“UPDATE: The drug smuggler has been hanged.”

i dunno,Roj.

you gonna be toting

several keys of fine lebanese hash into Singapore

anytime soon?

1. The death penalty makes plain the supreme value the society places on the life of the innocent victim(s). If the victim’s life is not worth the perpetrator’s life, what is its value?

Although a correlation with the abolition of the death penalty may be indirect, I think that several European countries have become less moral as a result of the loss of emphasis on the value of innocent human life. When all those elderly people died in the heat wave a couple of years ago, the French did not seem to get as upset as Americans would have if it had happened here. The emphasis seemed to be on “fixing the system” so it didn’t happen again. Similarly, where a sense of the importance of justice for the innocent victim is gone, “fixing” murderers through rehabilitation seems to be the focus. Sometimes they are mistaken when they think a murderer is “cured”. Prison time for violent but non-lethal assault seems to be minimal in some of these countries, too.

2. The death penalty often prevents further pain for devastated family and friends of the victim. And it prevents murderers from becoming “stars” in prison.

My husband works at the prison where Charles Manson is kept in “administrative segregation”. He still gets some prison employees to obey his orders (I don’t know why). At least one lost his job for smuggling articles signed by Manson out of the prison for sale to his fans. People send him considerable amounts of money. His prison account is reportedly the biggest one at the institution. Members of his “family” who have been released from prison themselves still make the news sometimes with publicity stunts in his support. He is reported to have inspired a website where you can buy the music he has written in prison, T-shirts, etc. The shirts were quite popular with young teens a few years back. Don’t know if they still are. But I don’t think he makes the best role model.

Fortunately, his demands for obedience don’t seem to go over too well with parole boards.

3. The death penalty helps avoid some harrowing trials and helps to solve crimes. Many murderers plead guilty in deals to avoid the death penalty, sparing families and friends of the victim a great deal of pain.

And Ted Bundy admitted his crimes and revealed details of many of them (including murders with which he had not been charged) only when his execution was imminent. This allowed closure for his mother, who had believed in his innocence all those years, and for many families whose daughters had disappeared.

Back to the “star” theme, I was personally relieved when Ted Bundy was executed. I lived in Salt Lake City when he was murdering there, and I sort of fit the victim profile. It was a terrifying feeling. And my uncle was contacted by the FBI soon after Bundy was tentatively identified as the murderer. They sent agents on an outing which Bundy attended, for which my uncle was responsible. I learned about this only after Bundy’s conviction, but it brought the possibility of becoming another of his victims closer to home.

Bundy became popular with staff and inmates while in jail and prison. He escaped from jail in Colorado and viciously murdered several more women and girls. He received love letters from women all over the country. He got married during his trial in Florida and fathered a child while on death row. I am personally glad that women are no longer swooning over him. And I suspect that the families of his many victims are also glad that they don’t have to hear more stories of women falling in love with the dashing Mr. Bundy.

The sentence of life without parole is a joke. The perps almost always have a delightful sob story that convinces a bunch of slobs who are not threatened by the lout, to release him. Please release me let me go…and I won’t murder anymore…sorry drinking some fine Cab and got a little carried away.

And as has been pointed out, being put to death sure enough deters that murderer from ever murdering again. Some might say that well we have put innocents to death. I have never seen proof of that statement but against those numbers I will put the numbers of innocents murdered by those we let out of prison.

Pierre Legrand

Note that Singapore doesn’t have a drug problem, as harsh as their laws are in this case.

That young Ozzie smuggler knew what the law was (Singapore is known around the world for their strict criminal penalties by now) and got caught breaking it.

It is absolutely essential that Tookie Williams keep his date with the executioner, not only because he was found guilty of 4 murders by a jury of his peers but his case has had numerous judicial reviews.

For him to claim that he didn’t receive justice because he’s black is outrageous.

His execution will most certainly be a deterrent to the thousands (millions?) of Crips members (as well as Bloods), who have committed God-knows-how-many murders.

If young black men see that “Tookie goes free,” get ready for America to start looking like France where they did away with the death penalty, softened their other criminal penalties and their enforcement and get away with rioting, looting and murder because they’re “not white” and “poor,” although I wouldn’t call people with cell phones, computers and TVs poor.

The crime rate in countries like France and the UK where they’ve done away with the death penalty for serious crimes have skyrocketing crime rates and amoral urban youths cruising for victims and trouble without any fear of the “long arm of the law” interfering.

Not to pile on here, but the recidivism rate for criminals who have been executed is very, very low

Milosevic may be a bad guy but he hasn’t been convicted of anything. The Hague war crimes tribunal is a complete farce. If Milosevic should be tried anywhere it is Serbia for his many crimes against his own people, including selling out the Serbs of Krajina, Bosnia, and Kosovo. That he’s actually being tried by the “international community” for actions against (mostly Muslim) terrorists tells you all you need to know about the “international community”.

As to Singapore, a place I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, their laws may be tough but having spent my life living in the squeamish UK and Canada where few criminals end up in prison I’d be happy to trade justice systems with them. Although I disagree with executing drug dealers I believe in national sovereignty. Singapore is an ethnically divided country with no natural resources yet they’ve created a stable rich and safe society. If Aussies had it their way Singapore would be a crime-ridden multiculti country just like Oz or Canada. If Aussies don’t like Singapore’s laws they shouldn’t go there. Multiculti Aussies have been whingeing for decades that the nation is too close to Britain and the USA and that they should stop being so Euro-centric and embrace Asia. Now the same lefties are crying about Asian justice being too harsh by Euro-Australian standards!

1) Some people will not be deterred. Hence no deterrence will be perfect.

2) A big factor in the deterrent effect of any punishment, is time, the less time between the commission of the crime and the imposition of the punishment, the more deterrent effect the punishment has. So the length of both trial and the appeals process erode any deterrent effect.

3) The probability of being caught is also a factor.