An eye for an eye amidst the culture of life

August 25, 2006 7:14 AM

Elijah Page to be executed in South Dakota.On March 12, 2000, Page and two other brutally tortured and killed Chester Poage near Spearfish, SD.(very graphic description of events). It took Page, Briley Piper, and Darrell Hoadley nearly 3 hours to finally kill Poage. This will be the first execution in South Dakota in 59 years. (more inside)
posted by killThisKid (77 comments total)

The three were tried separately. Briley Piper pleaded guilty, waiving his right to trial and sentencing by jury, and was sentenced to death by a judge on 19 January 2001. Page did the same and was also sentenced to death. Darrell Hoadley opted for a jury sentencing and the jury hung, resulting in life in prision.

SD Attorney General's office on the Page case. Page has waived all further appeals on his behalf.

Warren Johnson, the judge who presided over Page’s punishment trial, stated, "Most parents treated their pets better than your parents treated you."

Prision talk thread.

Perhaps the most personal thing I've found is that Page has a 'Voices from Inside' entry which with the subject 'just friends to correspond with', with a note at the bottom by the site admin stating 'Elijah is tired of being on death row. He just needs some friends to help fill his remaining time. He's not religious so he doesn't need anyone writing about God...'.
posted by killThisKid at 7:14 AM on August 25, 2006

You know, I'm generally a touchy-feely bleeding-heart librul on the idea of the death penalty, but after reading your second link, I'm pretty OK with the idea of this guy getting put to death.

Hypocrisy: it's what's for breakfast.
posted by Zozo at 7:17 AM on August 25, 2006

I have mixed feelings about the death penalty myself, but I can't drum up any sympathy for this bag of shit either.
posted by jonmc at 7:22 AM on August 25, 2006

It's always strikes me as a little funny when I go to CNN.com and ignore the lead and then come to MeFi and read about it.
posted by mrmojoflying at 7:23 AM on August 25, 2006

Eponysterical.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:24 AM on August 25, 2006

I don't have any mixed feelings on the matter. My only regret is that the means of execution may be unreasonably painless.
posted by dsquid at 7:26 AM on August 25, 2006

For perpetrators of these crimes, the death penalty is not a significantly greater deterrent than life imprisonment. It prevents society learning how to combat similar appalling crimes, it removes the possibility of obtaining further evidence in other cases, and worst of all its existence in a justice system means that inevitable errors in conviction will be made irreversible. It is detrimental to society. Personally, I don't even believe it to be an effective punishment compared to lifetime in a cell. Our uncivilized gut instinct is to kill this man, but we need to rise above it.
posted by riotgrrl69 at 7:26 AM on August 25, 2006

If he confessed and was sentenced to death on January 19th, 2001. Why does it take over 5 years to complete the job?
posted by Mr_Zero at 7:29 AM on August 25, 2006

Our uncivilized gut instinct is to kill this man, but we need to rise above it.

Maybe. I dunno, I go back and forth on it. Yeah, the guy had a horrendous upbringing, but I've known people from similar backgrounds who are fine people (or at the very least, don't do shit like this). At the very least, this guy can never be allowed out of prison.
posted by jonmc at 7:29 AM on August 25, 2006

riotgrrl69, I agree with everything you said. But my uncivilized gut is apparently making an exception for this guy.
posted by Zozo at 7:30 AM on August 25, 2006

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:31 AM on August 25, 2006

mrmojoflying: I didn't even realize this was the lead at CNN. I used it only because it has a nice summary of things.

I'm from SD and have been following this case since the beginning as I am torn by the brutality of the situation contrasted against the use of the death penalty.

With everything else going on in SD, I thought it should be noted that the govt here is both pro-life and pro-death. Call it hypocrisy, call it what you will, ultimately, I just want some light shed on it. I have an agenda and that is to spread information.

CNN's placement of the story had no effect on my decision to post. This a near and dear issue to me.
posted by killThisKid at 7:32 AM on August 25, 2006

Our uncivilized gut instinct is to kill this man, but we need to rise above it

I would say it is my civilized gut instinct that wants to rid the world of Briley. You can't play by the rules? Guess what, you are out of the game.
posted by Mr_Zero at 7:38 AM on August 25, 2006

Our uncivilized gut instinct is to kill this man, but we need to rise above it.

I remember a local group of teenagers from a small rural town where I had gone to school that performed something nearly identical to this story. They mention one of the motivations in this instance could have been money for LSD - really, who knows at this point? In this local instance, the kids were heavily into methamphetamine. They get the brilliant idea to kill one of their buddies caretakers - an elderly man who was probably doing his best to provide for a troubled youth foisted upon him by his own inadequate childrens poor choices. They beat him with a tire iron, stabbed him and crushed his skull in the back part of his field by a creek, using his own pickup truck. Drove to Vegas, wiped out his CC and even paid for a limo ride all the way back to town, only to be immediately arrested and sent to prison for life.

