From: graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu (JIM GRAHAM)
Subject: Re: A Stolen Life, A Dying Soul
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Reply-To: graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University Cyclotron Facility, Bloomington, Indiana
Distribution:  world
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 04:27:07 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.145643.4764@memstvx1.memst.edu>, kebarnes@memstvx1.memst.edu writes...
>In article <nate.990@psygate.psych.indiana.edu>,
>nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu
>>(Nathan Engle) [Our intelligent-liberal-in-residence] wrote:
>>     I think that your gut reaction may lead you to wish for something less 
>> than purely poetic justice. IMHO the most appropriate thing that could be 
>> done would be to throw those three guys and a case of A1 sauce into a cell 
>> with Jeffery Dahmer. (There you go, Simon, you weren't nearly as crude 
>> as me)
>> 
>> Nathan Engle                        Software Juggler
> 
>What are we to make of the case of Wesley Allan Dodd, convicted serial
>child rapist-murderer in Washington state who says he wishes to
>be executed by hanging, since that is what he did to the 4-year-old
>boy who was his last victim?
> 
>I find it discouraging that the ACLU wishes to contest this proposal,
>and that the only way it seems for someone such as Dodd to be put
>out of his own misery and everyone else's is for him to request that
>the execution be carried out, ala: Gary Gilmore's request for a
>Utah firing squad.

Yes.  If anyone is being cruel and unusual, it has to be the ACLU,
bouncing those on deathrow back and forth as their political
playthings.

> 
>Does execution deter?
>If we were to execute any criminal who murdered while committing
>another felony, we could have our answer. If there were fewer
>murders associated with the commission of felonies, the effect
>of such a law could readily be demonstrated. The necessity
>of convicting the accused twice, first of the felony, and then the
>capital murder charge, should add an extra measure of protection
>against executing the innocent. It would be a good experiment to
>try, and might ease jail overcrowding :-}.

I've always believed that it would be far more of a deterrent to
televise executions.  It may seem barbaric and inhuman, but I really
believe it would have a lasting effect on those who watched.
> 
> 
>For the sake of the victims now, and in the future, our national
>"soul" must be found, and healed. And fast. 

Yup.  And one doesn't have to force religion on anyone to achieve this,
IMHO.

It makes good common sense.

> 
>[Standard disclaimers appply.]
> 
>-- 
>*.x,*dna**************************************************************
>*(==) Ken Barnes, LifeSci Bldg.                                      *
>* \'  KEBARNES@memstvx1.memst.edu                                    *
>*(-)**Memphis,TN********75320,711@compuserve.com**********************
>"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged
>to stick to possibilities, Truth isn't."--Mark Twain

Jim Graham 

        -> ->Disclaimer: I do not speak for my company. <- <-
                          Neither do they speak for me.
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