[speaker001:] do you believe in uh capital punishment
[speaker002:] you know you you're talking to probably one of the the sixties late sixties and early seventies original hippies now living in suburbia raising kids um
[speaker001:] uh-huh yeah
[speaker002:] I don't know I have a I have a real gut response that says nobody's got a you know a right to take anybody else's life on the other hand I have seen an awful lot of I've lived in major cities and I have kind of come to the conclusion that there are certain people that should just be shot
[speaker001:] yeah well I think uh that based on um certain crimes it uh is merited uh there was a case just recently I don't know if you uh if you heard about this in uh New Hampshire I believe about the uh teacher school teacher who hired her uh one of her high school students to kill her husband and they found her guilty and gave her life with no parole
[speaker002:] yes
[speaker001:] and in a case like that uh where well you've got a moral problem and an economic one uh
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] when when she's going to be in prison for the rest of her life with no chance of parole what good does it do anybody and the taxpayers are going to be footing the bill for the rest of her life she's a young young woman uh in her late twenties I guess so I just
[speaker002:] something like twenty two or twenty three I remember reading that and being horrified
[speaker001:] early twenties well I could be yeah
[speaker002:] uh had she had any previous criminal history now that's the of thing I'd have to kind of look at
[speaker001:] um I don't know I didn't hear that much about it uh just the uh the verdict that they had
[speaker002:] in Texas if you're going to sentence somebody to uh to death what is is there a specific criteria that they have to meet
[speaker001:] um I don't I don't really know about that uh uh if well uh I think I think it's it's only it only applies to certain a very few types of crimes uh murder and I think kidnapping could carry death penalty as well I'm not sure what how what the range is for uh for the crimes that uh would merit a death penalty
[speaker002:] um if you were on a jury would would you be able to to give somebody a death sentence
[speaker001:] uh I think it depends on what what it was they did and if the evidence was uh uh if there was no doubt in my mind that that person was guilty of that crime
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and if they were uh if if if I had no doubt that uh they would be a hazard to to the rest of uh the population as long as they were alive uh yeah I could probably go along with that
[speaker002:] how about if it was uh a seventeen and a half year old with a a list and all uh of what do they call it uh criminal as long as your armed over the history of a violent crime
[speaker001:] well I guess you've got a choice either you do life in prison or you can institutionalize somebody forever uh where they're not a threat to to the rest of uh the population or or you can put them out of everybody's misery uh I don't know it's it's a real moral dilemma
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] I mean I come from the Catholic church and they they uh are definitely opposed
[speaker002:] yeah see I come from a Catholic church background too
[speaker001:] to that type of um-hum
[speaker002:] and always thought you know that being raised in the midwest you really didn't see any crimes really any more heinous than uh shoplifting
[speaker001:] right yeah
[speaker002:] and it was very easy to maintain this stand that you know that that life is something that you have no right to to take
[speaker001:] when you see all the people who are convicted of these crimes and they get out of prison after a few years all of the sudden here they're they're uh committing the same type of crimes all over again other people are victimized what do you do about it
[speaker002:] I don't know you know there was a oh what was his Gary Gilmore did you ever read the book that Norman Mailer wrote The Executioners Song
[speaker001:] no I never did
[speaker002:] Gary Gilmore was the one who was arrested and uh found guilty of I think two or three murders in Utah Provo outside of Provo and he was the one that was petitioning to have have you know himself executed
[speaker001:] uh-huh okay
[speaker002:] when you read his book with all the interviews this guy did with Gary Gilmore you know it sounds like the guy had about every turn given to him every rehab opportunity given to him and even interviews with his mother she said that you know for for as a small child he's basically was amoral
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and when I finished that book I kind of thought you know what do you how do with a person like this
[speaker001:] well some people just are incorrigible and there's no way that they can ever deal with society and abide by rules so in in a case like that uh given what crime they're guilty of uh yeah I could I could justify a death penalty for somebody who just has no chance of ever reforming or coming to grips with uh living in normal society
[speaker002:] see I would I always come look at it do they have could they be put even in life imprisonment could they be put to useful labor
[speaker001:] um yeah I believe so
[speaker002:] could they do road work and those kind of things and now and then you get somebody like Charles Manson who just even hasn't a guy around
