On this date, 24 August 2012, Anders Behring Breivik was sentenced to 21
years of preventive detention on 24 August 2012. We, the VFFDP, would like to
respond to David Dow’s article, ‘Norway Did the Right Thing by Giving Breivik 21-Year Sentence Aug 27, 2012 6:21 PM EDT’
Americans are happy to see
convicts receive life sentences at the drop of a hat, but we refuse to
understand that our vengeance doesn’t make us any safer, writes David Dow.
REBUTTAL: Really? Our vengeance does
not make us any safer? What will happen if all criminals were not given life
sentence or put to death? It will lead us to vigilantism or more chaos in
society.
The point is that while
American criminal law remains stuck in medieval times, and our philosophy of
punishment mired in a rationale that never made any sense, Norway recognizes
that we don’t need to lock people up forever and throw away the key in order to
express our abhorrence at what they have done. More important, it’s not the
best way to keep society safe.
REBUTTAL: Not the best way to keep
society safe? European Criminal Law does not believe in life without parole,
that is why there are recidivist offenders. They do not believe in punishment
at all, they do nothing to take murder seriously.
While my clients await their
fate, they sit locked in tiny cells 23 hours a day. They have neither computers
nor TV. Breivik will have access to exercise equipment and be able to watch
television. He will be able to work on a laptop (without Internet
access).
REBUTTAL: We, the VFFDP, know that
in European Countries, criminals will go to a hotel prison instead of a harsh
one.
So what? you might say. This
just reveals the soft heads that define the European stance on crime. But which
continent is drowning in a sea of gun violence and weekly bloody massacres?
Norway isn’t the outlier
here. The sentence Breivik received may make jaws drop here in Texas, but it
reflects an approach to punishment common across all of Western Europe.
Theoretically, of course,
the U.S. and Europe punish people for the same two reasons: to keep society
safe, and to inflict pain on people who have hurt others. But while Western
Europe has kept sight of both objectives, America has become consumed with the
latter.
REBUTTAL: Western Europe has done
none of the objectives. They are actually a land fit for criminals. The own
European people are also disgusted by their justice system where there are much
more criminal rights. Why not Professor Dow move to Norway and defend criminals
there, since he claims they want to keep society safe.
The New York Times quoted the
father of a young girl killed by Breivik as saying he means nothing to him, and
now that Breivik is prison for decades or longer, he can stop thinking about him and get
on with his life. As the father of a young boy, I doubt I would have
that father’s magnanimity, but like me, he is a product of his culture.
Norwegians believe in moving on, while Americans would still be calling for
Breivik’s head. We seem to believe that we are dishonoring the memory of the
dead unless we dehumanize the criminal and inflict maximum pain on him.
But it would be a mistake to think the European model cares any less
about victims than we do. If anything, Europe is more sensitive to victims than
we are. Although the court gave Breivik greater leeway to expound his demented
ideas during the trial than he would ever have had in an American jurisdiction,
the court also heard from every victim or victim’s survivor who wanted to
testify. Seventy-seven separate autopsy reports were introduced into evidence.
The judges indulged Breivik’s twisted ideology, but they also invited stories
about his victims. The many injured were not remotely lost or overlooked in the
proceedings.
REBUTTAL: << But it would be a
mistake to think the European model cares any less about victims than we do. If
anything, Europe is more sensitive to victims than we are.>> No, not at
all, Europe focuses and care more for criminals than victims. Please see this
article, ‘Triple murderer becomes first Briton to challenge his 'life-means-life' sentence after Strasbourg ruled it was 'inhuman' for prisoners to die in jail’. Please also hear from victims’ families in Europe.
In the U.S., meanwhile,
family members of many of the victims of my clients complain that their pain is
ignored even as we foam at the mouth to string up the evildoers.
There’s also the sheer
amount of time we invest in these cases. Breivik’s prosecution took barely a
year to reach its conclusion. While the appeals drag on in death penalty cases,
family members of the victim never know whether the killer of their loved one
will be spared. Many of them hope the execution will finally allow them to move
on with their lives. You’d have to ask them whether that’s how it turns
out.
In the meantime, government
lawyers in America spend a decade defending a death sentence, and lawyers appointed
to represent the murderer spend a decade trying to save him. In Norway and the
rest of Western Europe, those lawyers too are moving on.
REBUTTAL: The Anti-Death Penalty
Activists led by the A.C.L.U is to be blamed for all the delaying tactics.
Sometimes, the death penalty can be used as a plea bargain to allow the killer
to plead guilty and save trial costs. Even when the killer is sentenced to a
life sentence, they can also appeal and appeal, look at Charles Manson who is
still alive, he had been denied parole for 12 times. What a mockery of justice!
The D.C. Sniper, John Allen Muhammad
was executed at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia. Unlike
other States in the America, he was executed in seven years after his murders
and six years after being sentenced to death on 17 November 2003, he was not
executed ‘voluntarily’ (state suicide assist). We hope that other states can
follow Virginia’s example, as they did it with Michael William Lenz.
