Friday - December 02, 2005

Death Penalty Discussion

You’re going to hear a lot about this story today and probably through the weekend because Liberals love numbers. They celebrated when the 2,000th US soldier was killed in Iraq and now they’re marking the execution of the 1,000th prisoner to die by the death penalty in the US as their “cause celebrè du jour”. As usual, I’m confused by their reasoning. Why is it perfectly all right to kill an unborn child who has harmed no one and hasn’t had a chance to do any harm but it’s not all right to kill a convicted murderer who brutally killed two family members in a violent rage? I just don’t get it.

Anyway, there were the usual candlelight vigils and pleas for mercy and cries to “stop the killing”. The man’s lawyer doesn’t understand that the world will be safer without this murderer around and his son thinks dad “deserves a second chance”. I’m sorry but I disagree with both of them entirely. There are some acts, murder being one of them, that deserve no second chance, particularly if it was premeditated and brutally committed.

All I can think of is how this man’s wife and her father must have begged and pleaded with him not to kill them as he stood there with a .357 magnum and snuffed out their lives without any remorse or mercy. The number I’m concerned with here is ... two. Two lives ended in a moment of blind rage. The death penalty is not punishment. It is society’s only way to protect itself from madmen. You don’t cure cancer by giving it a second chance. You remove it.

Double Killer is Nation’s 1,000th Execution
RALEIGH, North Carolina (CNN)

A convicted murderer was put to death Friday in the nation’s 1,000th execution since capital punishment resumed in 1977. Kenneth Lee Boyd, who was convicted of killing his estranged wife and father-in-law, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 2:15 a.m. “The execution of Kenneth Boyd has not made this a better or safer world,” his attorney, Thomas Maher, said. “If this 1,000th execution is a milestone, it’s a milestone we should all be ashamed of.”

In his final words, Boyd asked his daughter-in-law to take care of his son and grandchildren and said, “God bless everybody in here.” His execution came after both Gov. Mike Easley and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. About 150 protesters gathered at the prison in Raleigh, where prison officials tightened security. Police arrested 16 protesters late Thursday who sat down on the prison’s four-lane driveway, officials said.

Boyd, 57, did not deny that he shot and killed Julie Curry Boyd, 36, and her father, 57-year-old Thomas Dillard Curry. Family members said Boyd stalked his estranged wife after they separated following 13 stormy years of marriage and once sent a son to her house with a bullet and a threatening note.

In Boyd’s plea for clemency, his attorneys argued his experiences in Vietnam—where as a bulldozer operator he was shot at by snipers daily—contributed to his crimes. As the execution drew near, Boyd was visited by a son from a previous marriage, who was not present during the slayings.

“He made one mistake, and now it’s costing him his life,” said Kenneth Smith, 35, who visited with his own wife and two children. “A lot of people get a second chance. I think he deserves a second chance.”

- The rest of this story is here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/02/2005 at 06:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
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