These people are not worth the funding that is necessary to facilitate their permanently imprisoned existence. They have clearly demonstrated their ability to disregard the fundamental boundaries of another human being, not to mention for the most petty motivations. Extinguishing their life is too generous a sentencing. I'm sure their victims would agree. Fuck rehabilitation. They lost the game, in a big way. There is no redemption that will ever matter outside of their pathetic ego. Eponysterical, indeed.
posted by prostyle at 7:38 AM on August 25, 2006

At the very least, do this guy the kindness of simply giving him a 9mm round behind one ear and letting him check out without any further fuss. The big production we turn capital punishment into amounts to a bizarre sort of protracted psychological torture as an unintended consequence. If we can't immediately march the convicted out back behind the courthouse and make him/her kneel by the dumpster to receive the auto-da-fé, let's quit the capital-punishment farce and just say Life Without Possibility.

On preview: yeah, it's further BS that we're okay with defending the unborn and Terri Schiavo yet killing people who are convicted of certain crimes. Kill 'em all or save 'em all. OTOH, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," right, Ralph?
posted by pax digita at 7:39 AM on August 25, 2006

Okay. That second link there is just about the most fucked up thing I've ever read that's been posted to Metafilter.

I generally agree with riotgrrl. I've always felt that the death penalty is lame, pathetic punishment, and that a life spent in jail, until they die there an old man, is a more appropriate way to deal with things.

But after reading that description of the events, I find myself wishing his time in jail is spent being beat and tortured.

But I'm opposed to torture and cruelty. That's why I find his crimes dispicable in the first place, so who am I to condone that the same be done to him?

Then I just drink more.

.
posted by Jimbob at 7:40 AM on August 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

These people are not worth the funding that is necessary to facilitate their permanently imprisoned existence.

IIRC, it costs more to go through the legal processes required to execute someone than it does to imprison them for the rest of their lives.

And why do people keep talking about a game? This isn't a game.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:43 AM on August 25, 2006

I have an agenda...

Whoa! Take that elsewhere.

...and that is to spread information.

Oh. That seems alright.
posted by Falconetti at 7:43 AM on August 25, 2006

From the article:

Page was repeatedly beaten and sexually abused; his mother often would allow drug dealers to molest Page in exchange for drugs

but I've known people from similar backgrounds who are fine people (or at the very least, don't do shit like this)
posted by jonmc at 10:29 AM EST on August 25 [+] [!]

You know people who went through that? I hope for their sakes they are getting some help.

What a rotten existence, born into torture, and then at some point become the torturer. I bet he can't even remember when he crossed the line.

I sort of don't know how I feel about this. Part of me thinks that they should have put plastic on the courtroom floor and shot him in the face seconds after he pled guilty. But that part of me is never allowed to be in charge.

I'm sort of tired of it all. Isn't the message the death penalty sends that it's okay for the state to kill people? Isn't it the antiseptic version of radicals stoning people to death. Every time one of these cases turns up, there this righteous contingent of people that say he deserves to die, etc. It's nauseatingly ugly.

Is that really what we want - shouldn't we be saying that all killing is wrong always? Do we have to voluntarily relinquish every inch of moral high ground to satisfy the reptilian brain of the populace?

Isn't anyone else sick of it? Every day so-and-so killed so-and-so. Kill kill kill. A bomb today, shootout tomorrow. Ugh, enough already. Everybody just knock it off. Take a time out.

The culture is so out of wack. You can't show nudity in art on television, but you can show simulated decaying corpses, and first person axe-to-skull blows every week on CSI. We have coined the expression "cartoon violence" to define the extreme violence without realistic consequences that we are comfortable showing our children. Why does that make seem reasonable to us?

I say let them rot in prison. Maybe at some point they'll realize the horror of what they've done, and then those memories will haunt them for the rest of their lives. That's their private hell. Killing them doesn't help anyone.

Enter life as a piece of crap, exit it as a piece of crap. God bless America.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:04 AM on August 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

What always strikes me about these cases is the mechanism of human empathy. People read about a horrible crime and then they want to do something horrible to the perpetrators. I doubt the victim even has much to do with this reaction. Ah well. Killing is always a safe bet for practical people. There's always this sense, there's more where you come from. In that sense, the whole pro-life/pro-death position is indeed pretty practical.
posted by nixerman at 8:12 AM on August 25, 2006

I say let them rot in prison. Maybe at some point they'll realize the horror of what they've done, and then those memories will haunt them for the rest of their lives. That's their private hell. Killing them doesn't help anyone.

Yeah, that's about where I stand. Death is a cop-out. I can only hope they DO someday realize the horror of what they've done, but it seems the crazier they are, the less likely this is, unfortunately.
posted by Jimbob at 8:12 AM on August 25, 2006

You know people who went through that?

I know people who came from addiction-ridden abusive enviornments, maybe not as extreme, but in some cases not far. They have their problems, but they haven't done anything like this.

It's the dueling instincts in us. Our first instinct is disgust at the appalling act this guy commited, the second is a certain...despair at where he came from and what's going to happen and whether it'll do any good.

Then there's the final coldly analytic part that realizes that, in the name of public safety, none of these guys can ever be free again.
posted by jonmc at 8:13 AM on August 25, 2006

People read about a horrible crime and then they want to do something horrible to the perpetrators. I doubt the victim even has much to do with this reaction.

I disagree. Most people find it easier, for whatever reason, to put themselves in the place of the victim and that's what triggers the disgust.
posted by jonmc at 8:15 AM on August 25, 2006

I agree with damned near everything posted here, as I am conflicted on this whole issue as well. I mean, it is a fact that the death penalty fails statistically as a deterrent...but for me, I guess I finally weigh in on the side of 'death for them', as I think 'what happens if future legislation or bureaucratic snafu or prisoner escape puts this person back on the streets, and they kill again?"