We, the VFFDP, prefer the justice
system in pre-World War II era, where they can
execute those guilty in a swift and sure manner. We got this information from
Lester Jackson’s article: The Modern Elite Ruling Class Notion of Justice:Cruel and Unusual Punishment of Victims.
President William McKinley died on Sept. 14, 1901,
eight days after being shot by Leon Czolgosz, who was caught in the act and
confessed. On Sept. 23, Czolgosz went on trial and was sentenced to death three
days later. He was executed on Oct. 29, 53 days after the crime and 47 after
the president’s death.
Unable to get near his first choice (75), President Herbert Hoover, Giuseppe Zangara settled on President-elect Franklin Roosevelt. On Feb. 15, 1933, Zangara’s errant shot hit Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who died on March 6. Caught in the act and having confessed, Zangara was executed on March 20, 1933 after 10 days on death row and 14 days after his victim died.
On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau shot President James Garfield, who died on Sept. 19. Immediately caught, Guiteau boasted of his deed. He was placed on trial for murder on Nov. 14 and found guilty on Jan. 25, 1882. After an appeal rejected May 22 and a denied request for an orchestra to play at his hanging, Guiteau was executed on June 30, 1882, nine months after his victim died.
William Kemmler murdered his wife on March 29, 1889 and was sentenced to death 45 days later, May 13. He appealed the new execution method, electrocution, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court May 23, 1890. Even with the aid of high-priced lawyers hired by George Westinghouse, his execution occurred August 6, 1890, 15 months after the murder.
On March 20, 1927, Ruth Snyder, aided by paramour Henry Gray, strangled and bludgeoned her husband to death to collect insurance. In fewer than 10 months, January 12, 1928, they were both executed.
Another capital case which had a swift and sure execution was that of Rashid al Rashidi, which the execution took place on 1 year and two months from the murder.
Do you notice that this
terrorist in Egypt was executed 9 months after being sentenced to death and 1
year and 9 months after the murders, swift and sure!
The cruelest irony of all is that America’s harsher attitude toward
criminals does not translate into greater safety for the rest of us. It turns
out that the two objectives of punishment can be at war with one another, and
in America we are giving up greater security to indulge a vestigial instinct.
Criminal penalties in Europe are substantially shorter than they are in
America, yet Europe has fewer repeat offenders. In Germany, for example, prison
sentences are a third as long as they are in America for equivalent crimes, yet
the rate of recidivism is twenty-five percent lower than on this side of the
Atlantic. More severity, it turns out, does not reduce crime, and might even
increase it.
REBUTTAL: It is useless to compare a
European country with the United States; Germany has a smaller population than
the U.S.A. Why not compare Japan, United Arab Emirates and Singapore with
America, they have the death penalty and harsh sentence and lower crime rates
too.
If the aim of the
criminal-justice system is to protect society, ours is failing. By thinking we
are being kinder to victims by punishing their wrongdoers more severely, we may
actually be creating more victims.
Which leaves only one
justification for America’s approach: The visceral belief that people who do
something bad should suffer terribly, and for a very long time. As a homegrown
member of this culture, I can sympathize. It can be emotionally satisfying to
see a cruel person suffer. But what Europe recognizes that our own justice
system stubbornly refuses to is that some people who do something unspeakably
vile can change.
REBUTTAL: Creating more victims?
Just the opposite, by being kinder to evildoers you are creating more victims.
They can change for the better? Recidivist murderers are proving all the
abolitionists wrong.
Based on his statements in
court, I doubt Breivik will ever change, and I doubt he will ever see the light
of freedom, and I’m not troubled by that. Once his sentence ends, judges can
keep him in prison for an endless succession of five-year terms if he is deemed
a danger to society, which seems likely. But the premise of the sentence—that
the best way to put tragedies behind us is to end them quickly, and that the
infliction of maximum pain does not make us any safer—is an idea that America’s
vengeance-centered culture could learn from.
REBUTTAL: <> Of course,
once the killer is dead and gone. The VFFDP can move on with their lives.
Here
are two quotes, one from Edmund Burke and George Orwell to let David Dow know
how wrong he is in letting evildoers live.
But the mistake of advocates for more lenient sentences to criminals is to ignore the experience of other countries in their policies on crime. For 4 years I am in contact on line with Jennifer Bishop Jenkins, I must point out that Jennifer is a veteran fighter against the death penalty for 3 years but had to leave when an abolitionist group found that abolitionism had intended to abolish LWOP last. . Clear that abolishing death after the “reformers” would seek to attack next LWOP, Then Any Longer prison sentences. Amnesty International Campaigns in Japan to abolish the Death Penalty oppose enter LWOP but also … That is the funny thing according to Japanese law a life sentence dog Apply for parole only after 10 years And Also Those under 20 years or Be Sentenced events to the life sentence …
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the lobby in USA PRO-CRIMINAL is ambiguous on LWOP but this is Merely a tactic expect to deletion of the death penalty … to demand the release of Convicted murderers to life Imprisonment. So has-been the case with French, Germain, Spanish, etc.
it is comforting to know That USA is the hidden agenda of groups like The Sentencing Project or edited by Prison Legal News Paul Wright, an ex-con. I have a recommendation, the defenders of the human rights of Victims Should Know to book: A Land Fit for Criminals: An Insider’s View of Crime, Punishment and Justice in the UK, Which Exposes the Fallacies of the Movement Against the prison, the MOST That is dramatic in Spain penals Laws Are Even Worse Than the Inglés: no life sentence, conjugal visits, gymnasiums, swimming pools (sic) in prisons …
USA and Spain Had too many killers eleven Who Were Sentenced to Death for Murders initial, kill again after HAVING Been Spared execution: Kenneth Allen McDuff, Darryl Kemp, Joe Morse, Harvey Louis Carrignan, Bennie Demps, Eddie Simon Wein, Mad Dog Taborsky and on and on. These killers and rapists Had Been Executed the first time around, Many innocents Would Have Lived.
