[Magdalen] Heather Cook

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

A period of time that affords the person some time to reflect is
appropriate.  a period of time that virtually guarantees that they will
have no opportunity to have any life is not.

This is not a matter of prison time.  The prison time is trivial compared
to the other consequences she is experiencing.

Time behind bars is an utter waste of time and money.  It costs fifty
thousand dollars a year, and more, just to house prisoners, and at the end
of their time, society has absolutely nothing whatsoever to show for all
this time wasted and money wasted.

Twenty years in prison is no incarceration; it is intentional murder of the
soul.  It is way beyond punishment; it is just making society feel like we
did something, but in reality, we did nothing at all.  Pointless
confinement serves no useful purpose.

I am not saying I know what we ought to do, since I have not the sources of
information others on this list seem to have, since they are able to judge
this case so readily.  I only know that prison does not good at all, and we
use it far and away more than we ought to.  Some creative community service
programs have been shown to be highly effective and the recidivism rates
fall through the floor when we do that.  It's not controversial or subject
to discussion or debate, because we know it works like a charm, far more
effectively than prison, and it is far less expensive.

So why don't we go for more community service? Very simple! You and I write
to the legislators and say, "Don't divert from prisons! We WANT to see
these evil people PUNISHED!"  And the legislators are not going to risk
losing an election for the cause of helping some criminal losers.  So the
same old same old insanity continues, even though all the folks running the
prisons (except for the psychopaths, I suppose, who love what they do) know
perfectly well that the system is broken and does not work.

I am not against making a criminal feel very uncomfortable; I just don't
want to pay fifty thousand dollars a year for each of these folks, just so
it can give me a jolt of satisfaction that, "by God, we got that vermin!
That'll teach him or her to break the law!"

Only trouble is that it does not so teach (look at recidivism rates. It's
fairly obvious), but, hey, details, details...

I have no love lost for a person who kills someone.  But how did this
happen? Did she deceive us, or did she learn that only by denying her
illness could she do what she was called to do? Or what?  In our rush to
judgment, we will never know.

Perhaps it might be useful to try to parse out just what did happen, step
by step.
If the Church is culpable, maybe it can seek ways to minimize that.
Perhaps we can find ways to make it possible for a person to deal with
their demons in a constructive way.

But since we don't seem to be looking at that, we'll probably never know,
and the next time this happens -- and it surely will happen again and again
-- we will rage as loudly as we do now, and again, like "gun" control,
nothing will end up being done.

It could be as simple as too many people invested in showing how they had
no part in the debacle....









James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 11:08 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm opposed to the death penalty, period.
> Obviously, no sentence will bring back the dead man, but I had expected
> the sentence would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-25 years.
> I also don't see anything about financial compensation to the family. Why
> wasn't a hefty fine also required?
> But it doesn't really matter what I think; it's done.
>
> > On Oct 27, 2015, at 8:24 PM, Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On 10/27/15 4:41 PM, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
> >> Well, whether I'm supposed to judge or not, I think this is outrageous.
> Seven years for taking a man's life...
> >
> > So what would you give for a sentence, if you were the judge?  The death
> penalty, a life for a life?
> >
> > This is surely not intentional, premeditated murder.  She didn't intend
> to kill anyone, even momentarily.  She was careless, with the cell phone,
> and with giving in to her addiction when others were social drinking, and
> then, probably, for not calling a taxi or finding a designated driver.  I'm
> not saying she should walk free, I just don't know.  Nor do I know whether
> seven years is "enough".  And comparing it to other cases doesn't really
> work for me either: seems to me that every case is unique.
> >
> > Nor am I judging you for being judgmental.  That's sort of part of
> democracy in civil law, I believe.  You have to judge between candidates
> when you vote, for example-- citizen's duty.  It's a hard question to think
> around.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Sibyl Smirl
> > I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
> > mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net
>