Reply #84: "you are betting on a future that you could not possibly know"

[Heywood J]

Sure. I think that means you've volunteered to be his neighbor if he's released, or his guard or cellmate if he's imprisoned for life. If you're that confident...

I don't give a rat's ass if he's mentally ill or not. There's a difference between being mentally ill and a murderer. Most mentally ill people don't run around taunting police with the severed head of the person they just gutted on a crowded bus.

"but we do not know if he was mentally ill, dropped too much acid on the bus, or just a psychopath (or some other motivation)."
It doesn't matter. If he hadn't killed someone like this (if his crime was different), it might, but it doesn't now. Even if you were to prescribe life in prison, it wouldn't matter - the end result is the same.

"I'm sure my argument would not sway a proponent of the death penalty;"
No, it doesn't, because it really doesn't seem you read what I wrote the first time.





(FWIW to you, the only three crimes I consider appropriate for the death penalty are serial rape, serial murder, and murders where there is no evidence of humanity, no hope of rehabilitation. Mindlessly gutting your victim on a crowded bus and taunting the others with his severed head falls squarely into the last one. There are also police reports that he consumed the flesh of his victim)