anymore. If you are a leader I suggest you have the meetings outside on your lawn no matter how much you think you know them you don’t. It was an eyeopening experience and alerted the bad apples to leave or they then knew that they were not hiding anything. The police were always involved and supportive and just having the meetings once a month showed we were all concerned. We quit to let someone else take a turn and they did but then it all stopped but our neighborhood is better from it and we are all more communicative to one another. So I would encourage anyone who is worried about it all to get involved. dessert

 

[thistle]

I agree with your premise…unfortunately our legal system does not protect us adequately. Convicted murderers are regularly released on parole from prison or are released as ‘cured’ from a mental institutions. These people have a very high recidivism rate and many more people die at their hands…

Iowa Mike

The Church does not agree with you. It says use of the death penalty should be so rare to be almost non-existant.

CCC 2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.

 

[puzzleannie]

I am still amazed that we into a DP discussion, when in the case cited in OP, no arrest, trial or conviction has even occurred. that vigilante mentality is exactly why the DP is so dangerous.