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Thursday, March 23, 2006

Never a good idea.

Published by cck at 8:49 AM

It is not a good idea to add offenses to the death penalty. A legislator from Anderson, Senator Kevin Bryant, wants to add repeat sexual offense to the list of offenses that qualify for the death penalty. Senator Hutto admits the political quandry this legislation presents - no one wants to be anything but tough on child molesters. But is there a better way?

The death penalty is not the answer in this case, nor in any other. I realize I am a liberal - and even more of a liberal when it comes to taking a life - but I think we can all agree (I hope we can all agree) that we should start phasing out the death penalty, not adding to it.

Many reasons:
I don't want the goverment to have that much power.
I don't ever want the responsibility of sentencing someone to death.
It's more cost effective to serve a lifetime in jail.
It's a constitutionally iffy proposition.

Okay, go ahead and discuss. Should folks, folks who were overwhelmingly abused themselves, be sentenced to death after committing a crime? I think it's a heinous crime, no doubt about it. I just question whether it's worthy of death versus a life time in prison.

1 comments:

cck said...

Another issue that someone brought up - and I agree - is that this amendment would elevate one crime above another... In effect, making it deadly to molest a child, but not an adult. Would it be worthy of death if it was a child at 16 raped, and not a young girl of 18?
How do we legislate that?