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John Allen Muhammad sentenced to death

post #1 of 54
3/9/04 at 5:04pm
Thread Starter 
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/03/09/sniper/index.html

You folks know my opinion on the death penalty, and personally I am disgusted that the judge would sentence him to death.

What's your take on this?
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post #2 of 54
3/9/04 at 5:28pm
My take? Hurrah that there is some justice to be had. I support the death penalty, especially in the case of a person like this, who terrorized people for weeks simply for his own amusement.

I really don't understand what would be preferred....for the US taxpayer to support him in prison for the rest of his miserable life, which BTW ain't so miserable in our prison system.
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post #3 of 54
3/9/04 at 5:33pm
Maybe he be put to death soon.
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post #4 of 54
3/9/04 at 5:55pm
Justice shall be served. There is no chance of "rehabilitation" for this man, he serves no useful purpose to society if he lived for another 50 years. He killed randomly for, as Deb said, his own amusement. How does a person like this deserve to LIVE?
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post #5 of 54
3/9/04 at 5:59pm
That's just it.... He doesn't deserve to live... I am a true crime buff and and I have read all about him and his accomplice Lee Malvo and a bunch of other serial killers and if he doesnt die... Somehow he will escape from jail and kill again.
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post #6 of 54
3/9/04 at 6:05pm
From someone who spent his reign of terror afraid to stop and get gas or pretty much do anything else that made me a target because I lived within the parameter of his shooting practice, not a lot of sympathy to be had here.
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post #7 of 54
3/9/04 at 6:23pm
It is rare for anyone on death row to actually be put to death, and for me that is a shame. You take a life, you should forfeit yours. He certainly took more than one life and deserves to die for what he did and for all the lives he shattered and pain he caused, not to mention the terror he spread.
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post #8 of 54
3/9/04 at 7:36pm
I would suggest reading this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4485399/

I'm fixed in my opinion that the death penalty should be used sparingly, but if ever a case called for it, this is the one.
I have no problem with this one at all. I'll give my compassion to the families of the victims. John Allen Muhammad gets none from me.
I'd remind you that the Judge only gave the defendant the penalty that the jury had decided in a vote. That is our process. It works.
It's slow but it does work.
Jeff
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post #9 of 54
3/9/04 at 8:02pm
I don't normally believe in the death penalty but there are some truly heinous cases that do deserve it, and Muhammad is one of those that deserves it. He and his accomplice put people through a reign of terror when they attacked unseen, no one knew if they were going to be next, no one knew where he was going to strike next. That is not a way to live.

If and when he does die, it won't be soon enough.
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post #10 of 54
3/9/04 at 9:23pm
Grampngram summed up my reaction. The death penalty should be used for the worst of the worst. The guy orchestrated murders from Louisiana to Maryland, had victims as young as 13, showed no remorse, and perhaps worst of all, turned a youngster into a murderer. I have no doubt that if the guy was loose in the prison population that he would probably manage to kill a few people there as well.

I did feel it was appropriate that the teenager was sentenced to life in prison, since I believe that Muhammed manipulated him into doing what he did.
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post #11 of 54
3/9/04 at 9:51pm
I think he's getting off easy
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post #12 of 54
3/9/04 at 10:06pm
"I did feel it was appropriate that the teenager was sentenced to life in prison, "


I agree completely and without any reservation.
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post #13 of 54
3/10/04 at 3:04am
I wish the UK still had the death penalty.

When your 100% certain that they did murder such as The Yorkshire Ripper , Fred West, Myra Hyndly etc..., then take away their lives as they did their innocent victims!.
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post #14 of 54
3/10/04 at 3:08am
Mmmmm, this is a toughy but ...
I do not agree with the death sentence at all. I know some have posted they dont agree normally but in this case etc. Unfortunalty it is all or nothing you cannot pick and choose who lives who dies. Those who agree with capital punishment have strong views and thats okay but even they cannot pick and choose. If you have capital punishment then where do you draw the line. This one dies because they killed children this one doesnt because he killed a man in his 50's? I understand this case is totally horrific - what makes people do that is totaly beyond me.But even so I cannot agree with murder by the state in my name. I feel too many innocent people are sentenced to death to warrent even one guilty one dying. Thankfully it was banned in the Uk many years ago but if you listen to 'The Great British Public' they would bring it back tomorrow, not me though. I hope I am never in a position to put this to the test i.e. if someone brutally murdered a member of my family.
Just my opinion
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post #15 of 54
3/10/04 at 3:34am
Quote:
Originally posted by rosiemac
I wish the UK still had the death penalty.

