I run into cases like this.
Victor, Cal. (1973)
11/07/1973: Seven adults were bound and gagged in a
semicircle, then shot to death. Two children were found shot to death in a
bedroom. Police eventually arrested two persons for whom arrest warrants were
already outstanding for a similar crime in Phoenix One of the dead owned a
nearby market. An undetermined amount of cash was missing from its floor safe
which had not been forced. Police believed this mass murder was to cover up the
robbery. Police across Northern California were stacking up charges against
these two for murder and rape. Arizona executed one of them in 1978; the other
died of cirrhosis of the liver on death row in 1986.
Category: family non-residential
Suicide: no
Cause: robbery
Weapon: firearm[1]
[1] "Nine
Murdered In Professional Style," [Lancaster, O.] Lancaster Eagle-Gazette,
Nov. 08, 1973, 1; “Two Funerals for Murdered Families,” Sacramento Union,
Nov. 13, 1973, 1, 8; Dan Walters, “Evidence Mounts in Massacre,” Sacramento Union, Nov. 13, 1973, 8; "List of
People Executed in Arizona,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Arizona#cite_ref-7.
Whatever caused these two men to take this path, they do not deserve food or shelter paid for by anyone.
I go back and forth on the subject.
ReplyDeleteLook up Jon Burger (sometimes his name goes along with "the midnight crew from area 2)
He and his crew from Chicago PD Area 2 in Chicago used torture to get confessions from (mostly?) black men. The confessions went to the assistant DAs, and the "suspects" went to the hospital in a lot of cases.
It was so bad that a REPUBLICAN governor commuted all the death row sentences to life, because a fair number of the people given that treatment were on death row.
Sometimes there is overwhelming evidence. And sometimes you have people like Jon Burge
I have a hard time with capital punishment as well. I read that somewhere around 7% of all those on death row might be innocent due to DNA results proving their innocence. That is simply unacceptable, to think that we might kill one innocent person.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there are cases where there is absolutely no doubt that the person on death row is guilty of a crime that deserves the death penalty. Like this former military officer whose case is the latest in the news, and who is going to be executed by firing squad. For a case like this, I can support the death penalty.
I hate the thought that we kill the wrong person, but there are some crimes that are worthy of death, as long as there is absolutely no way possible that a mistake was made.