I see that the Commonwealth of Virginia executed Teresa Lewis yesterday, and some folks are up in arms about that. I think I can see where we went wrong.
There are subjects that we don’t like to dwell on until they slap us in the face. The problem is that eventually they always slap us in the face.
The question of whether or not we should or should not have capital punishment on the books is straightforward. Subsequent questions regarding who should be executed for what offenses are completely subjective usually addressed in the heat of passion. If you harmed my loved ones would I want you dead? Absolutely. Is that rational? Absolutely not.
In this cialis viagra procedure, biochemical assessment is used along with gait analysis. It also offers effective treatment for sexual generic levitra vardenafil weakness. Yet, cialis lowest prices they remained good friends. The tabs are easy to use and come in the form of soft chewable tablets as these have provided them a way to solve their children’s bedwetting viagra pills wholesale problems. Adhering to due process, a jury of Ms. Lewis’ peers found her guilty and recommended the death penalty for her crime. She was sentenced in accordance with that recommendation, her case and sentence survived numerous appeals, and she was executed. That could have been my younger sister who is similarly mentally challenged.
I’m reminded of the anecdote about the guy who asks a lady if she would have sex with him for a million dollars. When she assents he asks if she’d do it for five dollars. She reacts saying, “What kind of woman do you think I am?” He says, “We’re past that; we’re negotiating price.”
We kill people. We don’t want to think about it, and we certainly don’t want to feel badly about it; but that’s who we are and that’s what we do.
I saw that but no details as to her crime or if they had always known she was mentally challenged. Some have faked those tests when they get caught in something but I will assume she always was and then comes a bigger problem for our culture. When someone is mentally or emotionally challenged, do we have to wait until they commit a crime to act? Currently we do and that means the families of those people are at the mercy of a system that offers them no help even when they say they want it.
Apparently Ms. Lewis hadn’t run afoul of the law until the murders of her husband and step-son. Where the bar is set for services to the mentally challenged seems to be a budgetary issue as much as anything. For years my sister was considered borderline retarded and then, miraculously, Gov. Schwarzenegger said she wasn’t.
The trigger-man who apparently talked Ms. Lewis into hiring him and his accomplice for the murders at least had the decency to commit suicide in prison. The evidence of his manipulation, discovered after the trial concluded, wasn’t considered sufficient grounds to reconsider the verdict or the sentence.
I agree that, should someone harm someone in my family, I’d probably want to kill them myself. But as you say, this is not rational.
In recent years many people have been been cleared of their crimes and released from prison due to faulty trials, evidence or out and out deceit. DNA evidence has cleared many, several who were awaiting execution.
Our capital punishment stance as a country is an embarrassment. The countries with the highest executions for capital crimes in 2007 were (in order) China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, USA and Iraq. And the US numbers were actually down in 2007 as executions were placed “on hold” waiting for the Supreme Court decision. How proud we must be to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on this issue with other freedom-loving countries such as China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.