From: JasonLee@yabbs
To: robtelee@yabbs
Subject: re: John Gacy R.I.P.
Date: Wed May 11 20:27:53 1994

In message re: John Gacy R.I.P., robtelee said:
> My wife and I were discussing your post referenced above.  My wife is from 
> Great Britain.  As you know, Great Britain does not have a death penalty.  
> My wife, however, supports the death penalty.  She makes a valid point in  
> with rehabilitation, society becomes the test lab and we are the guinea 
> pig.  Offenders are "rehabilitated" and then turned out on society, on us. 
>  Do we really want to take a chance on some of these people being "all 
> better?"

What if someone really is rehabilitated?  Do we want them to spend the rest
of their lives in jail, living off taxpayer money, or should we kill them
in the first place, never giving them the chance to become new people?  What
if you committed a murder in the heat of passion?  Would you agree to go to
jail if you knew you'd be put to death?  There is no way to classify
criminals as a group.  The rehab and judgement of a person's ability to
return to society should be determined individually, not by some parole
board that simply looks at behavior.  Unfortunately, to do this would
require a lot of money, which would in turn require higher taxes.  Since
people consider paying taxes a purely evil affront to their existence as
citizens, they must live with overfilled, underfunded prisons and unrehabbed
criminals released onto the streets.  An increase in death penalties is not
the answer, and we can't just stick people in poor prisons to rot. 
Committing a crime and going to jail means you give up certain rights.  One
that you don't give up is your right to be treated like a human being.

> Do we want a repeat of Charles Manson, John Gacy, Henry Lee Lucas, and 
> from Great Britain, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and The Yorkshire Ripper?  
> I do not think that society as a whole, would care for this.  

These are not examples that I would've used.  I know Gacy and Manson are
serial killers, so I'm assuming the others are, too.  None of these people
were put in jail and released, I believe, so why bring these up, except to
argue in favor of a death penalty for crazies?  I don't think their deaths
will deter similar crimes, though, because the things that drove them to
murder are not "typical" criminal instincts (typical ones being anger,
hatred, greed, etc.).

> Another note was that even people who are against the death penalty could 
> not or would not defend Gacy and play on sympathy to prevent Gacy's 
> execution.

This works in favor of what I said.  They've decided on an individual basis
that this is someone who does not deserve to live.

I'm not sure if I understood the full intent of your post.  Did I correctly
interpret you as arguing in favor of a broader death penalty?

JasonLee