They really don't deserve another chance at , well, anything, because they irreversibly removed all choices and chances for someone else. I guess if we can keep them locked up, forever, with 0% chance of escape...then I guess 'Life' becomes the option of choice.
posted by das_2099 at 8:20 AM on August 25, 2006

Death is to good for him.
posted by thanotopsis at 8:23 AM on August 25, 2006

Good riddance to this guy.
posted by tadellin at 8:23 AM on August 25, 2006

Why do so many lifers in prison try to commit suicide? Because they want to ease their suffering. If maximum security prisons work properly, death is the easy way out.
posted by riotgrrl69 at 8:25 AM on August 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

Death is to good for him.

Well exactly.
posted by riotgrrl69 at 8:27 AM on August 25, 2006

Then there's the final coldly analytic part that realizes that, in the name of public safety, none of these guys can ever be free again.
posted by jonmc at 11:13 AM EST on August 25 [+] [!]

There's free, there's dead, and there's the government that represents you doing the killing.

Remember that insipid Not-in-My-Name petition that went around before the Iraq war? Well, it's the same government. Is this what you want done in your name?

That's why the whole pro-life/pro-death thing, is in my opinion, a great hypocrisy. If you want to preserve all life, then that includes the horrible ones too.

But, as always it's really about power - power over women in the former case, and power over the poor/ignorant/ mentally ill/in the latter case. Individuals voluntarily rally to these causes not out of some moral imperative but to be on the side of that power, to feel if only subconsciously and for a moment the power to judge and control others.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:27 AM on August 25, 2006

While I am also, in general, against the death penalty Zozo, there are certain cases that go the extra mile, so to speak. I think this is one of them.

I heard a statement from prison warden in Texas, who was decrying the sideshow that sometimes goes on outside of prisons when they execute someone, that pretty much summed up my feelings. It went something like, "There are some crimes that are so heinous that society ought to reserve it's ultimate punishment for them. That punishment ought to be carried out in a sober and professional manner."

I think that last part is real important. There was a morning DJ in St. Louis a few years ago who went into this gleeful fit of verbal masterbation every time Missouri executed someone. It was so creepy it got to the point where I wondered what you'd find in the crawl space under his front porch.

And then there is the bit that Pastabagle quoted. Gah. The whole thing is so screwed up I can start to see why some people retreat into a little world of black and white morality and don't bother trying to differentiate. Reading the thing makes me feel like I need another shower.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:31 AM on August 25, 2006

you're a mindreader now, pastabagel? Do us all a favor, don't tell us 'why' we do anything. It's that arrogance that torpedos reasonable discussion.

And, if you read carefully, you'd see that I wasn't advocating anything, merely explicating my own conflicts over this issue.

But, as always it's really about power - power over women in the former case, and power over the poor/ignorant/ mentally ill/in the latter case.

And disgust at the actions of the crime play no part whatsoever? Don't be obtuse.
posted by jonmc at 8:32 AM on August 25, 2006

It's like KKK or Neo Nazi groups. You don't agree with what they say. You don't want to hear it. And you're not going to lose any sleep when they are blocked from holding a demonstration, parade, or whatever.

But as long as they can say the things they say, I know my freedom of speech is intact. And for that I would have to defend their rights even if I strongly disagree with the message.

Same thing here. I don't agree with execution, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over this guy's death. But I have to keep true to the ideal that execution is wrong. You can't let the horror of the crime retard your beliefs.
posted by ruthsarian at 8:33 AM on August 25, 2006 [3 favorites]

pastabagel, I don't really disagree with your analysis of the system, or the sad realities of it...I would ask "how else can you acheive 100% certainty that they will not kill again?"

I guess that is really projecting my values there...the question should more properly be "all things considered, is the risk that they may possibly someday kill again greater than the possibilty that the government will fuck up the investigation, for whatever reason?"

That is a hard call, and why there needs to be an examination of the system itself . You are familiar with teh argumetns, I am sure:

-- Disproportionate application of the death penalty to blacks than whites in comparable crimes, failure to allow physical evidence for overtly political reasons, etc. All very real, very serious issues.

There is no doubt that the system is cracked, maybe broken.

But for these men, who are beyond a shadow of a doubt, responsible for the torture and murder of another human being....now that we have taken government incompetence and/or malice out of the conviction...now that we have eliminated the possiblity of 'killing an innocent man' out of the case...what other standard do we judge by other than 'how do we make sure they don't do it again?"
posted by das_2099 at 8:37 AM on August 25, 2006

what other standard do we judge by other than 'how do we make sure they don't do it again?"

Well, I think you're overly concerned about the chances of escape, or beaurocratic bungles.

I don't know - we've got killers in maximum security here in Australia, like Martin Bryant and Ivan Milat, who are in solitary under video surveilance for the rest of their lives. I really don't think they're going to escape.

Nor do I think there will be any beaurocratic bungles. No public official is going to accidentally sign a fom permitting their release.

Nor is any parliament going to pass a law allowing murderers like this to go free. If they ever do, then you've got greater problems to worry about than one psycho.
posted by Jimbob at 8:45 AM on August 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

you know, I heard that Antartica has some prime prison real estate up for grabs..
posted by concreteforest at 8:45 AM on August 25, 2006

Punishment should be about deterrence and prevention and that's it.
posted by riotgrrl69 at 8:55 AM on August 25, 2006

No one's commenting on the fact that they did all this - at least in part - to obtain LSD??? Think about that for a minute.

