Lileks Ping!
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Posted on 12/15/2004 5:33:08 AM PST by Constitution Day
Death is too merciful for Peterson
By James Lileks
You're not a bad person for wanting Scott Peterson to get the needle. But you're not a better person, either. It depends.
Perhaps you're above it all. If you want to appear sober and serious, it's simple: Declare your disinterest in the case. The smart set will agree, and roll their eyes at the amount of ink and photons devoted to this sordid story. Groundling fare. Who cares? It's a diversion from the Real Issues.
Of course, any news show that does not devote 90 minutes a day to your favorite cause is ignoring the Real Issues. All the attention paid to the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn child could have been spent on items of great importance.
But let's posit the unpopular opposite: If you're not intrigued by the case, there's something wrong with you.
Yes, too much time has been spent on it. But no one strapped you in a chair, pried your eyes open, lashed your hands to the armrest and made you watch the daily talking heads. Submersion in the details of the case was voluntary.
If you're the sort who willingly watches cable talk that spends two hours speculating whether juror number two's scowl was due to displeasure with the prosecution or bad gas from a pastrami sandwich, this case helped to fill whatever aching void exists in your life. Better this than watching the neighbors through a telescope.
But just because some cared too much doesn't mean there's nothing here to care about.
Every era has a famous murder in which all the dark drains of the heart intersect; this is just the latest version. The number of men who murder their pregnant wives on Christmas Eve, construct an elaborate alibi, then appear on TV, jaw set with grim concern, to lead the "search" for a missing spouse - well, it's a rather small sample.
This is not the "dark side of the American Dream," that favorite term of documentaries and true-crime stories. The day men like Scott Peterson get their own reality shows and the nation tunes in to find who they dispatched this week - well, then we can talk about whether the case reveals a society in decline. Perhaps the bright side of the American Dream is as simple as knowing that the guilty are punished?
Perhaps the case matters because the issues are so bald, so obvious.
First: If Laci Peterson's unborn son was a victim, then what of other unborn children not afforded the balm of sympathetic publicity? Discuss.
Second: If a guy who kills his pregnant wife on Christmas Eve doesn't deserve the needle, who does? How could people who oppose the death penalty want this cocky monster to live out his life, enjoying everything he took from his wife and child? Why, Clarence Darrow himself might be tempted to give the man to the mob and let them fix this now with a stout rope and a high lamppost.
Granted, there's something to be said for retribution. But you could make the case that the crime is so great that he does not deserve quick release from its consequences. If you truly want retribution, well, let him spend 60 years contemplating hell before he gets sent down to his custom-fitted sulfur pit. (With extra biting scorpions.)
You could say that the death penalty is too easy. Too quick. It spares him the hard work. From now on he will be concerned with the thoughts of his own demise, and his end will be as selfish as his life. Why rush? Let him sit. Let him think. Let him spend a decade or two avoiding his crime until it infests his dreams to the point where he prefers the needle to another ration of sleep.
And if he never faces up to what he's done? Then he's spent half a century staring at a concrete wall, after which he dies - alone, unloved, forgotten.
There's life in prison, and then there's execution. Scott Peterson, unfortunately, gets the merciful option.
Beg to disagree,
All the attention paid to the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn child could have been spent on items of great importance.
Try telling that to her parents.
And those who make a living cramming this particular murder, into every nook and cranny of the known universe, for ever and ever, amen? What of those, Mr. Lileks?
What can be said of them?
:)
He'll never live to see that needle.
First, what the writer calls "retribution" many, including myself call "justice."
Even if Peterson is never actually put to death, which, in California, is likely, the very existence of the death penalty helps stem the slippery slope of liberal thought and action. My view is that, if the death penalty is abolished in this country, the next point of attack will be the sentence of life without parole. I can hear the liberals: "What point is there in life, if you have to live it in prison?" "If society doesn't have the right to take a life immediately, why should they be able to do it in slow motion?" And the first place this argument would work would be in California.....
Not if it's done the right way...
YOU ARE SO BUSTED!
*hangs head*
My only defense is that it was a Lileks column.
I hesitated before hitting the 'post' button, but I am compelled to beat St. Q. to the punch whenever possible.
Scott Peterson will spend a minimum of 20 years fighting the Death Sentence and contemplating his own demise at the hand of the State. I don't know how anybody could hope for more exquisite torture than this.
I don't support the Death Penalty, myself. I think that LWOP suffices. But if you have to have a Death Penalty, California keeps them twisting in the wind longer than just about anywhere, except maybe NY State.
Someday soon, California's Death Penalty statute will be declared unconstitutional, and Peterson's sentence will be commuted to LWOP. No way their statute will stay in place long enough to see this sentence carried out.
As soon as LWOP is the stiffest sentence available, prepare for its attack, and ultimate demise as well.
Scott who?
LOL!
If you can't beat 'em...join 'em.
Heh heh heh...ha ha ha...bwahahahaha!
FMCDH(BITS)
Perhaps the case matters because the issues are so bald, so obvious.
You guys all need to get a life. Who cares?
Pinz
;-)
"And those who make a living cramming this particular murder, into every nook and cranny of the known universe, for ever and ever, amen?"
Is that a call for Greta VanSustern?!
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