QUOTE 1: Marc Klaas of Sausalito, whose
daughter Polly was murdered by Richard Allen Davis in 1993, said anti-death penalty activists
have a troubling effect on the families of the victims and society in general.
"It diminishes the victims when people burn candles and mourn
someone who has committed a heinous crime," Klaas said. "People on
death row are some of the worst individuals that appear on the face of the
earth.”
QUOTE
2: "The abolitionists refuse to acknowledge that evil exists and
evil has to be put down."
QUOTE
3: The best way to illustrate that is to point out that
there are maybe 750 or more individuals on death row in California, a state
that's executed 13 people in the last 30 years. That's what I mean.
There's various
mechanisms to do that. The one that's being utilized right now is the idea
that the administration of the lethal cocktail in the execution process may
cause pain to the individual being executed.
For the life of
me, I don't understand why anybody is concerned about the last 10 minutes of a
death row inmate's life, about whether that individual is feeling pain or not.
It doesn't make any sense to me. These are people who are being executed for
having committed absolute atrocities against innocent people. [Interview:
Mark Klaas, Father of Murder Victim Polly Klaas, Speaks in Support of Death
Penalty Friday January 13, 2012]
QUOTE
4: But
we do know that guilty people on death row who have been released back into
society have killed again.
These individuals
on death row have no consideration for other people's humanity. They tend to be
psychopathic and show no remorse for the crimes they have committed. I believe
that as they walk that last mile and contemplate their own fate, they perhaps
do understand better the value of life. I believe that's a hard-earned lesson,
but if it's learned, then I think that's added value to the death penalty. [Interview:
Mark Klaas, Father of Murder Victim Polly Klaas, Speaks in Support of Death
Penalty Friday January 13, 2012]
QUOTE
5: Thursday March 1, 2012 - Victims advocate Marc Klaas is opposed to the measure. His 12-year-old
daughter Polly was murdered in 1993. Her killer, Richard Allen Davis, confessed
and is on death row.
"I want the
guy that murdered my daughter to be executed and I suspect the majority of
Californians would like to see the guy that murdered my daughter executed, as
they would so many other of these monsters and goons and creeps that exist on
death row," Klaas said.
QUOTE
6: Tuesday April 17, 2012 - Anderson’s primary support came from Marc Klass, a well-known advocate
for victims whose daughter, Polly, was kidnapped, assaulted and killed by a
parolee who has been sitting on death row for nearly 16 years.
Klass’ frustration boiled
over after the committee rejected Senate Bill 1514 and was on the verge of
voting against Senate Constitutional Amendment 20.
“You people don’t
care about my daughter, You don’t care about any of the victims,” Klass
told the panel. After he was admonished and told part of the solution involved
money, Klass demanded: “How much does it cost to do
nothing? How much does it cost to let this go on year after year? How much does
it cost to have Richard Allen Davis on death row for 30 years?” Davis
stole into a bedroom of Klass’ suburban Petaluma home, kidnapping by knife
point and later killing the 12-year-old Polly. It took nearly 13 years for his
automatic appeal to reach the state Supreme Court, which summarily upheld his
conviction. His appeal is now before a federal court.
QUOTE
7: Wednesday April 25, 2012 - "The only reason I think about Richard Allen
Davis at all is because these people who oppose the death penalty keep throwing
this in our faces," said Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly
Klaas, was kidnapped from her Petaluma home, then raped and strangled. Her body
was discarded near an abandoned lumber mill in Cloverdale.
Davis was sentenced to
death in 1996. He awaits execution.
QUOTE
8: Klaas
criticized the backlog of death penalty appeals cases for causing ballooning
costs.
He also worries that the
system would become more lenient if the death penalty is abolished, eventually
allowing some people to eventually be released on parole.
"There are
no guarantees whatsoever, not even an inkling of a guarantee, that replacing
the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole will guarantee
these people will stay inside," Klaas said.
QUOTE 9: Klaas
said that he will be able to stop thinking about his daughter's killer once the
man is executed.
"Who the
hell do they think Richard Allen Davis is? Don't they get what he did, don't
they know that Salcido slit the throats of his own daughters?" Klaas
said. "Why are they so hell-bent on protecting
these individuals?"
QUOTE 10: Monday August 20, 2012 - Davis is
one of over 700 inmates currently awaiting death in California, which hasn’t
executed anyone since 2006.
That year, U.S. District
Judge Jeremy Fogel ordered a moratorium on executions in the state, after
hearing complaints about how lethal injections were to be administered.
Klaas believes the
moratorium is an example of a roadblock to execution engineered by death
penalty opponents.
“Baby killers,
cop killers, mass murderers; I mean really the worst people in society have
been deemed worthy of the ultimate law of the land, the death penalty,” Klaas
said. “But the abolitionists have created barrier after
barrier.”
QUOTE 11: When
Klaas knocks death penalty opponents, he makes clear that he understands what
motivates many victims’ survivors who take the opposite view.
“I know that the
ones who deal with it best are those who find the will to fight back, whether
it’s for the death penalty, against the death penalty or something else” he said.
AUTHOR:
Marc
Klaas - In the aftermath of the Oct. 1, 1993 kidnap and murder of his
twelve-year-old daughter Polly, Marc Klaas gave up his lucrative rental car
franchise to pursue an aggressive child safety agenda. In announcing the
formation of the non-profit KlaasKids Foundation in September, 1994, Mr. Klaas
said, "We can give meaning to Polly's death and create a legacy in her
name that will be protective of children for generations to come by pursuing
the singular mission of stopping crimes against children."
On June 8, 2001 Mr.
Klaas cofounded BeyondMissing, Inc., a federally funded California public
benefit non-profit corporation. BeyondMissing provides America's law
enforcement community with a free and secure Website to easily and swiftly
create and distribute missing child flyers via broadcast fax, email and SMS
technology. Working with Texas Governor Perry's staff, BeyondMissing, Inc. has
created a state of the art high tech Amber Alert application that is
unsurpassed in efficiency, speed and dependability.
Through federal and
state legislative efforts Mr. Klaas promotes prevention programs for at-risk
youth, stronger sentencing for violent criminals and governmental
accountability and responsibility. Often times this advocacy takes the form of
legislative testimony.
Mr. Klaas has
appeared on most network television newsmagazines, syndicated talk shows and is
a regular resource for CNN, FOX and MSNBC, offering commentary on missing
children and victim's rights. He has written for Newsweek Magazine and published
editorial opinions for newspapers as diverse as the San Francisco Chronicle,
San Jose Mercury News and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A sought after speaker,
Mr. Klaas has shared a podium with President Bill Clinton, New York Governor
George Pataki, California Governor Gray Davis; Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Mayor Guliani and many other distinguished civic leaders.
Mr. Klaas travels
extensively through the United States facilitating town-hall meetings,
encouraging innovative solutions and proven programs that positively impact
crime, abuse and neglect that plague children in so many of our communities. He
also counsels and advises numerous victim families and families of kidnapped
children.
Besides his duties as
volunteer president of the KlaasKids Foundation and president of BeyondMissing,
Inc. Mr. Klaas sits on the advisory boards of the Center for the Community
Interest; Fight Crime Invest in Kids and the National Children's Advocacy
Center.
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