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Loading ...Supreme Court OKs death penalty for murderer of gay man
11.10.2009 8:20am EST
(Columbus, Ohio) The U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated the death penalty against an Ohio man who killed and mutilated a man he met in a gay bar in 1985, rejecting a claim that his lawyers erred during the sentencing phase of his trial.
Attorneys for Robert Van Hook had argued that the lawyers who represented him during the sentencing phase of his trial failed to do an effective job.In its ruling Monday, the high court reversed a ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
Van Hook killed David Self in Self’s apartment in Cincinnati before robbing him and fleeing to Florida, where he was arrested and later confessed.
Van Hook’s lawyer, Keith Yeazel, says another appeal issue is pending before the 6th Circuit.
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray says the death sentence is appropriate due to the “horrific nature” of the crime.
I don’t believe in the death penalty. It doesn’t matter what somebody did, it is still wrong. I believe a murderer should be jailed for how many years the victim would have continued to live, average it being 100. So, if somebody kills a 20 year old, they are jailed for 80 years, no parole. That is, unless it is proven they did not do the crime and are found innocent after a retrial, or whatever.
Life in prison is a sufficient punishment; execution is excessive. Life in prison is a greater punishment than the death penalty. The punishment principle of an “eye for an eye” is debunked.Proportional justice risks justifying extreme punishment such as torture. The death penalty is merely a vehicle for vengeance. Murderers might “deserve” death, but decency requires mercy.The death penalty does not advance any social objective.
While his crime was horrible and definately a sign of a diseased mind, capital punishment is not the answer. Killing someone only creates another murderer. If we hold “an eye for an eye” to our standards of civilization, everyone would have to die.
Sweetkisses, I am very, very troubled by all the false convictions we are discovering. Clearly bigotry and a long history of getting anyone to take the fall for a DA’s political game is the culprit.
But we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need a way to be sure about convictions, we need to get rid of elected DA’s to start with, and improve our society’s culture of honesty, but once we get to the point of knowing someone is guilty for sure, we need to exterminate more of those criminals!
I read about such incredibly horrible acts and all I can think of is why do we have a place in society for people like that?
Religion tells people if they behave a certain way, all will be fine. We have learned this is a lie. People are manipulated by religion and do terrible, terrible things (like vote down rights…even simply to believe you have a right to vote on minority civil rights is a heinous result of religious bigotry.
But, if we solve that issue we will have a bunch of people that we need to pull together into a successful society without the fear of everlasting damnation.
I think the fear of punishment by a court of law should replace the fear of hell.
We could go a long way towards reducing crime if we cut off the hand of theifs, knifed stabbers and let them bleed to death and gang raped until dead rapists.
I disagree an eye for an eye would require all humans to be killed. It would simply require us to act like humans instead of the religious bigotrized zombies we are today.
I for one would stand up to this level of performance requirement. I have not done anything to harm my neighbors or any fellow citizens ability to live in our crowded society happily.
I don’t agree that under an eye for an eye we’d find something I did that requires retribution. I don’t accept behaviour that harms others, and society shouldn’t either.
In the small new england town I live in we have someone out on bail who ordered a gang hit. She is out on bail after hiring a killer to go after one of her drug customers.
Maybe we shouldn’t exterminate her, but should we let her out into society, while we try to figure out if she is willing to live in a society with rules? I think bail should be higher and if convicted instead of parole (she is only 17) which is what she’d get in liberal mass, she should get a very severe punishment that would remind her of her crime for her whole life and everytime she went out in public, would remind everyone. Maybe tattoos on foreheads “I have killed”, “I have raped” before being released from a ten year prison sentance.
oh, wait, I forgot, our prisons are full of businesspeople so we don’t have room.
Perhaps decriminalizing minor drugs would also solve that.
Our society is truly broken as we criminalize behaviour that is not harmful to others but let much more serious criminals go after multiple offenses.
An eye for an eye just makes the world blind!!!!
That is the Least that they could do! We are Human!
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I look at execution as a kinder, more humane alternative to life imprisonment. Capital punishment, like abortion, should be used sparingly and as a last or justifiable option.
Killing someone for the safety of others IS justifiable.
For the sake of sanity, these useless wastes of flesh should be harvested for any useful organs and other body parts and then disposed of like the trash they are. In a time where far to few organ donors are available and monies are tight allover, why should funds be spent warehousing this sort of stain on humanity?
If they are jailed for any number of years they will be provided better living conditions and health care than a large part of tax paying citizens in this country. Truly wake up and take a look at what it costs the country to warehouse criminals, along with the costs of appeals and all the other BS motions they make over things of no merit. This, along with the fact that the rate of recidivism is so high all the system currently does is place worse criminals on the street when they do get out… The system has little to no deterrent factor, why would one expect the current crop of moralless latch key-kids to give a second thought about murder?
Everyone should truly hope that things do change in 2012 or this whole coujntry will end up one big tolietbowl…
No more moliecodeling criminals, make the system something to fear! Re-introduce chain-gangs and forced labor, let Sherif Arpio set things up and then look at the recitivisionn rate drop!