I once had a bad trip because I got turned away at a bar & had to go sit by myself for a few hours. These kids tortured someone to death - how do you think their trip would've went? It just boggles the mind.

As far as what should be done with them, I think that life in prison without the possibility of parole should be a much more common punishment than it is, and these kids would be perfect candidates. If you can't play nice in the real world, then you should be kept away from those who can.
posted by stinkycheese at 8:55 AM on August 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

(oh, and rehabilitation, but that's not really an issue here).
posted by riotgrrl69 at 8:56 AM on August 25, 2006

And disgust at the actions of the crime play no part whatsoever? Don't be obtuse.
posted by jonmc at 11:32 AM EST on August 25 [+] [!]

I think you are misunderstanding me. I wasn't actually arguing with you or with anything you said, nor was I implying anything about what you did. I was simply using a statement you made as the basis of another thought.

And disgust at the actions of the crime play no part whatsoever? Don't be obtuse.
posted by jonmc at 11:32 AM EST on August 25 [+] [!]

The law isn't capable of digust, as it's not alive. The law reflects the policy. And you can't base policy or law on a single case. If the death penalty is wrong, it's wrong in every case, regardless of what the facts are. It's wrong, in my opinion, for reasons that have nothing to do with the killer or the victim. The state, as imperfect and subject to the biases and irrationality of its agents, should not be killing the people it represents, and it should not have a permanent apparatus for doing so.

If the death penalty is acceptable, then courts need to start articulating why to an objective third party, one method of killing is less heinous than another. And why some defendants get different punishment for equally heinous crimes.
posted by Pastabagel at 9:02 AM on August 25, 2006

Amen riotgrrl. Revenge is a motivation that should be bred out of the species.
posted by freedryk at 9:02 AM on August 25, 2006

Like many, I'm conflicted about punishment for the most heinous crimes as well. While I certainly feel some sympathy for the awful, horrific life of Page, the justice system is not judging the person here--it's judging his actions. And, wow, were those some profoundly fucked-up things he did. (And from the accounts linked, they apparently enjoyed doing. WTF, indeed.)

This crime is repulsive not just because it's the murder of a human being, but exponentially so because of the manner in which he was murdered. But the end result of such an act is the same, no matter what preceded it--is a crime of passion, in the end, really any different than something more...extensive, like this crime? This is really where the moral quandary begins for me, because emotionally I feel it's OK for someone who killed accidently, or in the heat of extreme emotion, to receive a less severe sentence than the trio that committed this unthinkable brutality. Perhaps because I perceive the former to be rehabilitate-able, and the latter as just too fucked up to even go there.

Despite my conflicted feelings about it, I do think that a consistent moral perspective would either be pro-life all the way, or pro-death. I also feel that perhaps morality isn't always consistent and sometimes even paradoxical.

Either way, this is awful, awful stuff.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:04 AM on August 25, 2006

Think about that for a minute.

I did, and decided that detail is probably inaccurate.
posted by sonofsamiam at 9:19 AM on August 25, 2006

Punishment should be about deterrence and prevention and that's it.

Ignoring the use of punishment for retribution also ignores the only reason most people support punishment. It is a fun thought experiment to remove retribution from the equation, but then you are left with some lame utilitarian calculus that encourages those in charge to pretend their personal opinions have the validity of a scientific principle. Deterrence and prevention are important, but they are ancilliary benefits of a retribution-based punishment system.
posted by Falconetti at 9:24 AM on August 25, 2006

Ignoring the use of punishment for retribution also ignores the only reason most people support punishment.

Well, um, good. Most people don't have society's interest at heart. It's the job of government to do the lame utilitarian calculus that keeps society working.
posted by riotgrrl69 at 9:30 AM on August 25, 2006

Criminy, that 2nd link is a doozy.

People are animals. Criminals are animals who are mentally damaged. The worst cases can't be fixed. (Though some can be regulated: Rx is meds and/or Jesus, taken every day, for life. Or maybe an old-school lobotomy.) Execution isn't a deterrent against biology. It's euthanasia that makes the better-behaved animals feel virtuous.

On that note, webmasters who don't use paragraphs should be executed.
posted by turducken at 9:33 AM on August 25, 2006

I don't have anywhere near that must trust in the government for them to decide how many days or years are appropriate to adequately deter an offender from committing another crime as well as to adequately deter other potential offenders from committing a crime. That sort of system diverges from the sense of instinctual fairness that most people have when comparing a crime and its punishment.

10 years for stealing a candy bar is blantantly unfair to most people. But what if that was the requisite amount of time needed to deter a critical mass of people from stealing candy bars. And what if that length of time drops dramatically for the next person who stealsa candy bar because he is more of an outlier? The next person may get 1 year instead for the same crime. Is that fair?

Do we take race and geography into account? If harshly punishing recent Chinese immigrants in New York's Chinatown is determined to have a strong deterrent effect on that community, but little deterrent effect on white people, is it worth it to more harshly punish the immigrant? What if the deterrent effect of punishment in South Bend is much greater than the deterrent effect in San Francisco, should where you live partially determine the length of your sentence?

