Crime Victims' Sound Off
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8 Messages Found
Showing First 5

Jacque 
anon@anon.com
As I sat with a greiving family during the trial of a young man that thought he was 10 ft tall and bulletproof, I never could fully comprehend what I was hearing. This 17 year old was so smug in the horrors he committed, we heard witness after witness testify that he was bragging about what he had done and that no one could touch him because he was only 17. I was apalled and horrified at what I heard. This doesnt even speak to the actual hoorible crimes he committed but to his attitude. Those first few days after his arrest, we took solitude in the fact that he would be accountable as an adult. In addition, during the trial, what we knew that the jury did not was the past juvenile record of this man. He seemed to be the bad seed in person. Each time he was in trouble it got a little more violent and out of control. This evidence could not be presented (for his protection) if and until we went to sentencing. A jury of his peers found him guilty and answered the two questions that would cause him to suffer the death penalty. The acts he committed are deserving of a sacrifice more than is youth and time. I have been a fence sitter on the death penalty mosst of my life but when it hits close to home, it is easy to make up your mind. Just as in the Roper case, Margaret Shores was seen as less than a human by her killer. The fact that he was only 17 is a mere side note. If not caught, this man couldhave become the next BTK or McDuff...He deserves to die. The fact that this ruling was so close shows that the nation is probably divided but what on earth is wrong with taking each case on its own merits. I know that District attorneys do not decide lightly whether to go for the death penalty. This decision is anything but justice.mad
3/8/2005 6:56:37 PM    66.196.2.169


A Prosecutor 
anon@anon.com
I am disturbed by the reasoning of the Supreme Court majority in the Roper case banning the death penalty for 16 and 17 year olds. What is most disturbing to me is that the facts of the case before them were horribly brutal. . . an innocent woman kidnapped from her home, hog-tied with duct tape and thrown off a bridge into a river to drown. The defendant (Roper) bragged that he would not be sentenced to death because of his age. The majority of the court did not use any precedent or law to reach their decision, but piggy-backed it on their equally irrational logic in the mentally retarded case. The difference in the two cases is that at least the State can fight the mentally retarded issue, but age is a bright line in that someone is either 18 or they aren't. When the Supreme Court draws bright lines, it is supposed to have law and precedent to justify that decision. It appears to me that the five member majority are substituting their judgment for that of the people through their legislatures. And the statement that there is a national moral consensus that executing a 17 year old is cruel and unusual punishment is ludicrous. Remember that death penalty litigation has swayed with the times, and there could be a time when the Supreme Court overrules the Roper decision as bad law. I wait eagerly for that day.
3/8/2005 8:33:52 AM    66.196.18.133


Anonymous 
anon@anon.com
How is it that illegal immigrants have more rights than victims?mad
3/7/2005 4:36:27 PM    64.28.250.2


Pam Lanham 
Ilovemilo@texas.com
Hello.

I am outraged that 17 years can kill innocent people and then can not be punished by the death penalty. I have taught 11th grade juniors- all 16 to 17- for eight years now. Every single one of my students know right from wrong.

They certainly know killing is not an option and they all agree if you brutally take the life of another human, you should no longer have the right to live yourself. This is directly out of the mouths of seventeen year olds. They are quit capable of understanding that their actions have consequences. What thought was given to this decision? I will never understand without deterrents for crimes how our society will ever be able to grow away from the brutality that has become the norm. Teenagers are bombarded with brutal crimes, drugs, sex, and other dangers. They know what they should and should not be doing. By seventeen, their morale system is set and established for their duration of their lives. Jail time for murder will only allow for them to serve their years and be placed back into a society they have not bettered in any way, but only harmed.

I, for one, support the death penalty for seventeen year olds. I am a Democrat; I am a Christian, and a friend of a person whose mother will never be allowed the gift of growing old with her children. Her mother will never be able to spend her life on this earth free to grow and live as she pleases, but the 17 year old man who killed her will be released in his fifties and still have time to have a family, job, and relationships. What kind of justice is this? What kind of justice does this give the family members who are left behind after the brutal crimes are committed? Their lives have forever been altered. Paths of pain must be walked, dealing with painful memories, daily sadness from missing their murdered family members, counseling on how to go on with life… And the seventeen year old, gets jail time? Good days for time served without bad behavior? Seventeen year olds hand out violent deaths with guns, knives, rape, strangulation etc… and now the US government says they are too young to face a death sentence for themselves. That is it cruel and unusual punishment- have we forgotten the victims?

I am disgusted by our US Supreme Court and anyone else who would so blindly agree to their ruling. Go out, spend some time with some seventeen year olds, and then decide if they know right from wrong. They sure do- any day of the week and about any type of situation.

Thank you for your time.

Pam Lanham
Temple, TX
3/7/2005 4:32:56 PM    65.161.246.62


Joe Sager 
jsager@texansforequaljustice.org
This new standard by some of the Supreme Court Justices of using Iternational Laws and opinions in rendering their rulings in my opinion is a direct violation of their oath of office which says;"I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." One would think that reliance on such decisions breaks the relationship between the people and their government as expressed in the Constitution, because foreign courts are interpreting a different document within a different constitutional and political context.

Personally I could care less what some another country thinks of our laws, surely they could careless what we think of theirs. It's time Congress stood up and did their jobs and impeached those judges that fail to live up to their oath. Article III, Section 1 of the US Constitution says that, "...The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,..." Justices that use this measure to rule by (IMO) violate their Oath of Office and therefore should be impeached for bad behavior.
3/7/2005 4:22:43 PM    209.169.99.78