Jurors, who began the penalty phase late Tuesday, deliberated for about five hours. The same jury earlier convicted Christian Longo, 29, for the murder of his son, 4-year-old Zachery, and 3-year-old daughter Sadie. Longo had previously pleaded guilty to killing his wife, MaryJane, 34, and 2-year-old daughter Madison. The defendant blinked back tears as Judge Robert Huckleberry read the verdict to the packed courtroom. Longo waived his right to make a final plea for his life to the jury, but defense lawyer Ken Hadley asked for mercy on his client's behalf. "Nobody has come out with a study that says the death penalty deters crime, and eye-for-an-eye type justice is not a good form of justice," Hadley said. But prosecutor Steven Briggs urged the jury to impose the death penalty. "He wanted his children dead," Briggs told jurors. "There is an injustice in this courtroom that you have the power to correct." During the four-week trial, prosecutors described Longo as a cold-hearted man with a taste for fine wine and cars the family could not afford. They said he killed his family so he could enjoy a more uninhibited lifestyle. The bodies were discovered around Christmas 2001 in shallow coastal inlets on the Oregon coast over a one-week period. Longo fled to Mexico where the FBI caught him at a beach resort in Tulum. He had partied and snorkeled, and was romantically involved with a German tourist, according to testimony. | |||||||||||||||
Christian Longo sentenced to death
by happyout 13 Replies latest social current
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happyout
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Abaddon
If I should show symapthy and understanding of those who are opposed to abortion due to their feeling that abortion is murder and is wrong, it might be nice if people who support the Death Penalty were to show sympathy and understanding to those who feel that judicial executions are wrong.
I know I'm crass and rude at times, but rejoicing in the death of even a scumball piece of $hit to me is incomprehensible. Yay! Let's kill people! (puke).
Support for the death penalty is a cultural artifact. It serves no purpose as a deterent, is expensive to administer due to the (essential) appeals process, has human rights issues in the USA due to its use on mental defectives and people who were minors when they committed the offence, and, perhaps most importantly, regulary kills people who are innocent.
As many people have been totally cleared of the charges they were sentenced to death for (i.e. they were innocent) as have been executed, since death penalties restarted in the USA.
Unless you are prepared to argue that the judicial system is perfect, this means that some mistakes don't get corrected. Innocent people die, and I think it's reasonable to say that unless you are prepared to be strapped onto a gurney and given a lethal injection for a crime you did not commit, you shouldn't expect that of other people.
Even when there is absolute proof and it is a crime that beggars comprehension, if killing is wrong, which no one will argue with, it seems reasonable to argue that killing is wrong... even of killers.
One proof that judicial killing is a cultural artifact is Germany.
After the war, the German population (who had always lived with the Death Penalty) were opposed to the government ending it. Standard arguements about deterent, murderers and rapists running loose. It was plain to any right-minded citizen that judicial killing was an essential part of the justice system. The government ended it anyway.
Now Germany is as opposed to the death penalty as the rest of Europe. Most have grown up with no death penalty, they know you don't have murderers and rapists running loose without a death penalty, they know it's not a credible deterent, they know it's not possible to remove error. Hell, in Holland the maximum sentence you can serve is about seven years. I have yet to see a murderer or rapist running around on the streets, or to notice a difference in crime figures (well, actually, they're all lower), which by the logic of most supporters of judicial killing, should show a difference in the USA's favour due to the lack of deterent.
American's who support the death penalty do so for more or less the same reasons they eat turkey at Thankgiving; it's what they're used to and is invested with meaning that it doesn't neccesarily have (safety, justice, etc.). It's not a question of American's (or others) who support the death penalty being bad in anyway. It's not a question of morals, really. It's a question of culture.
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Shakita
Christian Longo deserves to pay the ultimate price for murdering his entire family. He deserves no sympathy or understanding. If this was my daughter and grandchildren who he brutally killed, I would have been glad to pull the switch myself. I am sorry, I believe an eye for an eye is a fair and just sentence, as long as there is proof certain that the person has committed the crime. These children will never breathe another breath, and never eat another meal, so it should be for this scum of the earth. IF, and this is a big if, he is found to be TOTALLY incompetent...so mentally ill that he did not comprehend what a horrendous crime he was committing, then he should be put away forever with no chance of parole whatsoever. I do not think this is the case with Mr. Longo. Our judicial system here in the US is not perfect, but their are people(and I use the term loosely) that deserve not to live.
Hell, in Holland the maximum sentence you can serve is about seven years.
For murder? Then I am sure glad that I don't live in Holland. My next door neighbor could be a mass murderer and I would be inviting him over for tea.
Mrs. Shakita
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Abaddon
Shakita;
Christian Longo deserves to pay the ultimate price for murdering his entire family. He deserves no sympathy or understanding. If this was my daughter and grandchildren who he brutally killed, I would have been glad to pull the switch myself.
Ah, now revenge I agree with. If anyone killed kith or kin, I'd want revenge. I wouldn't kid myself it was justice though.
What Longo deserves in your opinion is not pertinent to the discussion I made regarding over rejoicing over a death, the problems of judicial killing, and the probable reasons for the death penalty still being active in the USA. You can think that if you want, but it doesn't address the points I made.
I am sorry, I believe an eye for an eye is a fair and just sentence, as long as there is proof certain that the person has committed the crime. These children will never breathe another breath, and never eat another meal, so it should be for this scum of the earth. IF, and this is a big if, he is found to be TOTALLY incompetent...so mentally ill that he did not comprehend what a horrendous crime he was committing, then he should be put away forever with no chance of parole whatsoever. I do not think this is the case with Mr. Longo. Our judicial system here in the US is not perfect, but their are people(and I use the term loosely) that deserve not to live.
