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    hickorydickoryduckHamilton Nolan
    3/20/14 9:43am

    I still can't really tell what you're trying to accomplish with this guy. He meticulously planned someone's murder, slashed his throat, then tried to blame everyone but himself and continued to insist he was innocent because the throat slitting part wasn't what ACTUALLY killed the guy.

    I am against the death penalty, but featuring this guy in an otherwise worthy series is stupid.

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      twinsmommyhickorydickoryduck
      3/20/14 9:56am

      So agreed. If any story is going to make me pro-death penalty it's this one.

      Though regardless of this horrible man's story, I am still anti-death penalty. But reading his story, I'm meh on the fact that he was executed. If we are going to have the DP in this country, I'd rather someone like him get executed than someone who is possibly innocent, or is mentally handicapped, or or or. He was both guilty and unrepentant, not much of a loss.

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      Bekabyhickorydickoryduck
      3/20/14 9:58am

      I don't think that Hamilton is making judgement calls about who "deserves" to be heard and I really don't understand why so many commenters like you think that there is inherently glorification or exoneration in getting a letter posted on a website. Are we glorifying Florida dog fuckers when we read a post about them?

      I think, though I could be wrong, that the people who answer the Gawker invitation are the ones who get published, regardless of the details of their case. It's not like they went begging to Ray Jasper and no one else.

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    elaine layaboutHamilton Nolan
    3/20/14 9:48am

    it is tragic that jay jasper killed a good man ... but it is also tragic that we, with cold calculation, killed jay jasper, a bad man

    "thou shalt not kill" applies to everybody

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      AnarchyOfTasteelaine layabout
      3/20/14 9:53am

      That's going a little far. There are times to kill.

      If I came home to a rapist attacking my wife, and I had to kill him to stop him. I'd take his life in a second.

      That said, I'm opposed to the DP, not because it is unjust, but because it is so final, and I don't believe our justice system is anywhere close to perfect.

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      MyNameIsMonikerelaine layabout
      3/20/14 9:53am

      Meh, that rule should not be applied to child molesters, or any heartless soul that kills kids.

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    fortheloveofgoddontblockmeHamilton Nolan
    3/20/14 9:47am

    I don't understand why this sociopath still has our attention.

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      Salute Your Jortsfortheloveofgoddontblockme
      3/20/14 9:53am

      Because. Pageviews.

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      AnarchyOfTastefortheloveofgoddontblockme
      3/20/14 9:54am

      Hamilton has your attention because his article is at the top of the page... oh wait, you were talking about someone else?

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    CJ4Hamilton Nolan
    3/20/14 11:27am

    I have had the privilege of representing three clients on death row through various appeals and clemency petitions. All three were ultimately executed. In addition, I have spent substantial time meeting with and interviewing death row inmates and studying the history of the death penalty in this country. The death penalty is a shameful part of our justice system. Death is a penalty that should only be considered if its done perfectly and fairly, and time has shown that we will never achieve either of these things. It is barbaric and ineffective and costly. It should be prohibited immediately.

    At the same time, we need to be careful to avoid using the barbarism of the penatly to excuse the barbarism of the condemned. Having met many of these inmates, I learned that some are truly monsters while others are simply flawed men who committed monstrous acts. Without a doubt, many sociential and judicial injustices paved the path for many, if not most, to end up on death row - abusive upbringings, mental and emotional problems, substance abuse histories, ineffective trial lawyers, legal systems weighted against them - but each of them deserved to spend the rest of their lives in jail. They could be charming and persuasive, and I was endlessly astonished to find that I had anything in common with them. I cried when they were executed. But I do not forgive them for their crimes, and I would have seen it an equal failure for any of them to ever have walked as free men again, even while acknolwedging the great strides many of them made during their time in prison in turning their lives around.

    I am sad that we have a system that lead to the execution of this man and the many other men and women who met the same fate. But I never let that cloud the fact that they committed or participated in heinous crimes that deserve our strongest condemnation and our stiffest punishment, even if that's not death.*

    • I am not ignoring the fact that many genuinely innocent people have been wrongly condemned. That fact only provides further proof that the death penalty is fatally flawed and should be stopped. However, those cases remain relatively rare, and it does not appear to have any application here.
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      Pink SkullHamilton Nolan
      3/20/14 10:49am

      Stop it. Stop trying to make this asshole the face of the anti-capital punishment movement. There are other cases. Better cases. A scumbag who slits a guy's throat so he can rob him, then tries to get off on a technicality is not the one.

