To: K-list
Recieved: 2000/07/07 02:55
Subject: Re: [K-list] Re: Love the Enemy
From: Robert Weil
On 2000/07/07 02:55, Robert Weil posted thus to the K-list:
At 04:11 PM 7/6/00 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 7/5/00 12:44:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time, druoutATnospamaol.com
>writes:
>
><<
> Sorry for not being clear. Makes no difference to me whether the executed
> person is guilty or not. I'll simply say that IMO the state as executioner
>of
> a person found guilty of murder is far more reprehensible than a murderer,
> and is IMO guilty of the worst kind of clinical cold blooded killing.
> >>
>
> Hillary, you're hopeless --- l give up on you. :) ln a way l can see
>where your statement is coming from. lf we begin with the view that any form
>of killing is utterly detestable and unthinkable under any and all
>circumstances, then a clinical killing by the state can infuriate more than
>any other. To one with such views the clinical aspect seems repugnant and
>more importantly, it's so much easier for us to become angry with the state
>-- with any government -- than it is than to feel anger toward an individual
>killing someone we don't even know, where we figure there was probably some
>extenuating circumstance anyway.
Hi jerry, Hillary,
I expect you want to let this thing lie by now, don't you? Sorry, but this
morning I have the urge to drop in my pennysworth. Don't feel obliged to
carry this on if it really is getting too tedious or strenuous... I can
live without it too.
In France they have the concept in law of the crime of passion. Apart from
the knowing smile that this evokes, it is evident in French law that
murders are commited in a host of cicumstances. The motives and states of
mind involved are diverse, with the ones bereft perhaps having the most
uniform responses.
The state killing of a murderer (guilty, one assumes) is in contrast
deliberately clinical, in that it is intended to be a punishment carried
out in the cold light of reason, with no emotional kneejerk reaction.
Whether this is actually the case is moot: those who advocate the death
penalty are often heard trumpeting for revenge for the bereaved. How far
have we actually come from the spectator sport of hanging or the
guillotine? There was a definite cathartic release for the crowd, to see a
person hanged. It also "encouraged" the others not to do something like
that. Plus there's that wonderful circular reasoning that goes "he was
hanged therefore he must have been guilty". We can dust off our shoes and
get the closure we needed.
I find I'm torn here: if I support the death penalty as the cold engine of
Justice, I am appalled by the seeming inhumanity of it, the way it scythes
the "guilty" down regardless. We are become Death...
If I take the view that the death penalty is reprehensible, I'm faced with
the sufferings of innocent people who have a need to feel it was not all in
vain. Over in England, where law and order are platform tickets to power
(oh, that's the case in America, too? ;-), the victims are told they will
get some restitution. I have known ppl in the heat of loss and pain scream
for the destruction of the perpetrator, even if the perpetrator didn't kill
anyone. (I know we could argue about relative sufferings, alive or dead...)
Their cries chill me more, because they have no mercy.
So here's the mercy thing: and those in the throes of pain and grief are in
no mind to consider it, or very rarely. If we are to allow the victims to
decide the punishment, then we may as well let the crime of passion be legal.
An interesting legal tidbit I came across was to do with ancient Chinese
law: the punishments given criminals went hand-in-hand with the success of
getting the criminal to understand why the crime was wrong, and the effects
it had on others and the criminal hirself. With understanding, the way to
change and growth opened, and the punishment was then partly a means for
the criminal to expiate hir guilt.
I don't know. I do think it is very hard to talk to those who have recently
lost someone to murder, about mercy, attonement or (gasp) forgiveness.
Murder puts someone out of the game, and leaves loved ones in shock and
grief. But I think the reactions of a society to this is a major indication
of its understanding of transcendental truths. What mechanisms are in place
in the society to look after the living anyway? How many rot in inhumane
jails, subsist in ghettos, live from fix to fix, work for pin money for
extortionate industries, in societies that claim the moral high ground over
human life?