If you find these examples ridiculous, then substitute your own, they are merely illistrations of the unending complications a purely deterrent system of punishment would have. There is no magic number of days or years for a particular crime that can be applied across the board and that meets the level of deterrence sought (however that would be determined). Of course, the current justice system in the US is unfair as well, but its greater simplicity insures both greater fairness and greater support from the population.
posted by Falconetti at 9:43 AM on August 25, 2006

There is no doubt that the system is cracked, maybe broken.

Every now and then, we execute someone of a really horrible crime. More frequently, the primary factors that determine who gets on death row are race, class, and judicial incompetence.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:53 AM on August 25, 2006

Punishment should be about deterrence and prevention and that's it.

Disagree. Punishment needs to be about punishment, so far as I'm concerned. Take someone who's murdered another human being - our primary goal as a society is going to be teaching him not to do it again? As if he's a fucking dog who shit on the floor?

No.

That second link killThisKid provided - check the case at the top of the page involving a crime perpetrated by one William Wyatt Jr. on 3-year-old Damien Willis:

On 6 February, again acknowledging he had not been completely truthful previously because he was scared, Wyatt stated: while Porter was at work, the child wanted to take a bath; after the child began running the bath water, Wyatt saw something on the television that “made [him] feel like having sex”; Wyatt sodomized the child; Wyatt left the room and returned; believing the child had lodged something in the light socket, he hit the child with a belt five or six times; the child began screaming; to stop him, Wyatt held a plastic bag over his mouth; when the child tried to jerk away from Wyatt, the child hit his head on the tub; Wyatt left to get ice for the child’s forehead; when Wyatt returned, the child was not breathing; and after attempting CPR, Wyatt called 911. In 1998, Wyatt was found guilty of capital murder of a child under the age of six and sentenced to death.

So how, then, is society to make absolutely sure Mr. Wyatt never has the opportunity to do something like this again?

Via the same action that decisively makes certain Mr. Wyatt pays a price for ever doing it in the first place.
posted by kgasmart at 10:40 AM on August 25, 2006

You can't play by the rules? Guess what, you are out of the game.

Fuck rehabilitation. They lost the game, in a big way.

Somebody gave you folks a rulebook when you were born? Really? Care to share with the class? I don't remember ever getting a fuckin' Manual of Life. Yes, each society creates a set of laws its members must follow, but since we don't get the choice of being born where we want, it's a crapshoot whether you're born under a repressive fundamentalist regime or a permissive egalitarian rule.

The victim did not deserve to die. Neither do the perpetrators. Humans do not need to kill each other in order to live, and it's contrary to our ultimate survival as a communal species to do so. That some members of society choose to do so points to a failing, certainly. But whose failing? Do we truly understand the why enough to properly assign the blame in the right measure? While the ultimate responsibility does lie with the perpetrator, considering his upbringing can you honestly hold his parents to be without guilt? And what level of blame is placed on the greater society that allows such an upbringing, and does nothing to alleviate it or repair the damage caused?

I'm not saying the death penalty is wrong. I am against it for a number of reasons, most of which are based on my personal moral code. Those reasons I have to discount, however, as they are tainted by personal bias. But there is one universal reason - the fact that we just don't understand why people can bring themselves to kill another human. When we can know that, if we can know that, then we can decide if the death penalty is truly correct, personal moral codes be damned. Until then, it would be wrong of us as fellow humans to act in the same manner we see what society views as our lowest members act.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 10:42 AM on August 25, 2006

Take someone who's murdered another human being - our primary goal as a society is going to be teaching him not to do it again? As if he's a fucking dog who shit on the floor?

Um, no, our primary goal is to demonstrate that this is intolerable behavior and, for the protection of the general public, people who behave in this manner will be removed from society. It shouldn't be about making a criminal pay for their act. How do you buy a victim's life? Impossible. All we can do is protect others and dispose of the criminal's case in a manner that re-affirms our society's generally accepted basic values. Like support of life! By the way, that's deterrence and prevention.
posted by thirteenkiller at 11:05 AM on August 25, 2006

Punishment should be about deterrence and prevention and that's it.

What about separation? This seems the primary and most important function of prisons. Keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us. This serves justice much better than simple retributive punishment that characterized human societies for 100s of years. However, the retributive impulse is hard to shake. We all know what goes on in prison, but nobody really cares. Talking about prison reform is political suicide.

I won't be so trite as to suggest that prisons don't deter any crime, but it really seems to be a minor function.

In this analysis, the benefit to society from killing convicted criminals is roughly the same as keeping them in prison for life. In theory, the cost of housing and feeding the inmate should speak in favor of the death penalty, but in reality, the appeals process and years of waiting around for the sentence makes it more expensive to kill.

Whether the death penalty is justified from a purely moral standpoint is a difficult and convoluted question. The death penalty in America today and the way it is practiced is utter farce and a terrible policy.

That being said, I won't lose any sleep over this guy.
posted by SBMike at 11:10 AM on August 25, 2006

"Revenge is a motivation that should be bred out of the species."

