After graduating from college in 1991 I worked as a newspaper reporter in Southern California. Often the newspaper's sole reporter I covered a variety of beats. Looking back on the work, though, the stories I remember the best are the ones I covered as a police reporter. On that beat you see the best and worst of people - well, more often the latter - and are left with memories, some good and some bad.
It has been said that a liberal is a conservative who got mugged. I thought about that saying after covering a murder trial and sentencing for a serial killer.
I'd read arguments on both sides of the capital punishment argument and I knew where I stood. I was a good liberal - I'd quote Mahatma Gandhi at the drop of a conservative speaker's hat. I did speeches on the issues and probably annoyed my parents with my rantings on the matter.
But after seeing the death penalty actually being considred, as I covered murder trials for the Hemet News, that I began to question things... a process I'm still continuing to this day.
There was a man in Riverside County named William Suff. He was accused of murdering 13 prostitutes. It took the county 18 months to figure out who the serial killer was. It turned out he was a county employee. There was a lovely picture of him on a county newsletter, praising him for carpooling.
I grew up fascinated by mysterials. And legal thrillers. With a copy of my latest Robert Parker or Scott Turow I'd sometimes go by the courthouse on the way to work. Who wants to cover a city council meeting when a crime hearing that is somehow related to that town is going on?
After some pleading, my editor said I could cover portions of the Suff trial. After all, one of the victims was from the area. But I also had to cover my usual government beat.
I thought that by seeing people like Suff, people doing deeds that seemed like pure evil, I could better understand people. But if there are people of pure evil, then where did that leave ideas like rehabilitation?
And what about people I'd later cover like Dora Buenrostro, who would stab to death her three children, blame the crimes on her husband and then scream in the middle of a courtroom that there were snakes coming right at her? The court said she was mentally competent to stand trial.The prosecutor said the crimes came about because of passion and jealousy.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Zedd
Scot
Great article. It sent me everywhere with my emotions and personal convictions. I'm going to have to think about this a little while to come up with an opinion or conclusion.
Good stuff!!
2 - Scott Butki
Thanks a lot, Zedd
3 - RJ
So, you're still "conflicted" about the death penalty even after witnessing the trial of a serial murderer who mutilated his numerous female victims?
I'm sorry, but the only rational, reasonable place to put such persons is in the ground, ASAP.
Looking at the death penalty dispassionately, from the ivory towers of academia, one can make a credible case against the death penalty. But in the real world, and on the mean streets, with the families of innocent victims crying out for justice, there is only one answer: Put them down like sick dogs.
4 - Servant
A very good read, Mr. Butki. I myself feel conflicted about the death penalty, and I know where you are coming from. While I do not disagree with you or any pro-death supporters, allow me to play the Devil's Advocate for a moment.
First, you only regard the victims. What about Mr. Suff's emotions? How would you feel in a room where people are demanding your head on a silver plater? What could you really say, if you really think you are innocent? This arguement does go both ways.
Second, nothing is ever unemotional. Not sure if this is for or against, just putting it out there.
In the end, I hope I do not have to make that choice.
5 - STM
Yeah, nice one Scott. The death penalty was effectively abolished in Australia in the late 1960s, when Ronald Ryan, a jail escapee accused of shooting dead a warder, was hanged in Melbourne - the last execution in this country.
There was some doubt about his guilt, and still is - the suggestion being that in the confusion, despite Ryan having overpowered a guard and taken his rifle, the single shot that killed another guard was fired from above, not from the gun Ryan was carrying. Ballistics evidence at the time indicated Ryan would have to have been nearly 9ft tall to fire the fatal shot because of the downward trajectory. Neverthless, he was convicted and as was the custom in Britain and most Commonwealth countries, despatched soon after the final appeals. In those days here, there was no lingering first for 15 years on death row. Perhaps the hue and cry over it at the time was what forced the issue.
As a 20-year veteran police reporter for a number of newspapers in Sydney, I covered many crimes and trials, particularly those involving the killing of children and some young women in quite horrific circumstances, where I thought the death penalty should have been applied (and still do).
However, there were a couple of situations where people were found guilty and I wasn't so sure about their guilt. Although juries had handed down their decisions after long and difficult deliberation (and the requirement here is for a unanimous verdict), niggling concerns remained, and not just with me. The classic example: in one case, a man was not just freed on appeal (which can often be on a legal technicality) a couple of years later - but exonerated, pardoned and compensated.
The conclusion I came to, in the end, was that if 100 of the guilty were hanged, along with one innocent person, I would rather see the 100 not hang than see that one person go to their death for nothing.
That view has only been backed up by improvements in forensic tecnology, particularly in the area of DNA, that has seen quite a few people released from death row in the US when DNA evidence finally indicated that couldn't have been guilty.
It's a tricky one, and the reality is, I reckon for a lot of really violent criminals, life (meaning life) inside a supermax jail is probably a lot worse than leaving this mortal coil sooner rather than later.
6 - Christopher Rose
Scott, are you sure that you don't mean that a conservative is a liberal that got mugged? I can't make sense of it the other way round...
7 - Clavos
Thank you, Mr. Rose. I think he does...
8 - Scott Butki
Doh! I got that backwards. Thanks,Chistopher.