Jerry, I do respect your feelings about Sirhan Sirhan. I think we need to
look on a case by case basis at these things. I am not able to judge him,
nor Myra Hindley. I don't know enough. I've served on juries, and on one we
all sat around and said "we know he's technically guilty, but we probably
would have done the same thing in his shoes." We had no way to appeal for
clemency from the judge, and the lad got a stiff sentence for a momentary
loss of control in emotional circumstances. We found him guilty. And we
stood there and watched his face as the judge sentenced him.
I cannot support a view that claims that murderers like to kill, whereas
the state does not. Only a very small minority of murderers make a career
of it. Most (in my view) are the "bungled and botched", ppl who are part of
the larger mess that passes for civilisation these days. Many more ppl make
a career out of learning to kill, to defend the state. Those who have
fought in wars know the horror of it, and I am sure that the realisation of
what murder implies would give most ppl pause for thought. (Maybe they/we
can only learn some things after we've done them...)
A death penalty might be part of that deterrent, but I see many murders in
countries that have the death penalty. I think perhaps the way to approach
deterrence is to alter the expectations of the ppl, to show them better
ways to overcome their differences and insecurities. And *that* is going to
upset many applecarts among the powerful...
And I want the moon, please, on a nice stick... :-)
>
>Well, a view of killing that ignores all of the reasons and circumstances
>behind it, that doesn't distinguish between the innocent and guilty or
>between psychopaths/sociopaths and the judges and jurors who sentence them is
>an extreme view -- one not shared by many -- but you're entitled to it.
>You're a defense counsel's dream -- l could have used you as a juror on some
>criminal cases way back when. :)
>
> You detest killing so much that you don't distinguish
>convicted murderer from judge and jury who punish. They (and 70% of the
>American people) detest killing so much that they want the worst killers to
>pay the ultimate price for it. l know you don't see it this way, but l don't
>see all that much difference between their hatred of killing and yours. A
>different way of dealing with it, for sure, but the hatred is the same.
>
>My own view has always been that l don't favor capital punishment, but that
>there are certain instances when it wouldn't bother me. Ted Bundy, a serial
>killer who preyed on countless young girls in his cross country rampage, was
>a good candidate. Here was a psychopath who was charming and highly educated
>-- who fired his lawyers at his trial, preferring to conduct his own
>defense, which he did in expert fashion (having studied law), with relish and
>no trace of remorse. l could go on, because history has known alot of Ted
>Bundys, and l confess that l wouldn't find their deaths -- the deaths of evil
>psychopathic/sociopathic monsters -- as regrettable as those of their
>victims.
Yes I remember the case of the Hillside Strangler in LA. Same MO. He'd
studied law and multiple personality disorder, and claimed another
"personality" had committed the acts. In California law he would have got a
stay in a mental hospital, but the police were not convinced, and called in
an expert. He soon proved that the man was consciously lying, and the
police found his books on MPD soon after. He then welched on his accomplice
to get a reduced sentence, and on the videotape of the sentencing, he gave
a final speech that began as if it was spontaneous, regretful and
heartfelt, but he fluffed his lines and had to backtrack at one point...
His whole manner was rehearsed and political.
While studying my psychology, I became very interested in psychopathy: not
the psychotic "I hear voices" image of the media, but the ones who have the
capability to do as they please, rationally and selfishly, with a complete
disdain for others' feelings or pain. A person who has become all teeth,
whose fundamental view of the world is survival of the fittest and trust in
none. Now *they* worry me more than a hot-headed loser with a Saturday
Night Special. And they are notoriously hard to catch or convict. They
score high on emotional maturity tests, interestingly...
I think in their case, their danger to others in the future and their
incapacity to feel remorse would lead me to agree with you, jerry. But I
better be damn sure I was right about them. I'm not going to join a mob
outside baying for anyone's blood... :-) Too many echoes...
Love,
Rob
> l
>feel it too every time Sirhan Sirhan comes up for parole and insists that
>he's entitled to release from prison. l always go back to the day in June,
>1968 when he killed RFK -- a crime against humanity that in my opinion was of
>such magnitude as to signigicantly harm the course of world history. l was
>with a group of guys when we heard the tragic news, and one said with tears
>in his eyes (we all had tears in our eyes) ,"They ought to hang him by the
>balls." Thirty two yrs later, l still sorta wish they had.
>
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