A relative of Billy Ray Adams pleads for sympathy:
"Billy Ray made one stupid mistake, and it cost him his life."
Well. no, it didn't, actually. He's been spending it in prison for the last 39 years, but he still has his life. The same can't be said of Marion County Sheriff's Deputy Tom Settles, whom Adams shot in the head during a bank robbery in 1972 after saying he was going to "waste this pig." The same relative said poor Billy Ray was just another tragic victim of Vietnam, where he learned to "kill, kill, kill" and wasn't deprogrammed because, back in the '60s, "they didn't give you no help for post-traumatic stress syndrome." I didn't get no help for my ptss, either, which makes me violently ill whenever I encounter one of these Crazed Vietnam Killer stories. No deprogramming in the world can pull someone back from the brink of "waste this pig," an impulse which Vietnam may have strengthened but was surely already there.
Billy Ray should have been long dead, too, but he got a lucky break. He killed his cop during that interval after the death penalty had been declared unconstitutional and before legislatures tweaked it back into state codes. Because of that, he keeps coming up for parole. It keeps getting turned down, but the experience is traumatic for Settles' family every time. They're never going to let this guy out -- at least they shouldn''t -- so why keep putting everybody through this?
His brother says Billy Ray has been "rehabilitated over and over again," and a prison minister says he is a "poster child for release from prison" because he's paid his debt over and over. Doesn't matter. Killing a police officer is one of the few capital crimes calling for the death penalty in Indiana, and even cases that went through during the capital punishment hiatus should be treated as special, with no hope of parole, ever. It's not so much that they deserve the extra protection of a stronger penalty but that we must give it to them for our own protection. They're our first line of defense against the thugs and monsters who prey on the rest of us, and we have to let the thugs and monsters know we understand that.
Comments
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I really can't believe you said that - what rock did you crawl out from under anyway ?
Aside from attacking me personally, do you have some argument that any group's lives are more valuable than any other group of humans?
Nope, this was just a personal attack - seems to be the best thing to do in your case. The only other option is just to ignore you completely, which I am leaning towards, ...
Larry, I just about spit coffee all over my screen. Thanks for brightening an otherwise lackluster day!
Yet you've already failed at that twice now, Larry. :)
It's good to see you're contributing to a useful discussion at your usual level... and your little friend tagged along to help, as usual.
But here, here's something else for you;
"Retired Pittsburgh police officer Todd Cenci captured that conceit in a December 20 letter to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
"I think it's about time to draft a bill that makes the death penalty mandatory for anyone who is convicted of killing a police officer who is in the line of duty," opined Cenci. "We need to show our police that we stand behind them 100 percent. So I ask my local politicians to introduce a bill that makes the death penalty mandatory for anyone convicted of killing a police officer on duty -- without any exceptions."
"Why not make the death penalty mandatory for all murder convictions? Why should it be unavoidable only when the victim is a police officer? The tacit but obvious answer is that Cenci -- who reflects the culture of the profession from which he is now retired -- sees police officers as a caste apart from, and more valuable than, the "Mundanes," or general population."
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/12/thin-blue-whine-pt-iii-who-mourns.html
ok, 3rd time's the charm, ...
Of course, I'm reminded that it's a good thing that not everyone shares Leo's bitterness re: PTSD treatment:
"John Brownfield Jr. became a corrections officer following deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Brownfield was later charged with accepting bribes from inmates seeking tobacco at the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colo. He told the judge that when he came home, he suffered insomnia and nightmares, drank more heavily, was quick to anger, "reckless with everything" in his life.
"U.S. District Judge John Kane suspected post-traumatic stress disorder.
"'Figuratively speaking, Brownfield returned from war but never really came home,' Kane wrote in a ruling sentencing Brownfield to probation and treatment."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11569500
(At least when it comes to those in law enforcement, anyway.)