wroughtn_harv - Discussions with you always require a lot of cutting and pasting!
The defense attorney is doing his job to prevent the best defense possible. His statement, ""He's a good man but for one three-day weekend of terror,"" is cold hard fact of life so much of the time. It isn't always the freak out there that we have to worry about but the person we know and love who snaps for some reason or another.
It's time this society had more accountability for someone who "snaps for some reason or another". Just because someone got stressed out, had a bad childhood, had something bad happened to them, etc, doesn't mean they should go take it out on some innocent person, especially a child! It's time for those people who have had it rough to "get over it" and "get on with their life". The system we have now is not teaching people to do that, it's sending a message that says "if you were molested when you were a child, or if you had something really unfair happen to you then that's an excuse to go berserk and you shouldn't be punished too severely".
This kind of stuff really infuriates me! This lawyer is saying if someone is good most of the time then it's OK for them to freak out and brutally murder kids once in a while!
He didn't say that at all.
No, he didn't come right out and say that directly, but his statement implies what I just said above.
How much you wanna bet the judge reduces the penalty?
You're the one wanting to bet. Name it. The judge hasn't changed the punishment and won't. There is an automatic appeal as there should be before taking a life by the state. There is in no reason for the judge to change the verdict.
Usually the only time judges change the verdict is when the jury has decided some corporation should be sent a message to behave. Then the judge cuts their suggested penalty.
I might be wrong, but I've seen too many judges reduce the penalty in the past. The article said the judge has the "option of sentencing Westerfield to the life sentence Nov. 22", so we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Judges have too much power!
I guess the fathers of this great nation just didn't have a clue. I suppose you'd rather the legislators have the power? Or how about a governor? Would that be easier for you to swallow?
This is a state case as it should be. Would you rather have the governor deciding the proper punishiment? Keeping in mind of course that you might or might not have voted for him--her. Or how about the legislature? You know the ones that make the laws get to judge the laws. That ought to work, right?
No one should have the power that judges have! Like someone said earlier, they have no accountability and that's a bad thing.
I don't have a lot of time to argue about this. The bottom line is that in my opinion, whenever someone commits a crime of this type of hideous nature they need to be put to death. I don't care about whether or not it's a deterrent to someone else, what really matters is that this type of criminal needs to be put to death so they get their due punishment then they won't ever harm anyone again. Timothy McVay won't every harm anyone again. On rare occasions an innocent person will be put to death, but with the system we have today, which includes the automatic appeals, that will be very rare and certainly far fewer innocent people will die by execution than kids like Danielle van Dam are dying now.
