« You call yourself WHAT? | Main | Conversations at Work: Volume XXV »
March 08, 2007
Florida, Florida, How I Love that You have the Death Penalty, Florida
Yesterday, a Florida jury convicted John Evander Couey of raping and murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in 2005. If you don't remember this story, let me give it to you in a nutshell. Couey abducted Jessica from her bedroom, raped her, and then buried her alive in a shallow hole. She died clutching her purple stuffed dolphin. Nice way for a 9-year-old child to die, huh?
I simply cannot imagine.
Those are the facts. Couey even confessed to police, though his confession was ruled inadmissible at trial because he was not provided with an attorney after requesting one. Fortunately, the jury convicted him anyway. And soon, the jury will undoubtedly recommend that he be sentenced to death.
Despite the absolute certainty that this man is guilty, many people will make serious assertions that the United States Constitution prohibits executing him because such a penalty is cruel and unusual. Any person who has read the text of the Constitution should realize that such an argument is absolutely absurd. (You can object to the death penalty on moral grounds all you want, but the document that controls this country’s laws couldn’t be clearer that the death penalty is a perfectly acceptable thing for the state to impose.)
Then there will be the arguments that he’s either too stupid to know what he did or too poor to afford a good attorney or too scarred from the times when his daddy beat him and made him suck his cousin’s thing. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Abduct, rape, murder, and bury a little girl alive, and I don't care if you were sodomized a hundred thousand times by an NFL football team; game over for you.
Given that liberal judges are more likely to strike down the death penalty than conservative ones (often on some whimsical notion that has absolutely nothing to do with the Constitution), cases like this one make me happy that President Bush has appointed our last two Supreme Court Justices. Even George W. has his good moments, although nominating Harriet Miers to the Court was not one of them.
Comments
I personally think that crucification )would be too lenient for this chap. How about we just feed him to a pack of starved pigs (a la Brick Top in Snatch)?
Posted by: thenambypamby at March 8, 2007 10:36 AM
Yeah, I believe the death penalty was created for people like Couey.
Posted by: teahouseblossom at March 8, 2007 03:11 PM
The death penalty defintely has come in in handy with outright horrid events such as this one. I'd watch if they'd let me....
Posted by: Blackchickthinking at March 8, 2007 04:21 PM
I'm not a big fan of the death penalty - on precisely those moral grounds you mention. In fact, I'd be for amending the Constitution to prohibit the death penalty. But I'll admit that it probably needs to be amended to do so.
Also, Harriet Miers was a HORRIBLE nomination. Though she did smile at me once when we were riding in the same car in the metro. That was strange.
Posted by: Philosofer at March 8, 2007 06:34 PM
I personally think it's scary that Dubya was able to influence the highest court in the land in any way. Let alone appoint judges to it.
Posted by: LisaBinDaCity at March 9, 2007 10:31 AM
I couldn't agree with you more!
Posted by: lawnut at March 13, 2007 10:30 PM
