I think the poster child for the death penalty - and applying it to heinous acts short of first degree murder - is a fellow in California named Larry Singleton ( google it ) who picked up a hitchhiker, viciously sexually assaulted her and then for some reason cut off her forearms with an ax and left her to die. She didn't. He went to prison - and was out in 8 years and within, I believe, 6 months committed first degree murder. Of course the death penalty would have have been cruel and unfortunately unusual in California. He died in prison. The first girls forearms did not grow back. The second woman remained dead.
>
It is also extremely effective in reducing recidivism <s> >
>Actually, that's a good point.
>
>Every years, convicted murderers wind up injuring and killing other inmates and prison workers. Sometimes convicted murderers escape.
>
>Make no mistake - the death penalty, even the most "quiet" form of it (lethal injection), is cruel....it's vicious...and the majority of Americans still believe it's the best way to deal with those who commit 1st degree murder.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
