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    Charmed212xMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 10:46pm

    I will never understand how anyone can support the death penalty, In the US there have been so many studies shown that black people are more likely to face death penalty than white people and that the murderers of white victims were 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed black victims. What she did was awful but she should have never been on death row as she was far too young, but young black children are never viewed as children when they commit a crime, they get treated like adults.

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      ambitiousCharmed212x
      5/27/15 11:02pm

      A lot of the answer is right there in your second sentence.

      There are also plenty of people who assume that even those who are sentenced to death or even executed while being innocent of their crimes were probably criminals of some kind anyway, or would eventually become criminals. Life and liberty are for “good” people. Thugs, semi-thugs, pre-thugs and natural-born-thugs deserve neither.

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      ad infinitumCharmed212x
      5/27/15 11:11pm

      Not to mention that fact that innocent people get convicted. A lot.

      Prosecutors are basically allowed to construct hanging juries, because anyone won’t state that they are 100% pro-death penalty will never sit on a death row jury. If you are even vaguely uncomfortable with any aspect of the death penalty at all, you get culled. And death penalty cases are high-profile, high-emotion crimes that police and prosecutors are under enormous pressure to close immediately, and too often they’re more than happy to cut corners or fudge the evidence a little to make sure the suspect (who is almost invariably poor and black) goes away.

      Even if you honestly believe that the death penalty is fair and just and there is a place for it in our society, you should be appalled with the way it’s currently applied.

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    GregSamsaMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 10:43pm

    Bill Pelke is someone we should all aspire to be. And I say that without googling him or checking his organization’s stats, so I hope I’m not proven wrong.

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      GreenEyedMomsterGregSamsa
      5/27/15 11:28pm

      He sounds like someone I’d like to know more about. I understand that she was remorseful of her actions and that her intentions were to help others avoid the same path. Despite the fact that I think forgiveness is important to the survivors in order to move forward, I’m not sure I’d have the level of forgiveness to travel with or have further interactions with the woman who brutally murdered my grandmother. I also certainly understand his opposition of the death penalty, but I'm not entirely positive that serving less than 50% of a sentence for a capital crime is right either.

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      GregSamsaGreenEyedMomster
      5/27/15 11:34pm

      It’s the fact that he was hoping for her to travel with him. It’s true: I’m against the death penalty, but I’m not certain traveling with the woman who brutally murdered my grandmother—even to make a larger point—is in my wheelhouse.

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    Peter Mc CaffertyMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 10:51pm

    Wow, she was physically very beautiful,not that that really matters but she was.

    National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Phone Number

    • 1-800-273-8255
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      LibraryanneagainPeter Mc Cafferty
      5/27/15 11:15pm

      I think I know why her beauty strikes you- she looks angelic. You don’t get any sense of her being a hardened criminal. She really looks like she would have reformed and remained a good person.

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      LibraryanneagainLibraryanneagain
      5/27/15 11:31pm

      AND considering that she had been released for good behavior, that isn’t such a difficult thing to surmise.

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    BrownBearGrrMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 10:44pm

    I am 28 years old and just thinking about how much the world has changed in the time I can remember makes me anxious. I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to navigate the world if I were just thrown into it like that.

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      ambitiousBrownBearGrr
      5/27/15 10:53pm

      I suspect it may have had more to do with the difficulties of being a disenfranchised felon in a society that makes it pretty hard to perform reformation — on top of being incarcerated since childhood.

      Even people who only go away for a short amount of time regularly come out and hit a wall.

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      BrownBearGrrambitious
      5/27/15 11:21pm

      That is a completely fair assessment. It’s hard to get a job with just a Bachelor’s as it is, let alone a felon. Just a reminder that prison is not for reformation, because it seems like she was pretty well reformed but the punishment continued.

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    hello haaaaaaaayMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 10:46pm

    Ugh so effing sad. But also I want to know more about this woman.

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      DontBeSuchaBoobPunchTinahello haaaaaaaay
      5/27/15 11:27pm

      I’m very curious about her, too.

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      Fire In The Holehello haaaaaaaay
      5/27/15 11:37pm

      Here’s some stuff about the woman she killed.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of...

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    KinjaMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 11:15pm

    What a tragic life. No life at all, really. Childhood, prison, suicide. Very sad for that to be the sum of a human’s experience on this earth.

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      DontBeSuchaBoobPunchTinaKinja
      5/27/15 11:47pm

      It wasn’t. She also committed murder.

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      AhoySexyKinja
      5/28/15 12:20am

      Seems like she had a tragic life. The wiki article about the murder mentions that she was forced to watch her father rape her mother as a child, that her mother tried to kill her, and that she’d been to ten schools by 15. Horrifically sad.

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    crownofstarsMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 11:05pm

    Okay, I realize this is from a movie and the article is real life, but I immediately thought of cute little Brooks. “The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.” I imagine you would feel like a time traveler who just couldn’t catch up.

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      opheeliacrownofstars
      5/27/15 11:12pm

      That was my first thought, too.

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      Socks Are My Favorite Clothescrownofstars
      5/27/15 11:49pm

      This is exactly what I thought of when I read this.

      It must be so difficult to be in prison for so long, and then to be released out there in a world that has changed so much faster than the environment where you spent the last few decades. And besides that, knowing that no one wants to hire you despite your degree and no one wants you to live in their building. How do you provide the basics for yourself in a world you aren’t equipped to navigate? If we accept as truth that this woman was truly sorry for her crimes and was rehabilitated, how was this justice for the victim in any way?

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    LibraryanneagainMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 11:05pm

    Paging all the “just a young teen”/”Jesus forgives” crowd. Nobody? No?

    Yes, murder is heinous. No one with any sense would suggest she should never have been punished. That’s the point.

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      AreYouProjectingLibraryanneagain
      5/28/15 7:09am
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    laXpetiteXetoileMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 11:49pm

    It’s unfortunate that Ms. Cooper has committed suicide but has anyone acknowledged she stabbed someone 33 times? No matter if she had been reformed stabbing an elderly woman takes a “special” person and not in a good way. Who gives a fuck whether she was on death row or not, 28 years served for 33 stabs is nothing

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      Very Little Gravitas IndeedlaXpetiteXetoile
      5/28/15 7:13am

      Because they put innocent people on death row. Just because they *usually* get it right doesn’t make the death penalty OK. Yes, she should still be in prison. Forever. Once you murder someone in such a malicious way, you just can’t be on society ever again. Ever. But our system doesn’t get it right 100% of the time, and that makes the death penalty morally indefensible.

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      laXpetiteXetoileVery Little Gravitas Indeed
      5/28/15 7:16am

      I did not say I agree with the death penalty but life in prison seems like a fair punishment for stabbing someone 33 times.

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    Fire In The HoleMarie Lodi
    5/27/15 10:50pm

    Sad, sure. Good behavior shouldn’t reduce someone’s sentence for murder.

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      BlergFire In The Hole
      5/27/15 11:02pm

      If someone is reformed and they can make a positive impact on society why not let them?

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      kemperboydFire In The Hole
      5/28/15 10:21am

      Why not? The justice system is not just about punishment, it is nominally supposed to be about rehabilitation. Good behaviour shows rehabilitation. A society that leaves those who show they have been rehabilitated to rot in prison when they could go on to be productive members of society because of a blood lust for vengeance is not a worthy one.

      Paula Cooper didn’t get 18 months for murder, she served 28 years for a crime she committed while still legally a child, when physiologically her brain wasn’t fully developed. If it seems better to you that the government spent $100k plus a year housing and feeding her than gave her an opportunity to live, work and be involved in society after 28 years then I honestly feel sorry for you.

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