I could not agree less. Retribution and revenge are the foundations of all social order and civilization. One of the primary reasons humans formed into tribal groups in the beginning was for protection. This protection came in the form of assured retribution to individuals who transgressed from social norms.
For uncounted generations, fear of this retribution this has been the primary motivation for individuals' suppression of anti-social impulses. Governments were founded to institutionalize and depersonalize retribution, taking it out of the hands of individuals and reducing pointless violence between family groups. It's no coincidence that a monarch's official place of business is called "Court." It's called that because the primary duty of a monarch, from the beginning, was to resolve conflicts between parties, and decide punishments for offenders of the social order. This decisionmaking process is also the origin of the word "Doom."

If there's anything that the case linked by the OP makes clear, it's that the time when we as a species finally are ready to set down the toolkit of revenge is a long damn time away.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 11:13 AM on August 25, 2006

But there is one universal reason - the fact that we just don't understand why people can bring themselves to kill another human.

It's ok if you aren't comfortable holding convictions against this individual to the extent that I do. I don't have a problem with it, personally. Much like others in this thread, you seem to reach towards far flung philosophical quandaries to explain the ability to hold this mindset. It's unnecessary, and something I find peculiar - there are no emotional pretexts that lead me towards this conclusion.

Did primitive man have to implicitly understand the forces of gravity to know that it can be quite damaging and possibly lethal to fall a great distance before he concluded that it's a bad idea?

Much like sonofsamiam notes about the LSD lead-in, the context is pointless. Greed and ignorance is explanation enough, and even then - what leverage does it apply to the fundamental relationships of Aggressor and Victim? None. I would feel the same way about their character had they avoided absconding with his material possessions - motive is an entirely superfluous metric in this instance.
posted by prostyle at 11:18 AM on August 25, 2006

This guy is very sick, in both senses. Abuse, drugs, the whole nine yards. The point is he was (and is) obviously impaired. If he's to live among us, he needs a lot of help. And he probably should never be allowed to live among us. Sure, he did a really bad thing, and it would make most of us feel good to kill him. But given his obvious illness, I don't think we should.

Also, he wants to die and has the means to see that it happens (we'll do it for him). That's pretty good evidence in my book that he has one oar in the water.
posted by MarshallPoe at 11:24 AM on August 25, 2006

Our uncivilized gut instinct is to kill this man, but we need to rise above it.

In the wonderful world of theory, I agree with you entirely. However, none of us have the luxury of living in that world...

Although it is nice to say things like "we're better than that, we're civilized", the fact is that not everyone IS civilized. In cases of torture, murder, and other heinous acts of viollence, none involved in the comitting the acts can qualify as civilized.

Notions like the above quote are just us patting ourselves on the back. We think we can save everyone, somehow, some way, somewhere... Maybe I'm being a defeatist here, but there are people who are beyond salvation -- and there are people who are beyond salvation by choice. There are enough people in this world in need of help who have not killed other human beings, raped, or tortured; why don't we worry about them instead of a bunch of Lost Causes.

How exactly are we uncivilized for not wanting to waste time on people who don't care about -- or do not understand at all -- the social contract?

An eye for an eye is not about mindless vengeance and violence; it means a punishment should never exceede the crime. If people want to act like predatory animals, and kill other human being, then they should be put down. We don't have to draw and quarter them, but I have no ethical problem with putting a bullet in the back of the head of a person who beats an old man to death with a tire iron, or (insert your own brutal crime here).

You take away life in cold blood, you forfeit yours.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:26 AM on August 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

There are enough people in this world in need of help who have not killed other human beings, raped, or tortured; why don't we worry about them instead of a bunch of Lost Causes.

You take away life in cold blood, you forfeit yours.


My thoughts exactly.
posted by Mr_Zero at 11:31 AM on August 25, 2006

I am about as liberal as they come but no one will ever be able to convince me that the death penalty isn't fully justified in certain cases. Death penalty reform and prison reform are both sorely needed. That much is inarguable and no, not all perpetrators of homicide need to die, but some do.

Somebody gave you folks a rulebook when you were born? Really? Care to share with the class? I don't remember ever getting a fuckin' Manual of Life.

Well, yeah. I think that's called a conscience. I got one. Elijah Page didn't apparently, nor did William Wyatt Jr. And my conscience is perfectly fine with these people being executed.

I mean, we euthanize animals all the time for the sole crime of being inconvenient to us. If you ask me, the life of some mangy mutt at the pound is worth infinitely more than these cancers of humanity.

It's one thing to be anti-death penalty in theory but people who are actively involved in trying to save people like these from execution astound me with their lack of priorities. There are thousands of causes far more worthy of your attention. Last time I checked we still had starving people, AIDS, inequality, etc. Hell, the advocacy of good manners is a more worthy cause.
posted by Jess the Mess at 11:42 AM on August 25, 2006

You take away life in cold blood, you forfeit yours.

Yes. But we don't have to take it.

We don't have to worry about these people and we don't have to waste time on them. How many threads like this are there for people sentenced to life in prison?
posted by thirteenkiller at 11:44 AM on August 25, 2006

My stance on the death penalty is simple. Some people deserve to die because of their crimes, but how can you always be certain that they actually did the crime? In this case, he did the crime, but most times it isn't that simple. If you have a death penalty, sooner or later you will execute an innocent person. So, if you support this execution you are implicitly supporting their executions as well.