[speaker001:] well people who tend to be say on death row they I think they're kept in isolation all the time I don't believe that they're given a chance to uh do anything productive or even uh mix with the rest of the prison community
[speaker002:] and then what do you do about the the thing that you know the the the was it one tenth of one percent chance that they might have been convicted erroneously
[speaker001:] right well it's it's it's real small but uh like I said I mean the death penalty could probably be justified if if the evidence if there's no doubt no I never have
[speaker002:] have you ever sat on a jury either have I and I'm one of these people who votes regularly and I'm always registered wherever I've lived and I have never been called
[speaker001:] I know several people at work who've been called on juries and they absolutely hate it
[speaker002:] part of me says that I'd kind of like to do it just to see what it's like to be in that position where you are playing you know life and death with somebody else could I bring myself to do it
[speaker001:] well so much of it is game playing with the lawyers they're plea doing their plea bargaining and and uh give and take type situation that uh they're playing with people's lives in effect uh by offering uh to uh uh offering to announce their guilt to a certain degree on a crime in order to get uh a lighter uh sentence sentence
[speaker002:] yeah have you ever lived in a in a well but Dallas is I'm is are you calling from Dallas
[speaker001:] uh yeah I'm in that area uh-huh
[speaker002:] okay have have you ever been a victim of a crime
[speaker001:] uh yes I have uh automobile uh vandalism
[speaker002:] you know when we lived in Boston I had eleven cars stolen
[speaker001:] my gosh
[speaker002:] yeah some of them I had for two days and you'd go to court and you'd see these kids and then and
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] what they did is they usually hired kids to do this because you uh would get a you know a lighter sentence or no sentence or probation or you know something trivial and it'd be the same damn kids
[speaker001:] right sure
[speaker002:] over and over and over again and the first couple of times you know I felt really sorry for them but after a while it was like you know shoot the little shits right then and there then I felt really you know guilty about feeling that way
[speaker001:] yeah yeah I'd I don't have much sympathy for people that are uh uh victimizing others on a regular basis you know if it's a one time offense and and the kid learns his lesson and uh shows remorse and promises never to do something again and they take some steps to educate him in the matter uh it's it's one thing but when they're there over and over again and uh guilty of the same crimes uh nothing seems to help
[speaker002:] yeah yeah I you know I really don't know what what I would do in that situation if I had to to make that judgment I think I would I think I'd be very easily swayed by fellow jurors
[speaker001:] uh yeah well I think it depends on what the crime is uh you're not going to sentence somebody to death for stealing a car uh if it's first degree murder or uh
[speaker002:] boy if they ever catch this guy in in Richardson and Coppell who's been uh you know abducting the the young girls I don't think I'd even hesitate
[speaker001:] right no something like that is just uh unforgivable
[speaker002:] and then you get you know what do you do with you know people that are you know chronic child molesters
[speaker001:] yeah well I don't know
[speaker002:] where even a psychiatrist says you're proba bly not going to change them they're always going to be you know at risk in society and and and I think you know having kids has probably really
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] changed you know my thinking on this I don't know I really don't know
[speaker001:] yeah I think people like that when they do get put in prison with the other hard core prisoners uh the child molesters in particular are not looked on kindly by the other prisoners they don't get a lot of respect and they they probably tend not to even survive in that uh type of environment because even in prison they have their code of ethics I guess if you can call it that
[speaker002:] yeah but the code of ethics that's learned in prison is so so bent and twisted that you wonder when they get out of there even if they you know claim that they're are rehabbed
[speaker001:] sure well yeah they don't have any really useful job skills uh lots of places no
[speaker002:] they don't even have social skills oh I don't know I really don't know I I think that if somebody asked me I would hesitantly say yes that I could could hand down a death sentence
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] uh then the big you know my big problem would be is what if you were in a in a state that absolutely did not allow it
[speaker001:] well
[speaker002:] and you were on a jury with some heinous you know criminal who had you know just wiped out an entire family
[speaker001:] right you've got life without parole something like that
[speaker002:] or parole in in uh fifteen twenty years
[speaker001:] sure well case like Charles Manson he's uh he's been eligible for parole a couple of times already his case comes up every few years now I guess and uh people have to uh stand up and uh denounce him again and claim that he's not fit for society but we're that close to letting people like that out of prison