Re: "Is the death penalty Extropian?"

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Wed, 25 Nov 1998 00:24:13 -0500

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Billy Brown <bbrown@conemsco.com> Wrote:

>Even for actual murder cases, there are often extenuating
>circumstances. Many crimes are committed in a fit of passion,
>or by people who are incapable of understanding what they are doing.

I read a small story in my local newspaper a few days ago, it seems that a man was watching a movie in a theater and got up to get some popcorn, in doing so he accidentally stepped on a strangers foot. The other man decided that his best course of action would be to pull out a knife and slice open the poor fellow's jugular vein. Other moviegoers were showered in his blood and he died before they could even stop the projector.

A creature capable of such an act is far more dangerous than somebody who planed a murder for a year in order to get a million dollars. To my mind he's more contemptible too, if I get murdered I hope it's over something more important than stepping on somebody's foot.

As for life in prison without parole, I don't think it's a viable alternative to death. In the USA there are 1.7 million people in jail, if I'm one of them and have already been convicted of murder then I have no reason not to do what I enjoy doing and kill again. I have nothing to lose, they won't kill me and they can't imprison me for two lifetimes.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net

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