Off With His Head?

Recently a jury urged that a judge sentence a man to death for the killing of a child. You can read the story here, if you're interested. Being MSNBC.com, it just glosses over the facts, but apparently the guy buried a 9 year old girl alive in some trash bags. I don't know why the age is important- would it be less heinous if he had killed a 15 year old that way? I doubt it.

I'm not a fan of the death penalty, simply because humans tend to make mistakes. And even if they're right 99% of the time, that means 1% of the people on death row are innocent. Which is, in my opinion, a special kind of suck.

I'm not familiar with the details of the case (I don't really care, either) but I do know that a jury has an emotional, gut-reaction type response to these type of trials. There's no "innocent until proven guilty" mentality. There's only a, "Somebody's gotta pay for this shit" mob thing goin' on that can't be good. I mean, you know the State's gonna bring charges against someone, just to avoid public outcries. So they pick the most likely suspect, and send him down the river. The jury would convict anyone, if the prosecutor has any talent at all.

Also, life in prison has to suck infinitely worse. It might be bearable for a few years, but once you realize you're goin' to die in that hellhole, it's gotta suck pretty hard. And then you got the other guys either a) trying to fuck you, b) trying to shank you, d) trying to give you Hepatitis C and/or AIDS, or d) all of the above. It can't be good times. Especially if they know you killed a child.

Even the cruelest son of a bitch in prison won't stand for that shit. There's guys in there who will rob a bank and shoot five cops in the face without thinking about it, but they go apeshit when they learn about someone hurting a child. A few years ago, didn't some inmates hold a guy down and put a prison tattoo on the guy's face? Oh yeah, they did. You know the guard was paying attention that day. Wink. Wink.

Also, the death penalty is painless. You just go to sleep. Hell, I can go to sleep. That doesn't take any balls. They don't even really fry people anymore, do they? Just a little shot to make you sleepy. Jerk Wads.

All I'm saying is, there are fates worse than death. One of them is spending fourty years in a maximum security prison before dying with a painful Hepatitis C related infection and the nickname "Easy Rider."

I'm not saying the guy isn't the scum of the earth, only that he's getting off easy by being put out of his misery.