Agreed, 100%. If there's one good thing that comes from this case, it's that there will be attention on the legislature's mistake, which should force the legislature to fix it. Better that attention come in a case like this (where the freak was also convicted of 141 other counts), than a case solely based on "cached" images (where the perv may have walked)
2. Those who make, sell and distribute child porn should be executed. Of course, with the proper legal authority.
Agreed, in principle. The only reason I hesitate to support the death penalty for people involved in child porn (and rapists, and other non-murdering criminals) is that it removes any incentive not to kill their victims. If someone is facing the death penalty for child porn, they'll be more likely to kill their victims, since they can't face any worse punishment than execution anyway, and killing the victim (and thus witness) makes it less likely they'd be caught.
BTW you ain’t my conscience.
I don't claim to be anyone's conscience. (hint)
Every Law in England
From Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons”, in which Thomas More talks with his ambitious underling, William Roper:
Roper: “So now you’d give the devil the benefit of law?”
More: “Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?”
Roper: “I’d cut down every law in England to do that.”
More: “Oh, and when the last law was down, and the devil turned on you, where would you hide, Roper, all the laws being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man’s laws not God’s, and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — do you really think that you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
“Yes, I’d give the devil the benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake.”
-Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
Wise. We've been down that road before. Several states made kidnapping a capital offense after Lindbergh, and lo and behold, kidnappers no longer risked anything by killing their captives. It was repealed almost universally, and the odds of kidnap victims flipped from an odds on death to having the odds in their favor that they would survive. Capital punishment for any crime short of murder just provides and incentive to escalate that crime to murder.