Life in prison is probably worse than execution anyway.
posted by clockworkjoe at 12:02 PM on August 25, 2006

I find it interesting that some people are in favor of life imprisonment on the grounds that it's crueller than execution.
posted by aramaic at 12:03 PM on August 25, 2006

The death penalty is always wrong!
posted by Pendragon at 12:09 PM on August 25, 2006

Sloganeering always adds a lot to a thread!

It's one thing to be anti-death penalty in theory but people who are actively involved in trying to save people like these from execution astound me with their lack of priorities.

I respect anyone who has the gumption to put their money where their mouth is, regardless of whether or not I agree with them, or whether or not I think their causes are worthwhile. Talk is cheap (there is certainly an overabundance of it, especially here), and if someone believes enough in something to be moved to act, more power to him/her. I think they rather deserve our praise than our scorn.

For my own part, I'm as conflicted about this issue as anyone on this thread. With regard to most matters, I probably have more empathy for people than I should, as I do think everyone deserves a second, third and fourth chance no matter how badly they screw up. However, when I hear about violence like this, it absolutely enrages me (based on something that happened to me a long, long time ago... I do have a strong bias). When I thought about the case of Karla Faye Tucker, what she and her idiot boyfriend did to her husband with a pick axe or shovel or whatever it was stayed with me more than her death row conversion, as sincere as it seemed to be at the time.-
posted by Hypnic jerk at 1:16 PM on August 25, 2006

While I am also, in general, against the death penalty Zozo, there are certain cases that go the extra mile, so to speak. I think this is one of them.

I need to take issue with this "extra mile" argument, which has been cropping up here and there. It's disingenuous, first of all. As I think pastabagel said somewhere, this is an issue of law -- the death penalty is either legal or illegal. That said, I don't think the "extra mile" qualification should be discarded entirely. Bc there are some cases that truly are heinous. It's when they reach this point though that we should stop worrying about the perpetrator -- whether he'll get his proper comeuppance, or whatever -- and start worrying about ourselves. Bc at that point the perp is a lost cause; the only risk, then, is to those who judge. We cannot hope and should not hope, I'd argue, to make ourselves capable of such beastly acts as would be necessary to punish the crime's barbarity. In crimes such as this society is the loser. And capital punishment is simply the stubborn refusal to accept this fact.
posted by It ain't over yet at 2:45 PM on August 25, 2006

It's either legal or illegal? Why, because you say so? If there's some legal precedent dictating that the death penalty must be used in all cases or none, please enlighten us.
posted by mattholomew at 5:15 PM on August 25, 2006

How I wish I could enlighten you.
posted by It ain't over yet at 5:35 PM on August 25, 2006

For perpetrators of these crimes, the death penalty is not a significantly greater deterrent than life imprisonment.

Killing them is the best way of ensuring that they never commit such an act again.

I consider myself a liberal, although I have no problem with taking a worthless piece of filth like this out of the picture entirely. Placing them in a cell for the rest of their lives is not enough - and too expensive. We shouldn't have to support this man's "right to life" - he forfeited that right when he committed such a terrible crime.

I suppose growing up on a farm is to blame for my views. If an animal viciously attacks and kills another, we simply killed that animal. Problem solved, the livestock is protected.

When I was nine, a member of my family was murdered in front of me. I was lucky enough to escape - and lived to smile when he "committed suicide" while under 24 hour watch in a small-town jail.

Before anyone claims that I would feel different about such punishment if the murderer was someone close to me, I was once married to a woman who viciously murdered a man - and received life imprisonment for that crime. I would gladly do all that I could to reverse that decision and have her put to death.
posted by bradth27 at 7:38 PM on August 25, 2006

I was really curious how MeFi would lean on this one.

Many of the issues that pertain to an execution don't fit here:

• Both the victim and criminal were white
• There is absolutely no doubt as to the guilt of Page
• Page is bringing on his own death as quickly as possible through legal channels
• The crime commited was way out on the bell curve. I have yet to encounter anyone who can justify this crime
• Essentially, a majority of all parties involved are in agreement:
  • The state/law is willing and ready to kill him
  • He wants to die
  • A majority of society wants him to die, or at the very least, won't be sad to see him go

And I think this absense of standard objections causes some people to not only re-think thier position but to complete change stances.

I'll finally admit my opinion. I think he should live. Both because he is human and is alive and deservies life, and becuase he deserves to be alive so he can exist through what he did.

We all exist by default. Let us live in the bed we make, no matter where we lie on the curve.
posted by killThisKid at 8:30 PM on August 25, 2006

Well we have our answer -- the kid didn't believe in God. That's why he became a killer.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:50 PM on August 25, 2006

Deathalicious: I almost feel like I'm feeding a troll, but I highly doubt that his stance on the existence of god led him to decide that dropping rocks on another persons head was something he should do.

Someone else mentioned that he probably didn't even know when he 'crossed the line'. I also highly doubt that there was 'a line' in his life.

We are the product of nuture, esp. when it comes to things like this. I think there is a parallelism to racism... if you grow up around it, it is a natural thing to do.

Well, Page didn't have the 'nuture' to learn the standard (according to society) boundaries of the most basic concept of human live.

Of course, this is all my speculation. Whatever the case may be will probably die with him.
posted by killThisKid at 8:56 PM on August 25, 2006

I hold two opinions that seems somewhat contradictory. The first is that the death penalty is wrong. The second is that it's not wrong to kill people under certain circumstances.