Again, you're free to believe this. Why apologise if you feel you are right? I've made it clear from the outset I see this as a cultural thing not a moral thing. I would be more ambivalent if the death penalty only applied to cases where there was 'proof certain that the person has committed the crime.' But it doesn't, and for all I can understand your distress over such a senseless waste of life, you miss the point that you are ignoring a senseless waste of life - those who are executed by the state for crimes they did not commit.
As regards the 'deserve not to live' thing, you are right to feel that as I am to feel that if killing is wrong killing is wrong.
Hell, in Holland the maximum sentence you can serve is about seven years.
For murder? Then I am sure glad that I don't live in Holland. My next door neighbor could be a mass murderer and I would be inviting him over for tea.
Mass murders are something of an exception. And there are provisons for returning people to society, they are not just dropped in. But the murderers who are released do not cause the nightmare of risk you automatically assume due to your cultural background. And there is no proven deterent value to judicial execution.
Will anyone discuss whether they think the retention of judicial killing by the USA is a cultural artifact or not?
The points I've made regarding deterent value and margin of error in conviction et. al. are well suppoorted by the figures.
I'm interested to see if people think the reasons for retention are the same as I do, and if not, what argument they make to support their assertion.
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Francois
Longo is apparently guilty by any measurement. No argument from me about that.
That stated however, let's consider the number of people who have spent years on death row only to be freed as totally innocent because of the application of genetic science (DNA evaluation). I suspect that we have executed a great number of innocent people. For this reason alone, I have gone from a fire-breathing exponent of the death penalty to being totally opposed to it. Besides, death is often nothing but an easy escape from the terrors of a lifetime of hopeless incarceration.
Our system of justice is flawed with respect to teasing the truth out of any given situation. Any number of issues become involved which have nothing to do with guilt or innocence of any given defendant. Let's take the politically driven prosecutor.
In Decatur, GA several years ago, a woman was standing quietly in her kitchen chopping an onion. Her husband sneaked up behind her and gave her a good, husbandly goose. The startled woman spun around shrieking, and in the process managed to stab her husband directly in the heart. He died instantly. The local DA who had strong political aspirations filed murder charges against this poor woman, and she was arrested, spending months in jail, and eventually was put on trial for her life.
Luckily, the jury was able to comprehend what the prosecutor was not. The woman was found innocent and released. Released to what kind of life one can only guess; broken, financially destroyed, psychologically and emotionally ruined. Anyway you look at it, the entire proceeding was a travesty upon justice.
And even with Longo, for whom no such circumstances seem to apply, I just cannot anymore bring myself to want to see the state engaged in ending a life...any life. I understand the vengence motivation. I reject it as a reasonable motivation for the state to kill. And it's lots more expensive to incarcerate a man for life than to execute him - by far. So much for that argument. That capital punishment is a deterrent has many times been disproven.
I'm just not in favor of the death penalty any more. Even for Longo.
francois
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SheilaM
Abaddon:
If you wish to discuss this aspect you need to start your own thread this is called Hijacking a thread (with all due respect) and not what this thread is about.
Per Simon:
- Posting an off-topic comment.
Happyout: I am so glad they saw through is obvious lies the shame is in this country he will live many, many years before he pays with his life but his babies and wife are dead.
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Shakita
francois:
Not to argue, but it is far more expensive to sentence and put someone to death then to incarcerate that person for life.
In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).
The extensive trial and appeals apparently is what brings this cost into the millions, not the means to execute the murderer.
Also, I agree that just one wrongly accused innocent executed is one too many. But, Christain Longo does not belong in this group and he wholely deserves the punishment he will be getting.
Mrs. Shakita
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RubyTuesday
I believe in the death penalty, I stated this on another thread.
Two reasons why the death penalty should be enforced are saved time, by the court system through limited appeals, and saved money, by taxpayers due to reduced court and imprisonment fees. Much of the court's time could be saved if death row inmates were limited to a set number of appeals in a reasonable amount of time. Facilitating numerous appeals results in many unforeseen costs.Ted Bundy's 10 year stay on death row, involving numerous appeals and excessive imprisonment fees, eventually cost the Florida state taxpayers more than $6 million dollars, I believe.These expenses are unnecessary and unjustifiable and could be alleviated by limiting appeals.It is easy to deduce that by limiting the number of appeals for death row inmates the figures could be significantly reduced.
By executing the murderers the first time a round, justice will be served. Thus, the punishment would fit the crime and the victims family(they are the living victims) will have the justice they deserve.
I say Fry him....fast.
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StinkyPantz
Christian Longo is a self-admitted murderer of at least his youngest child and wife. Although capital punishment is not a deterrent, it is still a fitting justice. Many men sentenced to life imprisonment become accustomed to the life style or institutioanlized and the everyday routine is merely boring. They aren't suffering enough. Add to this the fact that they have access to libraries, computers, and gyms. What if he gets life with a possibilty of parole? Well, that's a joke because the guy'd spend 10 years of his life locked up and still get out under 40, still young enough to start another family.
As far as it costing more. So what? I am willing to have my tax money go towards the execution of a self admitted child killer. Add to the list child rapists.
I feel very strongly about this because my best friend, and her little brother an sister were killed by their father and their is nothing that anyone could say to me that would change my mind. He killed his three children and if anyone does something this heinous, they deserve to die! Three times preferrably for this guy. Four times for Longo.
