A conflicting message!

[SoylentGreen]

Jury urges death penalty for arsonist - World - NZ Herald News

A jury recommended the death penalty for a man convicted of murdering five federal firefighters who were overrun by one of several wildfires he ignited in Southern California in 2006.

Jurors took less than a day to decide that Raymond Lee Oyler deserved to die.

Charles Manson as an old man - World - NZ Herald News

California corrections officials have released a new photograph of convicted mass murderer Charles Manson,
The cult leader was first sentenced to death for the 1969 murders of movie star Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and three others stabbed and shot to death at Tate's home in Los Angeles. The next night, two others were stabbed to death at their homes.

Is it fair the way we judge a man to die?

[Sonart]

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Is it fair the way we judge a man to die?

Apples and bullfrogs.

Manson was saved from the death penalty when the Californian Supreme Court temporarily eliminated the death penalty in 1972. Even though the death penalty was reinstated 5 years later, it couldn't be applied retroactively once Manson's penalty was reduced to life imprisonment, since the new death penalty applied only to capital crimes committed after the new statute went into affect.

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[Jack]

I was surprised he was sentenced to death. I had thought the death penalty was only sought in cases involving premeditation. While it's true that arson can always result in death, it's almost never the arsonist's intent to kill. They have an unhealthy obsession with the fire itself, not the effects of it.

[SteveMcKay]

I was surprised he was sentenced to death. I had thought the death penalty was only sought in cases involving premeditation. While it's true that arson can always result in death, it's almost never the arsonist's intent to kill. They have an unhealthy obsession with the fire itself, not the effects of it.

I agree. At best he should have been convicted of negligent homicide. I am getting to the point in my thinking that I am thinking the death penalty should be mostly abolished except maybe for the most heinous crimes.. like Hitler if he had been caught.

Then again I look at the picture of old Charlie and I can help but feel a tad sorry for him.... which means maybe that his punishment has been far worse then if we had executed him 30+ years ago. So maybe it should be completely abolished.

[Nono]

Yes it should.

And if Hitler had been executed, his Cult of Martyrdom would have been a hundred times stronger than it is/was anyway.

The morality of crime and punishment aside, it really is better to let people rot in jail.