This is one of those murders that calls for capital punishment -- and I rarely argue for such. If Victorino were to impaled on a spike, it would be a good and just punishment.
Police said the attack was the brutal culmination of an argument between Victorino, an ex-convict, and one of the victims, who is believed to be Erin Belanger, 22 . She was singled out for a beating so vicious that even dental records were useless in trying to identify her.
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How's this for an inflammatory thought: I think of capital punishment much the way I think of gun control -- neither do much to prevent crime, and neither make a lot of sense. Liberals who support serious gun control mistakenly believe that it will have a big impact on gun violence -- for countless reasons I believe they are wrong. Conservatives who support capital punishment do so for two reasons -- the utilitarian belief that the death penalty deters severe crime, and the substantive belief that capital punishment is appropriate retribution in certain cases. However, I broadly believe that the procedural burdens of capital cases blunt the value of the punishment as retribution (another long argument), so my support for the death penalty is limited to deterrance arguments. In that regard, I believe that there are only two, or maybe three, crimes for which the death penalty is appropriate: crimes involving the taking of hostages, the killing of law enforcement officers (such as prison guards and cops), or civil insurrection (including particularly terrorism). You need the death penalty in the first two cases to have something to negotiate with (to get hostages back) and to deter shoot-outs (in the case of cornered fugitives). The third case (terrorism and insurrection) is distinguished from mass murder in that it is an attack on the state, and therefore an act of war in addition to a crime.
How do you like them apples?
Jack, logically I agree with you about the ineffectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent to future crime -- unless it is done in public. Yet, in this case, I would argue passionately that deterrence may not be served by executing the ring-leader of the attack, but justice would be.
Oh, and like Windrem, I tend to oppose capital punishment in most cases for a variety of reasons. For certain crimes, it may be required, however.
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