Give me liberty or give me death?????

Given the recent State of California Vs Scott Peterson verdict and sentence there has been quite a bit of talk around the old water cooler (or at my work place the old coffee pot) regarding the justice or injustice of the death penalty and its effectiveness or ineffectiveness as either a rehabilitative or deterrent factor and of course its monetary costs/worth to society as a whole.

To that end i offer my own personal view which i hope will be a reasoned argument and which of course is always open to discussion, comment and dissenting opinion.

To first give a background i will first dispense the truth that i am indeed pro death penalty. However as it is presently constituted it does us no good. I am a firm believer in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, after a trial by ones peers who having taken an oath before God to render justice and also in the truest sense of Western law and thought every citizen's right of appeal to higher authority for redress if applicable.

What we have however in the American Justice System is neither American, Justice or a System but rather a complete and total foul-up of the entire works ... Rendered only as bad as any well-meaning group of lawyers on all twelve sides of an issue can produce.

The first error of course is in the new definition of "peers" where it seems that both sides of the argument try their hardest to stock the jury pool with malleable moldible persons without regard to trying to get the "best" people who can think and reason and truly digest the tons and tons of information being shoved at them in order to come to a well-reasoned decision. I first found this fact out when i personally was selected for jury duty and when i arrived and filled out the questionnaire and started the process of weeding down the pool ... was dismissed by the prosecution lead for and i quote "perhaps being more knowledgeable about the whole trial process" then she was - she being new to prosecutorial workings.

Then there is the whole mess of the difference between "legal" evidence and "plain old facts" ... now this is not to say that the Law Enforcement folks can just go out williy-nilly and seize anyone and anything and "Manufacture" evidence but it also does not mean that evidence found that "technically" might be prejudicial or inflammatory or for lack of a better word be a little in the "grey" area should be totally disregarded either.

As in all things there must be equal bearing to the complete record on both sides being brought into play for as a much wiser soul than i stated "truth is like a coin in that there are three sides to it ... the face, the reverse and the area in the middle where it mostly lies.

Both of the above areas MUST be corrected if we are ever to actually have the loyal citizenry believe again that the system works ... both for the victims of crime and those accused of those crimes (who may or may not be guilty as charged).

Sentencing must also be kept free of restricting influences ... such things as preset terms are great as GUIDELINES for a jury to consider however jurors must be able to weigh in their own minds the severity and mitigating circumstances and come up with THEIR recommendations free from the stultifying efforts of both sides to propose and in many cases "force" juries into compliance with "standardized" and "inflexible" sentences (by both sides i mean all three of course ... defense, prosecution and judicial).

and then there is the appeals process ... the longest and most drawn out part of the whole. This is REALLY where the system stinks of rotten fish .... especially in death penalty cases where the state pays for BOTH sides of the argument in the vast majority of cases ... arguing for the prosecution (as the state should do as representative of the victim) but also paying for the argument AGAINST ...its enough to almost make me WANT to become multiple-personalitied ... at least id have some clue as to the logic behind it all.

When did it become the "burden" of the prosecuting entity to have to support and pay for the opposing side in a case that they won in the trial?? and yet in death case after death case ... the state is picking up both sides of the bill. THAT MUST END .... it should have never begun ....

Limits should also be placed on the number of appeals one receives .. there is no justice in the endless filing of appeal after appeal after appeal ... Every death case gets an automatic appeal to begin with and the accused/convicted should get ONE more and only ONE more after that ... PERIOD.

Effective appealing will still weed out the minute number of false "positives" (also known as mistakes) from the system but the limitation on the number of times a case may be appealed will also allow for the "execution" of the rendered sentence in a timely manner as well. Thereby allowing the victim or family of victims to see that justice truly does prevail in our system ... because frankly im not sure it does prevail the way our system currently operates.

When convicted prisoners have more rights and better living conditions then the defenders of our freedoms do, SOMETHING is TOTALLY WRONG .... there is no excuse for that situation to continue in its present course ... to take just the Peterson case in mind it will be most likely that 25 years from now Scott will still be living (not a comfortable life but a life to be sure) at the expense of the taxpayers of California (including but not limited to the family of his victim who with every year's income tax pay of their funds to keep appealing the sentence they so richly deserve to see carried out.

If i were the Rocha family i would scream a HUGE FIT ... that MY taxes would be going to pay to keep my daughter's killer both alive and appealing the sentence handed out. IS it just me or is there SOMETHING TOTALLY SCREWY ABOUT THAT KIND OF JUSTICE????

If we are going to keep the death penalty .... and most Americans say they want it ... LETS REALLY HAVE ONE ... ONE that WORKS and actually GETS USED. As another very wise man once said to me ... "Son, either fish or cut bait.... cause you can't do both at the same time". NOW is the time we MUST decide what we are going to do .... it is long overdue ... one way or the other, the time to choose and ACT DECISIVELY on THAT CHOICE is NOW.



and now on to better and more useful things such as a hearty thank you to those persons serving in our military ... the guardians of our freedoms who willingly give up some of theirs for a time in order to ensure that the rest of us will NEVER have to give up any of OURS ....


US Air Force - 49th Fighter Wing, Holloman AFB, New Mexico

US Army - 1st Personnel Group, I Corps, Fort Lewis, Washington

US Navy - VFA-151. CW2, NAS Lemoore, California (USS Abraham Lincoln)

US Marine Corps - 6th Communications Battalion, Brooklyn, New York

US Coast Guard - USCG Cutter Hickory, Homer, Alaska

Please remember this Christmas to give a special thanks to the members of these units both current and former for their dedication, service and sacrifices to their nation ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL and A HAPPY, SAFE, and PEACEFUL NEW YEAR!!!!!