"Eye for an eye" doesn't work in everyday life (A hurts B, B hurts A back in similar fashion, A[the schmuck that he is] doesn't know enough to prevent B's retaliatory strike in the first place, or realize all things are even now, and as such, strikes back. Repeat process.), but in punishmental form, I feel it works. If someone killed my brother or my friend, I'd want justice. The way the system works is laughable and in such a case, only immediate justice would suffice.
And IMO, victims' families deserve a power trip (known as "closure" in the psychiatric world) in such cases. If anything, I would bring back public executions. In old times, publicly executing someone had a twofold purpose:
- Bring closure to relatives of the condemned's victim(s)
- Demonstrate to the general populace that the justice system does work, and that there will be serious punishment for the violation of a serious law.
(And before anyone gets any ideas, I know McVeigh wants his execution televised, and no I wouldn't permit it simply because he wants it to happen, which means he's planning something.)
Continuing, I don't expect this to happen because this is a situation that could only happen in a perfect world. The American justice system is based purely on opinion and instinct, not on fact. If the prosecution paints a better picture than the defense, the accused is convicted. Vice versa, the accused goes free.
As such, I'm not such a capital punishment enthusiast that I would turn my ideas loose on such a system. We ARE talking about a human life, and if it is to be taken, we should be damned sure that it deserves to be. Public opinion is far too rickety a thing to lay so heavy a burden upon.
~Mike
03-08-2001, 03:39 PM
Hybrid Mode