When your 100% certain that they did murder such as The Yorkshire Ripper , Fred West, Myra Hyndly etc..., then take away their lives as they did their innocent victims!.
Susan - is The Yorkshire Ripper still in prison? I mean, is he even still alive?
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post #16 of 54
3/10/04 at 3:52am
Just butting in here Kiwideus - Peter Sutcliffe changed his name but as far as I am aware he is still alive - mad but alive. I think he is in Broadmoor (high security mad place!). He has been attacked more than once but keeps hanging on in there.
Unlike the other two - West killed himself and Hindley died. Of cancer I think
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post #17 of 54
3/10/04 at 4:01am
Aha Peter Sutcliffe! I was trying to remember his name. Thanks Tulip! I didn't realise Myra Hindley died - she tried to move to NZ but they turned her down. Thank goodness she didnt!
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post #18 of 54
3/10/04 at 4:31am
TULIP: Thats the man himself, and your right on Broadmoor as well. And correct, Hindley did die of cancer. Shame it was'nt sooner though!.

I understand what you mean about innocent people who have been sentenced to death, thats why i say they have to be 100%. There was a 2 part series on T.V about Stephen Downey who was convicted of murder over 21 years ago, until a local newspaper decided to open up his story again. He was re-trialed and found to be innocent on further evidence that the police had'nt checked into. All because he was a bit backward the police automatically thought that he was their man?!. So it's cases such as that one when it does make you wonder?.

Back to Sutcliffe.I always remember when he was still doing the murders, there was a crank tape sent in with an accent from the North East(my area). Women were terrified to go out on their own, and i always remember running for my bus home from work. It was a relief for everyone when he was caught!.
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post #19 of 54
3/10/04 at 4:47am
Susan
I remember it too, they tried to get a womans 'curfew' like it was our fault this lunatic was running around killing women. I havent been watching the tv thing 'cos things like that make me so mad I feel like punching the telly! If it wasnt for one lone voice in the wilderness..........
Oh dear I do hope you dont have an accent like that taped bloke
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post #20 of 54
3/10/04 at 5:01am
Tulip, i have two!LOL. Ones my switchboard accent, and the other i call normal?!.. But it's no where near as broad as the hoaxer, who they never did catch either!!
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post #21 of 54
3/10/04 at 9:39am
Thread Starter 
I've got one accent speaking Spanish, and in English I have found surprisingly easy to fake a slowly spoken British accent. However, I was raised all my life in Puerto Rico and almost all people who don't know me think by the accent that I am from the S. American continent, or from Spain!

Back to the death penalty.

I have seen that many people argue more that he does not deserve to live. But, quite frankly I do not find that line of thinking too far from the thoughts that some murders have (the ones with a motive).

The Justice System is not perfect, and innocent people have been found guilty many times. Just think of all the people in the US who have been taken out of death row, because they turned out to be innocent. Now think, of how many people have been executed, being innocent. That is a thought one should keep in mind before saying he favors the death penalty.

Second, from what I've heard, due to the costly appeals process, more money is spent in having someone in death row, than in life without parole.

Most of you people will have gone through the bad experience of losing a loved one. It takes a bit of philosophy, but it isn't hard to agree, that when such happens the people who truly suffer, isn't the dead person, but the close family and friends. When you come to think of it, would not end up that the people you end punishing even more than the murderer is the family? People like parents, brothers, sons, etc. You get the point.

Some people say that life in prison is too merciful, for certain crimes. Is it? Or wouldn't it be even more merciful, to give him a needle shot and within ten seconds the world goes black? Or to have him suffer through the solitary confinement, all his life, day, by day, everyday. Of course, if the guy is going to hell it isn't the easy way out, but we don't know what happens after death, so we cannot assume that.

When someone ticks you off, we all have heard the advice of "don't answer back to him in the same way, as you lower yourself to his level". Wouldn't the death penalty be the same? Lowering oneself to the same level as the felon?
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post #22 of 54
3/10/04 at 10:55am
Quote:
Originally posted by Lucia
Grampngram summed up my reaction. The death penalty should be used for the worst of the worst. The guy orchestrated murders from Louisiana to Maryland, had victims as young as 13, showed no remorse, and perhaps worst of all, turned a youngster into a murderer. I have no doubt that if the guy was loose in the prison population that he would probably manage to kill a few people there as well.

I did feel it was appropriate that the teenager was sentenced to life in prison, since I believe that Muhammed manipulated him into doing what he did.
My views as well. I believe the death penalty is overused, because there is a good alternative, i.e., life without possibility of parole, but feel that it's called for in the case of serial homicides. There's no chance of rehabilitating such criminals.
BTW, what has happened to Rosemary West? Sutcliffe was simply evil. I visited a friend in Birmingham during his spree, and I remember how terrified everyone was.
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post #23 of 54
3/10/04 at 11:06am
Last time I heard, she was serving a lifetime sentence.

