[speaker001:] Do you ever think that there's a crime that's just so heinous and so bad that the person who commits this crime just doesn't deserve to live anymore?
[speaker002:] That's a good question. Uh, there would be a point, there was a point where I would have said, no, that no one would deserve to die for, for a crime that he committed. But, uh, since I've become a parent and since I've seen, uh, things like Jeffrey Dahlmer, I really have to question that. I really, uh, I, I can't conceive of someone being that brutal to that many other people.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And, uh, try and figure out what would be a suitable punishment. Uh,
[speaker001:] Of the statements made by people against the, the death penalty, um, I, I like the statement made by Cuomo. Cuomo I believe is, um, he's, he's governor of New York but, uh, he's, uh, against the death penalty. But, um, he said that he would, he would want to, to seriously hurt or if not kill someone if, if they did something to his wife. And that's, but, but, even, even in that circumstan-, in that, uh, uh, situation he would b-, he would hope that there would be people around him who would, uh, keep him from [LAUGHTER] doing the, doing the things.
[speaker002:] Oh, it's a, uh, it's a question of your, your gut reactions to something like that versus an intelligent reason response.
[speaker001:] Right, exactly.
[speaker002:] Uh, a-, and that was the thing that, uh, killed Dukakis back, uh, four years ago when someone asked him a similar question and he, he thought for a second and gave a thoughtful well reasoned reply when, uh, people wanted to see if he was going to go for an emotion
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] uh, a gut level reaction. And I think that the people who are strongly in favor of the death penalty are really working from that gut level. Uh, you know, whether it be a biblical force, uh, you know, the eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a knife, life type logic or just, uh, uh, some sort of anger at putting peop-, putting, uh, murderers up in federal pens for the rest of their life, uh, while we foot the bill.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] I think people are, are working at that from more of a, uh, a gut reaction than a, a reason humane one.
[speaker001:] See, I don't think the decisions that are going to be made on dea-, on the death penalty until we decide what our prison system is intended to do. Are they reformatories, where we're trying to take people who can't survive or, or that, that aren't conforming enough to society so that, that we work well together. Or are they, is it a penal institution? Is it, is, is it designed for punishment? Um, the death penalty surely fits in well with, uh, in a penal situation where you're trying to punishment. Uh, perhaps not in the manner that we do it but, but it, in, in theory it fits in. In reforma-, system, in a reformatory, I mean [LAUGHTER] if you, if you put someone to death you obviously,
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] can't reform [LAUGHTER] them.
[speaker002:] That's true.
[speaker001:] So.
[speaker002:] Uh, th-, the other argument is that the death penalty is a deterrent and I really don't, uh, agree with that. I don't think anyone who would commit a, uh, a crime that would get them the death penalty would stop at the moment and say, well, I was about to kill and dismember this person but, oh, if they catch me they're going to kill me so I better not do it. I, I just,
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] don't think that, uh, that it works that way.
[speaker001:] I don't think it's done. I don't think we run it as a deterrent. I mean people say that, but, I mean, if it was really a deterrent, I mean I think like horse thieves in the old west, you know, they saw other horse thieves hanging by the necks
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] every once in a while. And if we really w-, if it was really seriously going to be a d-, deterrent, I would think that it would be public. I mean I don't think it would be this private thing because nobody ever, nobody ever sees it. If someone ever, if, you know, like say some young kids or something like that that might be inclined more towards a life of crime, had to sit and watch and, and see a guy burn or, or, you know, something or shot by a firing squad or something like that. I would think you'd make a bigger impact on their life rather than, you know, telling them that there's, there's protestors out here at the, you know.
[speaker002:] Well, I, I don't know if that would really work that way or not. Uh, there's a lot of violence,