These can co-exist because law and justice can't ever be 100% correct. I believe that it's much more wrong to kill in a case that doesn't warrant it than to not kill in a case that does.

Life in prison with no chance of parole and little of escape seems superior in every way. Since the person is still alive, at least some of the harm done by a wrongful conviction is undone. And, in all of those cases where it's justified, permanent imprisonment seems a harsher punishment than death.

As far as deterrence, the death penalty has repeatedly been shown to have no effect. I know it seems obvious that knowing you can be killed for doing something would be a deterrent, but for many things it just isn't.
posted by flaterik at 12:45 AM on August 26, 2006

Placing them in a cell for the rest of their lives is not enough - and too expensive.

Incarcerating someone for the rest of his life is actually less expensive than putting him to death.

Again, I'm conflicted on this issue to a point, but one thing that does trouble me is the bloodlust on the part of those that are pro death penalty. Not sure what that means yet, but it does make me uneasy. The Prodeathpenalty.com postings are pornographic and manipulative; they are meant persuade people into into supporting their org's position. The fact that one now knows the graphic details of a crime should not make him/her any more willing to put the perpetrator of a vicious crime to death, but it sure as hell does. It plays on our anger and our outrage. But justice should not come when our blood is up, or appeal to the darker angels of our nature, it's supposed to come after sober consideration of the facts, with a view of how we all would like our society to be. I think that just having the death penalty is corrosive to that society.

As for removing the person from the herd, the same thing is accomplished by life without possibility of parole, so that argument falls short.

From a religious standpoint, most of the mainstream denominations are unequivocal: the death penalty is wrong under all circumstances. I'm not religious, but for those that hold to the "eye for an eye" tenet, it should be noted that this is a practice of man, not one of God. For what it's worth.

From the standpoint of giving the victim's family "closure" or revenge, again I argue whether a civilized and just society should be in the business of providing those things. Justice, I think, should be an extension of society's will, not an instrument of vengeance for a small group of people who were wronged, no matter how heinously.
posted by Hypnic jerk at 2:42 AM on August 26, 2006

Now this guy is the sort that should be sent to Guantanamo Bay for life.

He admitted to the killing so there is no worry about an innocent person wrongly imprisoned.

He wants to die. He should not get what he wants.
posted by moonbiter at 4:56 AM on August 26, 2006

Incarcerating someone for the rest of his life is actually less expensive than putting him to death.

Wrong. Putting someone to death is cheap. You kill them. Done. The process may be expensive, as your links point out - the court costs, appeals, etc. This is what needs to be reformed, in my opinion. Kill them right away, offer no appeal, and don't waste our money.

As for removing the person from the herd, the same thing is accomplished by life without possibility of parole, so that argument falls short.

I never argued to "remove the person from the herd." I argues that the person should be killed. This would make the possibility of that person acting out against another person effectively zero. A prisoner can still kill.
posted by bradth27 at 7:23 AM on August 26, 2006

Wrong. Putting someone to death is cheap. You kill them. Done. The process may be expensive,

Wrong? Maybe in your hypothetical post-reform world. Unfortunately, whether you agree with it or not, it's a fact, Jack. This expensive process is what exists, it's what we have today. It's part and parcel of the whole thing, it goes along with sloppy police work, incompetent court-appointed attorneys and everything else that troubles our system.

Yeah, this asshole did it, apparently has no remorse for it, and yeah, he arguably deserves to die. But how many of these death row cases are so cut and dried?
posted by Hypnic jerk at 9:42 AM on August 26, 2006

Wrong? Maybe in your hypothetical post-reform world. Unfortunately, whether you agree with it or not, it's a fact, Jack. This expensive process is what exists, it's what we have today. It's part and parcel of the whole thing, it goes along with sloppy police work, incompetent court-appointed attorneys and everything else that troubles our system.

My name's not Jack.

Yes, wrong. Killing someone is cheap. A bullet cost less than one day in prison.
I stated that "putting someone to death" is cheap - and that the process needs reform. The process is what brings in expense - the act of putting someone to death in itself is quite reasonable.
The argument that it is so costly to put someone to death - and that, therefore, the death penalty should be abolished is ridiculous. The death penalty shouldn't be abolished - we should just kill them quicker.
posted by bradth27 at 10:00 AM on August 26, 2006

Jack meet Mao.
posted by Falconetti at 1:30 PM on August 26, 2006

The argument that it is so costly to put someone to death - and that, therefore, the death penalty should be abolished is ridiculous.

Sure it is, but that wasn't my argument. To clarify, my thinking was that IF you are going to have a death penalty, you better be absolutely 100% certain that you have the killer in custody, and understand all of the facts of the case, whether mitigating or aggravating. That's why there, in principle, is such an exhaustive (and inevitably expensive) appeals process for death row inmates.

To live in a world where you can have such certain about such things in all cases so we can "kill them quicker", might be nice, but human memory and logic, as well as even-handed jurisprudence procedures simply have not arrived at that point yet. So, in some cases (really, too many cases) there's always going to be doubt, regardless of the number of appeals.

But, you know, if we do move toward martial law or autocracy, you probably will see people shot in the streets for both real and imagined transgressions. That'll be cheap and easy, but I'm fairly certain that you wouldn't want it, particularly as a self-proclaimed "liberal".
posted by Hypnic jerk at 3:22 PM on August 26, 2006