Everyone else, thanks for the feedback, be it positive or negative. This really is one of the harder issues to get a handle on and you're right, Servant, it's almost impossible to do it without emotion.
9 - Zedd
I kept reading that quote several times and thinking "that doesnt make sense". However the thoughtful nature of the rest of the article distracted me :o).
10 - Scott Butki
Why thank you, I think.
I hate it when I get quotes like that backward.
For what it's worth, last nite I was finishing up a piece at Newsvine and at the end i signed off with the comment, "Don't let the bastards get you down."
I decided then I wanted to know who first said that. I did some googling and kept finding it credited to Kris Kristofferson. That can't be right, I thought. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I decided it was midnight and I had more important things to do, like sleep, so I left it uncredited. Better that than get it wrong.
11 - Zedd
Scott
I enjoy the human element being revealed in us. Its wonderful! Automatic cool points. I find that people with depth tend not to be so obsessed with seeming perfect. IMO Its people who don't trust their intellect that tend to be over concerned with perfection and ultra precision when their ideas or conclusions reveal a lack of it. On the converse, I suppose the absent minded professor takes it a bit to far :o)
Your article reflects depth. Boy how we appreciate that.
I have come to the conclusion that it should be difficult to convict a person to death. Perhaps a person who commits multiple murders should be a candidate. DNA evidence should be a must. However death should be swift and highly publicised.
The deterrence of the death penalty is weakened if the perpetrator is left to live out the majority of his life and actually outlive a lot of the gang assaulted on the streets daily. It would seem that for people of those populations it would be safer on death row than on the streets.
However, I also think that the notion of jail as a rehabilitative source should be tossed. It is not working. Jail needs to be a difficult place. The opportunity to rehabilitate should be earned.
12 - Clavos
Zedd wrote:
I have come to the conclusion that it should be difficult to convict a person to death. Perhaps a person who commits multiple murders should be a candidate. DNA evidence should be a must. However death should be swift and highly publicised.
The deterrence of the death penalty is weakened if the perpetrator is left to live out the majority of his life and actually outlive a lot of the gang assaulted on the streets daily. It would seem that for people of those populations it would be safer on death row than on the streets.
However, I also think that the notion of jail as a rehabilitative source should be tossed. It is not working. Jail needs to be a difficult place. The opportunity to rehabilitate should be earned.
ALL of the above quoted for Truth.
(bet that surprised you, eh Zedd?)
13 - smb
the death penalty should be televised...maybe that would add an element of deterrence as well as retribution and incapacitation
14 - STM
Rosey: "Scott, are you sure that you don't mean that a conservative is a liberal that got mugged? I can't make sense of it the other way round..."
Yes, I noticed that too. I thought I'd pretend I didn't notice though. I even read it three times to see whether there was some hidden meaning. But do. Silly me.
15 - Zedd
Clavos
Not that surprised. I'm thinking that my position was more of a surprise to you.
smb
Its important that we don't punish ourselves as a society. I'm afraid that if we go to the extent of becoming familiar with our murder of people, it may lessen fear or dread of the act of killing. What would happen to our children? Who would we become as a society?
Also, many states choose the use of a needle. Sleeping to death with all sorts of cameras around you could be more appealing than being gunned down on the streets like a vermin.
16 - Scott Butki
Thanks for the great exchange of opinions and feedback.
17 - Christopher Rose
Stan, I'm the guy who points out when the Emperor has no clothes!
18 - Zedd
Chris,
I'm the guy who points out when the Emperor has no clothes!
I thought the editor was.
19 - Clavos
Umm, Zedd:
He IS the (Comments) Editor...
20 - Dr Dreadful
"Don't let the bastards get you down."
I remember hearing that phrase in the 1960s movie Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, based on a novel by the English author Alan Sillitoe. Although there it was "Don't let the bastards grind you down". Although I doubt it was Sillitoe who actually coined the phrase. Sounds to me like a British Army kind of saying.
21 - Dr Dreadful
The problem with the death penalty as a deterrent is that most murderers assume they will not get caught.
22 - Clavos
The problem with the death penalty as a deterrent is that most murderers assume they will not get caught.
As do most perpetrators of all classes of crime.
So, logically, it's useless to punish any criminals because no on will be deterred even if we do so.
The advantage of the death penalty is that, once executed, at least that one SOB is deterred - forever.
23 - Christopher Rose
That's a great soundbite Clavos, but like all soundbites - or bad sex - it only lasts thirty seconds.
Obviously, it doesn't actually deter the person who has been executed at all. It also simply further indulges and re-inforces the "old testament" style thinking behind it, which is clearly revenge.
Whilst I agree with you that most criminals aren't deterred by the penal code, indeed, many calculate the time to be served for a particular crime as simply the price of doing business, it's obviously ludicrous not to have any penal code at all.
24 - steve
in using the death penalty as a deterrent, it will make a profound impact upon 1st degree murder cases in which the murder was cold and calculated...well thought out....someone with the logic to plan such a heinous crime can also have the logic that they may face the same fate as their victim
25 - Clavos
Chris, two points:
One:
Despite it's origin, I see nothing wrong with revenge, as long as there's something to be revenged. I'm a vengeful (but lawful) man; harm me and I will seek the redress provided by the law.
Two:
Of course it's ludicrous not to have any penal code at all.