Thursday, September 6, 2007

To me the Cheshire killings and the case Clarence Ray Allen in California illustrate the need for the death penalty in America. Unlike movie portrayals of condemned killers in movie like The Green Mile and Dead Man Walking, the killers are not innocent, victims of racism, mentally retarded or ill and prison does not stop their killing spree.
In the Clarence Allen case the offender was a wealthy White man who owned a security company but received life without parole for the murder of a woman he believed would testify against him in the burglary of a store he wa hired to provide security for. While in prison in San Quentin he convinced his cell mate to kill eight witnesses against him in the hopes that with them gone he would have an easier time appealing his case. Three people were killed and eight injured before Allen's now paroled cell mate was caught. This case shows how little prison can do to stop killers like Allen and the Cheshire murderers, so what alternative is there?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/nyregion/28slay.html?ex=1343275200&en=11d7fb6ba91590a4&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
Death Penalty Bid in 3 Killings Draws Critics

By STACEY STOWE
Published: July 28, 2007
NEW HAVEN, July 27 — In more than 25 years as a prosecutor, Michael Dearington had sought the death penalty only once. This week, he did it twice, filing capital charges against the two suspects in the killings of a mother and her two daughters in a Cheshire home.
“I thought it was important with respect to the family, the public and law enforcement,” Mr. Dearington, the state’s attorney for the judicial district of New Haven, said in an interview on Friday, while declining to discuss the case in any detail. “I seek capital charges when they are warranted. It’s as simple as that.”
His decision to seek capital punishment for the two suspects, ...