Joho the Blog
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What's one more person? The Terminator was built to kill

I agree with you .. I felt today, watching some of the back-and-forth on CNN, like a small piece of all us has died .. whenever there is any question whatsoever of possible innocence. I won't repeat all the complications here, as they go over it on tv ad nauseum. I will say that I find it (looking at it with foreign eyes) so very unseemly that there are such vehement points of view such as "he was convicted, he must pay people, and maybe, just maybe he might be spared if he were to apologize, show remorse".

This, of course, complicates the issue significantly, as he refuses to admit he did it, stating emphatically over and over again that he is innocent and that if maintaining his innocence costs him his life, "so be it".

Either (now) a man of considerable principle, or considerable stupidity, since if he were to admit cuplability falsely, in many ways his (inner) life would be over for him anyway ... and if that gambit were not to work, at the moment it looks like his life is over anyway. I suppose that if he is indeed innocent there is some considerable satisfaction to him on his last night of life (in a perverse sense) that after 25 years imprisoned, he will be executed with a clear conscience.

I won't say that if guilty he will be receiving the penalty due, as I am firmly opposed to the death penalty. It's imo one of the big problems for those societies that practice it, and dehumanizes us all.

Disclaimer (of sorts) re: my opinionated stance ... as a young man, I spent a year as a Corrections Officer at the Don Jail in Toronto, on specific assignment guarding (on each of my shifts) the last man condemned to die in Canada (Rene Vaillancourt). So I had lots of time (approximately 200 8 hour shifts) to think about it. I quit that job one day by phoning in, saying I was never coming back, and mailing my uniform back to the Ministry of Correctional Services. I should have quit after my first day on the job, but .... some of the things you do for money when you are young and broke. It was a soul-destroying job, and I was too scared about where the rent money would come from.

The death penalty was repealed in Canada shortly after I quit.

Note: while I do agree that the death penalty is overapplied, and the theory behind it questionable at best, I think it's important to keep some perspective and understand why some people advocate it.

Here is what Tookie did to get himself into this mess. Warning: not for the faint of heart:

Btw, to clarify the above: what Tookie allegedly did, and what those who wish to eliminate him from society believe he did. Point being, given certain assumptions, a rational person might conclude that eliminating a person from society might be a valid course of action.