Rell Should Meet with Family Members

Hey Gary, Thank You! (0.00 / 0)

I'm really proud to have you as my State Rep.!

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by: AndersonScooper @ Sat May 23, 2009 at 20:36:17 PM UTC

Family members/death penalty (0.00 / 0)

It has always seemed clear that the LAST people whose recommendations should be taken into account in this debate are the family members of victims.  Their judgments are naturally biased and emotional and that is the VERY reason we have laws in the first place - so that reason and wisdom stand in place of passion and vengeance, when justice is determined.

I might want to strangle to death the man who has killed my child. But, a week later, I may very well, and deeply, regret causing another unnecessary death.  And I might strangle the wrong man.

By the same token, and in all fairness, undo weight should not be given to the advice of the family members of victims who might OPPOSE the death penalty.  Though obviously hurting, they too have no special claim to insight in determining a just and fair response by society to murder.

So I think this "tit for tat" business is pretty foolish.  "I'll see your SIX pro-death-penalty family members - and raise you EIGHT anti-death-penalty family members."  AND it is unfairly manipulative of the family members.

As for me, I'll side with Robert Kennedy on this one: "Whenever any American life is taken by another unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in defiance of the law ... in an attack of violence or in response to violence - the whole nation is degraded."  

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by: iBlog @ Sun May 24, 2009 at 02:31:36 AM UTC

Family members/death penalty (4.00 / 1)

It has always seemed clear that the LAST people whose recommendations should be taken into account in this debate are the family members of victims.  Their judgments are naturally biased and emotional and that is the VERY reason we have laws in the first place - so that reason and wisdom stand in place of passion and vengeance, when justice is determined.

I might want to strangle to death the man who has killed my child. But, a week later, I may very well, and deeply, regret causing another unnecessary death.  And I might strangle the wrong man.

By the same token, and in all fairness, undo weight should not be given to the advice of the family members of victims who might OPPOSE the death penalty.  Though obviously hurting, they too have no special claim to insight in determining a just and fair response by society to murder.

So I think this "tit for tat" business is pretty foolish.  "I'll see your SIX pro-death-penalty family members - and raise you EIGHT anti-death-penalty family members."  AND it is unfairly manipulative of the family members.

As for me, I'll side with Robert Kennedy on this one: "Whenever any American life is taken by another unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in defiance of the law ... in an attack of violence or in response to violence - the whole nation is degraded."  

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by: iBlog @ Sun May 24, 2009 at 02:31:37 AM UTC

I don't want... (4.00 / 3)

undo weight given to those family members who agree with me.  What I do want is for the issue to be put back into context.  Rell cannot act as if the families agree with her becuase they are not a monolithic group.  That's the point.  If she decides to veto she must do so for some other reason. It's not "tit for tat".  

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by: RepHolder-Winfield @ Sun May 24, 2009 at 16:16:02 PM UTC

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