My grandfathers stepsister (who has now passed) used to walk past Fred and Rosemary's house often to go to the shops and sometimes spoke to them - she said they were nice people and you would never know that they were killers.
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post #24 of 54
3/10/04 at 2:15pm
Sorry Victor, but if this guy has even one quality moment in his life in prison, it's more than he deserves. I mean if he watches a tv show or reads a book or laughs at a joke. He used human beings to amuse himself. Some paid with their lives, and others paid by being terrorized. Plain and simple, the guy's a terrorist. Any life I could imagine for him in prison would fall under the category of cruel and unusual punishment. Zap him.
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post #25 of 54
3/10/04 at 3:20pm
I agree Deb25. Every breath this animal takes from now on is another breath too many. He made a choice to do what he did. Our laws say he must pay with his life. So be it. It's cruel and unusual punishment for his victims to know he's still here. If there were justice in the world they'd send him to Utah to be executed by the same method he used on his victims.

"John Allen Muhammad...Party of 1...your guerney is waiting."
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post #26 of 54
3/10/04 at 3:36pm
I say drop him in some neighborhood in the dead of night and let him worry about where the bullet that picks him off is coming from.

Not only did he terrorize thousands, but he coerced, convinced, brainwashed a minor into following his lead.
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post #27 of 54
3/10/04 at 6:20pm
This was my reply on the thread about the sarin cult murderers, which I will repeat here:

I used to be unilaterally against the death penalty, but I would be dishonest to say that now, since I believe that we should execute any of the major Al-Qaeda players should we ever nab them. (I suspect that the military has been told to only bring Osama back in a bag actually since things are far less complicated that way.) I do think that the death penalty if used needs to be limited to a short list of the most depraved of crimes as opposed to the seemingly indiscriminate approach that some states seem to take to it. I guess I see it more as an elimination of evil than a crime deterrent. I think that people like Adolf Hitler and Bin Laden embody that evil, as opposed to some sap who panics and in a split second, kills someone during a botched hold-up, then winds up being defended by an indifferent attorney. I feel a bit peculiar even typing that because it almost implies that the life of a shop keeper is less important than lives taken by mass murderers. I don't think that, but I think that when society makes a decision to take someone's life in punishment for the crime, it should always be for extraordinary reasons such as terrorism, and the evidence should be of virtual certainty. I think people who promote such activities need to feel the fear that their victims did, as they sit in their cell awaiting their fate.


While I certainly would not want to spend my life in prison, I think the idea that prison is worse than death is the view of someone not facing the death penalty. With few exceptions,death row inmates appeal their death sentences over and over again. People will tolerate incredibly deprived circumstances in an effort to survive.

The risk of execution of an innocent person increases when it is used in response to most felony murders at a state level, where a death penalty case can sometimes be tried in 3 days, with an indifferent legal defender representing an indigent arrestee. It also has increased by the attitudes of certain state Courts of Appeal, which have rejected appeals in violation of the convicted person's right to due process. The US Supreme Court just threw a case back to Texas for just that reason, with a harsh opinion written by Chief Justice Renquist, hardly a bleeding heart liberal.
I'm inclined to think that federal standards should be set for the death penalty.

Imagine if Adolf Hitler hadn't taken the coward's way out and was still alive and ranting in prison. He would have been interviewed on CNN by now. Wouldn't that have been a treat.

And Yohiver, I do hope that you extend some of the 'disgust' you feel about the judge who upheld the jury's sentence in this particular case to John Mohammed himself. He's the one who really is deserving of it.
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post #28 of 54
3/10/04 at 6:30pm
This creep was responsible for the deaths of husbands, fathers, mothers and children, all of who were productive members of society or had the potential to be such. WHY should someone, whose sole purpose in life was destruction, be allowed to live?

This case meets ALL of the criteria, for the death penalty: premeditation, multiple victims, infliction of terror. Why should Muhammed be allowed to spend even one more day, watching TV, reading books and interacting with other people, when his innocent victims will never be able to do any of things again?

Give ME the needle - I know how to start an IV.
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post #29 of 54
3/10/04 at 11:01pm
It's about time!!!! I just wonder how much money will be wasted on his appeals for years and years and years!!!!! How about a lottery for some of the victims' families to take shots at him!!

At least they can feel some justice.


Clyde
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post #30 of 54
3/10/04 at 11:50pm
Anyone who takes someone elses life in this way deserves to die. I wish NZ had the death penalty it could come in handy. I just fret when I hear about murderers escaping from jail. This man should be dead and BTW I'm all for the death penalty if correctly used.
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