Nancy,

This recent "phenomenon" is appalling and outrageous. I, too, had to re-read a couple of those stories a couple times in disbelief. Maybe these horrific crimes were under-reported before but I don't think so. People are getting crazier by the day. The perp of this recent case with the mother, the fetus and her three children should be thrown in one of those jumbo washing machines at the laundromat...have a lottery among the surviving family for who gets the privilege of inserting the coins.

Notice they don't do these things in Saudi Arabia because they know that's exactly what will happen to them. For the rapists of little children, they sell implements to recreate the pain the child went through. And the man who stabbed his wife in the car and when she managed to escape, stabbed the 2 year-old until the knife became lodged in the skull should be made to suffer the same punishment.

We put animals "to sleep" as a humanitarian act. Humans who act like animals should not be granted this same courtesy.

makes my blood boil. and we hear this more and more. when i was growing up - mom would save articles from newspaper to re-read - because stuff like this was so rare.

The death penalty probably won't keep anyone else from doing it, but it will sure as hell keep the guy who did it from doing it again.

Those 'registered sex offenders' probably ought to give something up that's necessary for committing sex offences as a part of the registration process.

I'm not much in favor of criminal courts handing out death penalties, which always lead to years and years of litigation.

What I am in favor of is a citizenry unwilling to convict, and prosecutors afraid enough for their careers to not prosecute any victim of one of these crimes, or any relative of a victim, stopping the registration process.

Jack

Yes we are all animals, human animals, all capable of doing the same exact things. I think sometimes we forget what we are made of. I think people are more out of control now because the fiber of the family and society is broken in America. Nothing is sacred anymore. What once was safe - no longer is. What once was easily attainable - no longer is. Like getting a job and supporting a family. We are desensitized and entertained at the same time with shows like Nancy Gray.

Working on a job for 25+ years and retiring from a company is history. Institutions for the truly mentally ill don't have support systems in place that are working. Just like the justice and penial systems. We have to wage a war to keep our children off of drugs.

Mentally ill people walk the street. It's hard as hell for normal people to make a decent living, marry, love and support a family. When all of that goes wrong people go crazy, their thinking just take on in a different direction. People don't have the life skills to deal with what's before them and the mentally ill is allowed to walk the streets.

RickG:

Seems to me it would be enough just making sure the same guy doesn't do the same thing again. No way anyone who hasn't been stabbed 27 times is going to ever know how it feels to the victim.   Probably doesn't even feel the same to each one. No way of knowing, no way to duplicate it. No reason, for that matter, to attempt to duplicate it.

If we're ever going to transcend the circle of bared teeth we've gotten ourselves into, seems to me we're just going to have to be satisfied with pulling the teeth. We'd be prone to take entirely too much satisfaction in seeing the suffering of the guy who caused so much suffering, which would leave the circle unbroken.

I used to believe, sometimes still do, that some visibly dramatic and bizarre means of public execution might help..... something that mutilated the corpse, but killed quickly. Taping dynamite to the head of the killer on the public square and televising it happening.

But frankly, I don't think it would work any better than just putting them to sleep. When they used to have public executions people came from miles to watch the guy die. They loved the site of the death throes, the involuntary emptying of the bowels. Loved it.

I'm not so sure that's a kind of thing we want to encourage as entertainment for the folks left alive.

Jack

Hi, everyone and thank you for your comments. I wrote this yesterday and then LP went down. I notice it never got posted but I saved it in Notepad. I was writing an entry on the prison system in answer to all of this, but right now I'll just paste this comment.

In the case against John Couey, after the family finally was going to get their "Day in Court" (as if that will give them their little girl back) the judge dismissed the entire jury. He said that Mr. Couey would never be able to get a fair trial because of all the publicity. He broke a window and kidnapped a girl from her bed and after raping her, buried her in garbage bag with her Teddy Bear!! Forensics confirms his confession that she was still alive when he put her in the ground! He even confessed on tape to keeping her in a closet and they began to question the police for possibly violating his constitutional rights. What many people don't realize is that the police had gone to his home while days before she was found dead but didn't search it. Even Couey said that in his very long taped interview. Do we really need a warrant to search a convicted sex offender's home? I guess this is where the "Liberal" part of me cringes. I want all people to have rights, but maybe we've bent over too far for the other side.

Well after the trial was postponed to be reassigned to another County, the news reported that some of the jury members had received threats, so maybe the judge was just being cautious. They must have enough evidence since they found her blood in the closet in his trailer where he kept her for days. I just don't understand any of this. I believe in the judicial system and being tried by a jury of your peers. But this man doesn't have any peers, unless that means trying him by 12 other perverts. If someone asked me "can you be impartial?" my answer would be "absolutely." I would listen to all of the facts in evidence (if I didn't vomit from disgust.) However, I still read the newspaper, got on the internet, saw Jessica's picture many times on Nancy Grace and listened to her father cry. I even remember when the Amber Alert was flashing (as it is now for Trenton Duckett) on the Florida Lottery site. With all the ways of getting our news these days, in many cases it will only be possible to find people to sit on a jury who don't read, watch TV, use a computer or understand English. Last week the trial was moved to Miami where it is assumed that people might be less emotional or judgmental. So are they saying that in a big city the act of torturing, raping and murdering babies isn't such a big deal? What does that say about the world we live in? Another assumption is that it will be easier to find people in a large area who have not heard about the murder.

Just one more comment, putting my emotions aside. When it comes to reassigning a jury, Florida Law dictates that judges should select areas that resemble the original county's demographics. Miami and Citrus County are as similar as Jerry Falwell is to Howard Stern. According to the Census Bureau approx 68% of Miami is Hispanic/Latino, 11% are White/not Hispanic and the other 21% are "other." 52% of all Cubans living in America live in Miami. And that was in 2000! Note: I hope none of our Hispanic LP members are offended. This is only a statistic, not a judgment. I am sure good people everywhere care about doing the right thing. This isn't a Race issue, it's a human issue. Men who kill children aren't human.

how can people harm children, its beyond me.

That's because you are a good person, Shalini. Scientists often say there is something in the brain that forces people to commit such horrible acts. One the one hand, I'd like to believe that there is so there's a reason for it. I mean, if someone is insane then he didn't know he was raping a 2 year old right? But on the other hand, it gives people an excuse and I don't like it when society finds ways of excusing unacceptable behavior.