<p>Kluge is fond of the old NYT headline “Rain hits NYC area hard, poor suffer most.”</p>
<p>I agree that the killer did something horrible, but no one in my opinion is worthy of the death penalty. The killer is worthy of being locked up alone in a small, barren cell for the rest of his natural life, and that’s a even worse punishment than death.</p>
<p>"The disappearance or death of a minority woman, or a male of any race, is far less likely to get media attention than that of a “white woman in peril.”</p>
<p>Very true. I am aware of a pregnant, black woman (married, middle class, incidentally), who disappeared about 2 years ago, and her situation didn’t get a small percentage of the publicity that, for instance, Stacy Peterson got. The cases that get the publicity tend to involve young attractive (preferably blond) white women, particularly those who are wealthy and well connected.</p>
<p>
You are less likely to get attention if you are old of any race or gender as well as male of any race. But what does that have to do with sentences for murder? The media may sit in judgment but it does not sit on juries.</p>
<p>So true, NSM. I believe that knowing how to access the media is a big part of this too. I remember last year the dog belonging to the children of an aquaintance of mine got kidnapped at christmastime in Texas. It not only made the national news, they were on The Today show. Again-- it was all about accessing and using the media.</p>
<p>As for the death penalty, I really have mixed feelings about this. With state and fedeal funding for many entitlement programs dwindling, I do find myself wonderign of the money spent on some of the most egregious, heinous criminals/murderers/rapists etc. is money well spent…</p>
<p>I used to be very pro death penalty. Info like the below made me a strong advocate for the end of the death penalty.</p>
<p>"Since 1973, over 120 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. (StaffReport, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil & Constitutional Rights, Oct. 1993,with updates from DPIC) . From 1973-1999, there was anaverage of 3.1 exonerations peryear. From 2000-2007, therehas been an average of 5 exonerations per year.</p>
<p>.• In Indiana, the total costs of the death penalty exceed the complete costs of life without parole sentences by about 38%, assuming that 20% of death sentences are overturned and reduced to life. (Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission, January 10, 2002).</p>
<p>• The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level. (Duke University, May 1993).</p>
<p>• Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole. Based on the 44 executions Florida had carried out since 1976, that amounts to a cost of $24 million for each execution. (Palm Beach Post, January 4, 2000).</p>
<p>• In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).</p>
<p>• A comprehensive study of the death penalty in North Carolina found that the odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendants whose victims were white. (Prof. Jack Boger and Dr. Isaac Unah, University of North Carolina, 2001).</p>
<p>• A recent study in California found that those who killed whites were over 3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks and over 4 times more likely than those who killed Latinos. (Pierce & Radelet, Santa Clara Law Review 2005)."</p>
<p><a href=“http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ZtAlsgF0-uEJ:www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf+“death+penalty”+facts&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=safari[/url]”>http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ZtAlsgF0-uEJ:www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf+“death+penalty”+facts&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=safari</a></p>
<p>
I completely agree with Jym, here. Our tax dollars would be better spent, as she suggests, on elaborate, painful executions. Are you also a Kafka fan, jym?</p>
<p>NSM: executing more people who kill blacks would involve executing lots more blacks, correct? This could be a political hot potato.</p>
<p>btm: I don’t think anyone should be executed, no matter what they’ve done or whom they have killed. I think they should spend their natural lives in isolation in a small prison cell. That would be a far worse punishment than death.</p>
<p>Sorry for all the typos in my post above. Sorry to say, though, I don’t really have an opinion one way or tghe other about Kafka. I spend too much time reading stuff on the computer to read books :)</p>
<p>NSM-
You make a good point-- much of the death penalty case money goes to the attorneys (note: not meaning to get into attorney-bashing here). But a lot of money is also spent on food, housing, healthcare, etc… wait… this is starting to sound like college tuition costs :D</p>
<p>People just don’t get that excited when one drug dealer or gang banger kills another of his kind. That’s fine with me too. They are more a danger to each other than society at large.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom but I also agree with Barrons, as this particular piece of refuse seems extremely cold blooded- his comment that despite his horrific and manipulative treatment of the victim, he couldn’t bring himself to kill her dog almost made me vomit. I don’t see that, that has anything to do with her appearance.</p>
<p>There are many cases involving Caucasian women that don’t get media coverage. The mother of one of Ds friends, was brutally murdered in her own home a few years ago, after dropping off her pre-teen daughter at music practice before school. While it was in the local newspapers for a short while, they had few leads and the case has essentially dried up. I expect someone doesn’t want people reminded that even in a “nice” neighborhood, unexpected and uncontrollable things happen. </p>
<p>While murder cases are occasionally revisited in the papers, except for her friends and family, the city has forgotten the incident.</p>