Not sure if people were paying attention today, but for all intents and purposes James Holmes got the death penalty today. He tried to argue that because he has schizophrenia, the death sentence shouldnt be on the table. The jury shot that down.
Leaving aside the generic argument about the death penalty (Im Canadian and we dont have one)…
I gotta say this guy makes me sick. I agree with the jury that it doesnt matter if you have schizophrenia, some things are so heinous and evil, there is just no excuse. You still know right and wrong, and make choices.
I am against the killing of those with psychosis or who have a significant disability of intellect(not necessarily just those those with IQs of 70 or below).
I think many in the US have a very uncivilised attitude re capital punishment. Should he be punished? -yes but with treatment included. Is the decision to execute him right?- not in any civilised person’s mind.
He killed a bunch of people, he deserves the death penalty. I do not deserve having to care for a murderer for the rest of his life using my tax dollars.
Perhaps we are too civilized. Holmes can never be repaired. He can never be allowed to mingle with the rest of humanity because of the danger he represents. He’s a waste of resources.
ALSO…
He killed a six-year-old, Veronica Moser-Sullivan:
You kill a child for whatever reason and I am done with you.
Holmes could be fed feet first into a wood chipper for all I care. We have better things to spend our money on as a society, and I include the free doggie-doo bags you find in public parks in that statement.
I am a little reluctant to want to execute a man with schizophrenia, but in this case he deserves it. He cased out several theatres so he could go to one where he could kill the most people. He booby trapped his apartment so he could kill policemen. He was emulating the Joker, that thouroughly evil character of Batman movies. I think he intended to escape the death penalty, and possibly all punishment, by claiming to be schizophrenic.
Even if a person is completely insane you still have to get rid of them. You can’t just have dangerous people walking around hurting others can you?
Sometimes you don’t have to be guilty to be gotten rid of.
A rabid animal isn’t guilty right? Still gotta do it though. Sucks but that is what it is. I understand completely that if i had gone mad and was dangerous they’d have to get me out probably, they can’t have that now can they.
I don’t see death as all that great a punishment. Everyone has to die sooner or later. The way I see the death penalty is like we’re sending him to God because we can’t deal with him. It is rejection, not punishment. God will take whatever is the proper punishment.
Killing someone not only makes them experience death, you also take all the life that they would have otherwise had in front of them. That might make it seem more like a punishment.
I don’t really know what to think on this issue. It’s pretty complicated.
What kind of life do you think he would have in a six by nine cell? That’s a worse punishment than death. He’d have to be kept in isolation because the other inmates would kill him. His life was obviously a torment to him in the first place. He would live on in heaven or hell, however God saw fit to judge him.
When it comes to sentencing a criminal with schizophrenia and giving him a death sentence, I think it should be looked at on a case-to-case basis. We all know that every case of schizophrenia is different and I don’t think you can lump all schizophrenic criminals together in one neat category and invent some policy that treats them all the same.
Even on these forums we have many levels of functioning and delusional behavior and I think when someone with schizophrenia commits such a heinious crime many factors as to his state of mind and awareness are in play. I don’t think anyone with schizophrenia should be given a free ticket to commit murder just because they have schizophrenia.
This guy made a deliberate and well thought out plan to do as much damage as possible over a period of time. The guy knew what he was doing. His brain was warped but the thought that he was doing something horribly wrong could not have escaped him. I believe he knew what he was doing was wrong but he was so angry and bent on revenge for whatever reason that he went ahead and did it anyway.
Schizophrenia definitely played a role in his crime but he made some totally deliberate plans to murder innocent strangers and he carried them out deliberately. I think in this case, the death penalty is appropriate.
I’ve thought this myself, The way he planned this, step by step, picking out theaters, learning how long it took first responders to arrive at the location, at that time of night…it was one of the things in his “notebook”… He mentioned in that book alone he knew it was wrong. That’s the main thing. He knew he was doing wrong and did it anyway…that is not mental illness acting. I believe had he not known he was wrong, or to push for life in prison maybe saying he felt he was doing it for some divine purpose…he killed because he wanted to kill. Why he chose to emulate the Joker…who knows…perhaps it was just his favorite character. ?
Everything was just way too thought ahead of time for it to be an act of psychosis. Grant it I can understand people have prolonged experiences while delusional (after all schizophrenia effects us all differently)…but still I don’t know…While I tend to reject the death penalty because of how many innocent people have died because they were thought to be guilty…we know he did it. we know he was thinking clearly when he did it. He was thinking before he did it because he had to get all his weapons and booby-trap his house and what not…I think this is one of those rare cases where the death penalty fits the crime at hand.
