Peterson "Death Penalty, OT. Options

[Alison Baker]

Scott Peterson sentenced to DEATH !

[larryp]

Without bothering to address why there is not supposed to be a role of revenge in the justice department, let alone the fact that the criminal justice system is not even intended to punish or warehouse convicts but to rehabilitate them, or for that matter, that execution does not deter others from comitting heinous crimes, let's just look at this one particular matter.

Scott P might have killed his wife. He very likely did, for all the little facts I know (I sure as hell did not follow the case because I did not know the family and the media circus was unattractive when we are embroiled in two wars); but then lots of peoples' behavior looks bad and there are now literally hundreds of people convicted to die who were later found to be factually innocent of their crimes. (Many of them even confessed; educated people do amazing things under duress.) So if you think that the trial proved it, you are kidding yourselves. He is, as we say, "guilty" of killing his wife but that is just a finding from the jury. It does not mean he did so.

When it is the state versus you, the playing field is anything but level and the state typically does a very, very poor job; it is only their resources that permit them to win. OJ had resources to match and you saw what happened.