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        TBoniusPink Skull
        3/20/14 12:40pm

        Many of the comments here rest on this idea that, in thinking about the death penalty, our attention should be focused on the right 'poster children'. But of course proponents of the death penalty have their own poster children. I don't see this debate moving forward when framed around examples cherry picked by either side. And I certainly don't think it's the job of journalists to do the cherry picking.

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      twizzlerHamilton Nolan
      3/20/14 10:45am

      Well I guess the world is all fixed now. (BTW, dipshits who don't know how it works around here. If you say anything remotely insulting to me, you will be dismissed and nobody will ever see your comments. It will be like solitary confinement for life. So don't waste your smelly breath.)

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        CapitalistWarMachinetwizzler
        3/20/14 10:55am

        Just throwing this out there, you're the one who just called them dipshits and said "fuck you" to them in another thread. Dismissing them for insulting you is a little rich.

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        twizzlerCapitalistWarMachine
        3/20/14 11:00am

        I had enough of them to last a lifetime after his letter was printed and you're right, I'm not being very nice. You can go back and read what was permitted on that thread, and then imagine what must have been said in all the comments I dismissed.

        You know why I practice Buddhism? Because if I didn't I'd want to punch the lights out of every asshole who treats people like shit.

        All these anti-death penalty people, full of venom and hatred, do nothing to help the planet. And they make me angry, which diminishes me.

        But they're not peaceful people. You extend an olive branch to them, they'll smack you across the face with it. So they're not getting any hugs here. Peace out.

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      Venus_in_fursHamilton Nolan
      3/20/14 9:40am

      It's time to finally end this barbaric practice.

      ETA:

      "Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life." (Albert Camus, "Reflections on the Guillotine"

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        MyNameIsMonikerVenus_in_furs
        3/20/14 9:46am

        Be specific. The letters he wrote or DP?

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        Venus_in_fursMyNameIsMoniker
        3/20/14 9:47am

        The death penalty.

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      KatHamilton Nolan
      3/20/14 9:47am

      I would say RIP but nope. Nope nope nope. I don't really agree with the death penalty, but I have zero sympathy for that dude. I hope his brother has some peace.

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        mslewisKat
        3/20/14 10:40am

        You mean the brother of the murdered man? No, this will not give him peace. That's impossible. When someone you love is brutally murdered you will never get peace because you will always think of the pain he suffered and the fear and horror he must have had when his hair was grabbed and his throat was cut and then how painful it must have been when he was stabbed dozens of times. No, there is never peace from that. But at least he doesn't have to wonder who did it because the person who did it is dead and won't be able to hurt anyone else. But, still, the pain will be there forever and there will be no peace from that.

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        elumere11mslewis
        3/20/14 1:50pm

        How do you know?

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      woopsdaisyHamilton Nolan
      3/20/14 9:56am

      I'm opposed to the death penalty, but the degree to which we give voice to the condemned—who, let's face it, are 99% vile, repugnant human beings—is alarming. I understand the curiosity, the search for perspective, but it's part of a media landscape that elevates the perpetrators of horrendous crimes above the victims of those same crimes, many of whom are no longer with us. What's to say of those silent perspectives—those attitudes we will never know, and which might give light to the nature of the crime and the man/woman who committed it? I'm not proposing any concrete alternative, and I don't necessarily have a problem with the conceit for this editorial series, but I do think the tone of these articles needs to reflect the fact that these people condemned to die? They're not angels. They're scum (of course there are exceptions). I won't even argue they don't DESERVE to die—I just don't think any government or human being has the right to carry out that judgment, except for in self-defense.

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        twinsmommywoopsdaisy
        3/20/14 10:01am

        I won't even argue they don't DESERVE to die—I just don't think any government or human being has the right to carry out that judgment, except for in self-defense.

        This exactly! I feel the same.

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