Thank you for a rational and thoughtful response. Although blogs are a good place for gut reactions and controversial positions, the reality you bring to light is that these cases involve real people with real lives, broken by the unspeakable tragedies that define this area of the law. I for one never lose sight of this fact.

By the way, I’m the guy who wrote that piece and yes, I’m still “outraged” at what the cops did in this case. FYI, I’m even more outraged at what happened to the victim in this case. But it’s a false dichotomy to assume that I have to limit my outrage to one side or the other, and that just because I’m opposed to what the police did in this case, that this somehow translates to my being Ok with what happened to the little girl who died, or that I’m sympathetic to her killer. Why would you assume this? Do you believe that defense lawyers secretly hide criminals under the floorboards of their homes and get paid with drugs and contraband? Do you think that they enjoy seeing man’s inhumanity to man day after day? I’m a father and a husband and I can’t help have the same reactions to these unspeakable crimes that you or anyone else would have.

In most policy disputes carried on between rational, reasonable people, there’s usually some legitimacy to arguments made on either side, and the “truth” is somewhere to be found in consideration of all points of view. I believe that’s the case here. Fighting for the abstract Constitutional protections that define our freedom isn’t quite as visceral and tangible as fighting for the victim in the morgue, but both are important and both need championing. I think the current systems in place do as good a job as humans are capable of doing of resolving these tragic conflicts, but this isn’t going to stop people on both sides of the argument from being “outraged” and “astonished” at developments that offend their respective professional positions. But it doesn’t mean that we lose sight of the underlying tragedies behind these cases. Please don’t assume away our humanity just because we continue to fight for what we believe in.

For the record, I’m not an advocate of televised executions but if I were I would support a requirement that “equal time” be given to re-enact the crimes against the victims. Where you and I differ is that I believe that most Americans would be rightfully sickened by all of it and would come to the rational conclusion that one tragedy isn’t made any better by the other. I believe that most Americans understand that we may never be able to prevent bad guys from doing their deeds, but that we *can* prevent the mistakes that are made when we officially kill people in response. The record is clear, we do convict innocent people, and mistakes are made on death row. That’s something we can and should prevent. A gut desire for vengeance and retribution, while it may feel good and satisfying, ultimately isn’t a good reason to continue making these mistakes.

RP

Had he stated his point of view in this way: “I think that it is incredibly wonderful that such a crime now has closure and a perpertrator is behind bars, but I think that we may want to place limitations on the substance of such “dummy” letters for the following readons….”

Now that type of statement might benefit the image of defence attornies and serve to mitigate the steady errosion of confidence in the integrity of the legal proffession that has been taking place for a long time.

Another example twisted ideals is that defense attornies would like for executions to be televised. It would help us all see the reality of what we are doing. I imagine though, that they wouldn’t want a detailed re-enactment of the inmate’s crimes to be part of such a show. But that in fact, would be equal and balanced “entertainment” and I am almost sure that most Americans would want to inject the serum themselves after seeing what a victim actually went through at the hands of deathr-row fiends. Yet, defense attornies even wish to make autopsy photos inadmissable at trials. It might sway the jury!!!

My post was a gut reaction. While I am not saying that defense attornies are evil or that we don’t need someone to do the job, I am saying that I would never under any circumstance fight to gain the release of a monster like this. I am proud of this.

Russ