Please, I deeply respect for human rights activists of the victims also fight against the death penalty but want to keep the LWOP. I just want that victims are not deceived as happened in Spain.
Sincerely,
Alfonso
Portugal, Spain and Norway have softer penal systems in the world, in fact these are the only European Union countries that have no life imprisonment.
ReplyDeleteThere is not life in Spain. In Spain, the fanaticism of defenders of the rights of criminals is so great life imprisonment that oppose even when there is a possibility of parole. In 1975 the criminal law in Spain professors penal law demanded the abolition of the death penalty and prohibition of all sentences of more Than 20 years. Spain Currently the maximum penalty is 20 years for first degree murder, if it is a multiple murder the maximum sentence is 25 years however Penal Reform in 2003 raises the maximum compliance in a case 40 years. Terrorism important to note That Were These penalties Fully never implemented; In 25 years, When the subject has been convicted of two or more Crimes and Punisher is one of Them by law with Imprisonment of up to 20 years.
In 30 years, When the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes and some of Them by punisher by law is 20 years Imprisonment Exceeding.
40, When the subject has Been Convicted of two or more Crimes and at least two of Them Are Legally punisher by Imprisonment Exceeding 20 years.
40, When the subject has Been Convicted of two or more Crimes of Terrorism in the second section of Chapter V of Title XXII of Book II of this Code and Any of Them by punisher by law is 20 years Imprisonment Exceeding.
You See That Follows the Principle Applies Above here, Though INSTEAD of the limit of 20 years Establishing the 40, But The Substance Remains The Same: Do Not care to kill three to thirty-three or three hundred thirty-three people.
Currently in use there are powerful lobby groups who seek the Abolition of the prison along models to Spain and other European countries: Prison Reform International, Prison Legal News, Human Rights Watch, ACLU, they are generously funded by Ford Foundation, George Soros Open Society … that’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I reported that the Heritage Foundation here to victims unite to combat the anti-incarceration movement here.
Thanks
Alfonso.
If death-penalty opponents ever succeed in eliminating capital punishment, their next target for elimination will be life without parole — or as lawyers call it, LWOP.
ReplyDeletePortugal, Spain and Norway have softer penal systems in the world, in fact these are the only European Union countries that have no life imprisonment.
There is Not Life in Spain. In Spain, the fanaticism of defenders of the rights of criminals is so great life imprisonment that opposes even when there is a possibility of parole. In 1975 the criminal law in Spain professors demanded the abolition of the death penalty and prohibition of all sentences of more than 20 years. Spain currently the maximum penalty is 20 years for first degree murder, if it is a multiple murder the maximum sentence is 25 years however penal reform in 2003 raises the maximum compliance in a case 40 years. terrorism important to note that were these penalties fully never implemented; in 25 years, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes and punisher is one of them by law with imprisonment of up to 20 years.
in 30 years, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes and some of them by punisher by law is 20 years imprisonment exceeding.
40, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes and at least two of them are legally punisher by imprisonment exceeding 20 years.
40, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes of terrorism in the second section of chapter v of title xxii of book ii of this code and any of them by punisher by law is 20 years imprisonment exceeding.
you see that follows the principle applies above here, though instead of the limit of 20 years establishing the 40, but the substance remains the same: do not care to kill three to thirty-three or three hundred thirty-three people.
currently in use there are powerful lobby groups who seek the abolition of the prison along models to Spain and other European countries: Prison Reform International, Prison Legal News, Human Rights Watch, ACLU, they are generously funded by Ford Foundation, George Soros Open Society … that’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I reported that the Heritage Foundation here to victims unite to combat the anti-incarceration movement here.
Debra Saunders has 2 excellent articles on this question:
Keep Life Without Parole, Life After Death
http://townhall.com/columnists/debrajsaunders/2009/08/01/keep_life_without_parole,_life_after_death
Escaping the Myth of ‘Three Strikes’ State Prison Law
Thanks
Alfonso.
I read an interesting story about a conference of Amnesty International’s death penalty celeb in Japan. According to Japanese law anyone under 20 years can be sentenced to life imprisonment but to hang if you have more than 18 years. The convicts over 20 years can be sentenced to death or life imprisonment, in the latter case puden eligible for parole after 10 years in prison. Amnesty International was furious because he had submitted a draft law abolishing the death penalty but substitute life imprisonment without parole. The speakers made ??it clear that under no circumstances accept either the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole.
ReplyDelete